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Lee Fulmer, Chief Data Officer, UBS

Lee Fulmer, Chief Data Officer, UBS

Describe your career to date

I started my career working as a technologist in the government defence sector where they instilled an ethos of focusing on desired outcomes rather than ‘technology for the sake of it’. We worked with what people today call ‘user stories’ to ensure our solutions worked for our ‘users’. When I moved to the private defence sector a few years later it was a real eye opener. Everything was ‘cutting edge’ technology and money wasn’t an object, staying ahead of the competition was and that is where I learned how to illustrate the ‘art of the possible’.

When I moved to technology sector being able to set out a clear vision for the future state but delivered by user focused solutions made me unique among my peers. The approach has been a hallmark of my career and is how I moved in to design and media before eventually winding up in financial services.

In terms of actual roles, I have been a computer programmer, an engineer, a graphic designer, a commercial fisherman, a project manager, a journalist and a business architect – amongst other things. While most of these roles would probably not be considered ‘foundational’ for a chief data officer, they all taught me new skills which I continue to use today. The other thing they all have in common is helping me to hone my problem solving skills; something which, as one of my core abilities, has always been part of my ‘unique selling point’ and, in my opinion, the thing that differentiates a ‘good’ CDO from a truly ‘brilliant’ one.

What stage has your organisation reached on its data maturity journey?

I think it is hard to benchmark something like this as every company is different, just like every person, and the journey they take is different too. To use an analogy, I would say we’re like a professional in their mid to late 30s, well established on an upward trajectory.

Tell us about the data and analytics resources you are responsible for

The chief data office is a small, cognitively diverse and close knit team. We have people with background in data analysis, data science, data governance, business operations, technology and project management. We act as the focal point for all of our data related activities, from training to strategy to governance to implementation. Our philosophy is to help enable and drive the business, so we keep the execution responsibilities for many things firmly with the business operating officers while we manage the data community and represent the investment bank to the wider UBS group and externally.

What challenges do you see for data in the year ahead that will have an impact on your organisation and on the industry as a whole?

The biggest challenges generally to all of us are likely to come from policy makers. Last year saw some high profile business failures in the crypto space and wider cross-industry issues with people blaming bad data for poor business decisions. These events are having a ripple effect on everyone’s lives which in turn is creating a general public outcry to do something. Given upcoming elections in Europe, the UK and US in the next couple of years, politicians will need to respond to that outcry, so they are seen to be doing something; whether that something is good or bad for data professionals is down to how we engage with the policy-makers this year.

Have you set out a vision for data? If so, what is it aiming for and does it embrace the whole organisation or just the data function?

Our data strategy treats data as a company asset and empowers people to know what we have, who owns it, how to use it, et al. Everything we do is assessed against the strategy and goes through our ‘Data Design Authority’; and the rest of the firm has started adopting a similar approach.

Have you been able to fix the data foundations of your organisation, particularly with regard to data quality?

The reality is most of us are data hoarders, personally and professionally, so there is lots of meaningless data around. For us, solving data quality is about curating our business-critical data and ensuring it is fit for purpose and well understood so our foundation is solid.

Lee Fulmer
has been included in:

100 Brands 2022 (EMEA)
100 Brands 2023 (EMEA)

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Lee Fulmer, Chief Data Officer, UBS

Join our membership network of over 250 global senior data and AI leaders.

The trusted global collaboration and intelligence platform for data leaders.

Join our membership network of over 250
global senior data and AI leaders.