Describe your career to date
I always say I was lucky to stumble into data. I studied both Economics and Marketing without realising there was a way to combine both. I landed my first role by being spotted on stage at a university business competition – the role was advertising in Sydney, Australia. I used no data; it was not for me. I ended up in small data consultancies and start-ups after that, before realising other, larger markets had more consumers where data-driven marketing made more sense. After getting a Masters, I moved to New York and back to Ogilvy. I got to work on huge brands with giant customer databases and near-endless personalisation possibilities. Then, Europe beckoned. I moved to Paris in 2017 and then I permanently moved to London and Digitas where I have been since. The Digitas Data Science and Analytics team was my first big team and we have now nearly tripled in size. This allows us to challenge how to hire and how to work and gives us influence. Data can be an incredibly homogenous place, with traditional entry paths straight from universities – we now almost exclusively use boot camps and apprenticeships. We have talked about the value, harm, and ethical implications of artificial intelligence (AI) for years, being both AI makers and often those harmed. I am incredibly proud to work with a team of smart and talented individuals who are making the world better while also delivering outstanding and impactful work for our clients.
What challenges do you see for data in the year ahead that will have an impact on your clients and on the industry as a whole?
Everyone is rushing to get value from AI, but most are yet to crack what that means for them. Despite increasing pressure from boards and shareholders, I do not see organisations realising this (expected) value soon.
How are you developing the data literacy of a) your own organisation and b) your clients?
We created The Digitas AI Labs and Practice early in 2022 to ensure we are always at the forefront of technology advances, specifically around AI. The Labs is where we run comprehensive technical and theoretical training, develop thought leadership, and train our clients on what is relevant to them in their roles and industries. Internal and external training exists in many forms. From the internal, month-long sprints around specific topics (previous topics include LLM, RAG and hallucinations or causality for cookie-less) to the bespoke sessions we run for our clients or the wider Publicis Groupe.
How are you preparing your organisation and your clients for AI adoption and change management?
The Digitas AI Labs and Practice is a team of AI practitioners with experience across various industries, including retail, banking, travel, and areas of expertise, namely, generative, decisioning and ethics. The Lab is where we train and develop thought leadership. The Practice is where we develop IP – either our own or IP we develop with or for our clients. Clients leverage The Lab and Practice (or both) depending on the need – we often help clients determine what that is, too. Internally, we have leveraged our capability by creating a prioritised road map of use cases we are implementing including how we should augment roles, re-train, and educate.
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