How aware were you of data as a career opportunity during your education or early work experience? Does this need to be heightened?
I wasn’t consciously aware of data as a career opportunity for quite a while. At university, the most obvious and visible career paths were into teaching or finance. Even when I was finishing my PhD, leaving traditional academia felt like a bit of a leap into the unknown.
There is a lot more awareness now of data as a career path which is great, but of course there’s more to be done. I’d like to see more focus on highlighting the range of careers and opportunities available in data. Also, more encouragement and support for people who are thinking of a career change, or who don’t come from a university background in the usual STEM subjects.
Data, and especially data science, has an air of mystery surrounding it and its often assumed you need a maths or physics PhD to be a data scientist. As well as being untrue, it narrows the diversity of people choosing a data career. Diverse teams bring a wider range of perspectives and experience, and are ultimately more effective.
What are your key areas of focus for data and analytics in 2022?
One pet project I’m really passionate about is tails.com data labs (https://tails.com/gb/data-labs/). This is an initiative I’m spearheading along with our UK head vet to use our data to further the understanding of pet health and longevity. We’ve amassed quite a rich, longitudinal data set since we launched and we want to start sharing some insights back with the veterinary community to help improve the lives of dogs and their owners. It’s exciting to be a part of something that could have a big positive impact,and that’s so aligned with our company ethos.
Internally, I’m focused on the longer-term strategy for data science in tails.com. This includes outlining the specific skills and roles we need in the data team to execute that plan.
Tell us about any ambitions you have in terms of becoming a data leader.
I want to make data and data science accessible to more people and to continue creating useful data products that benefit our team and our customers. Internally, this means being a catalyst that inspires everyone in tails.com to be more data-driven, whether that means partnering on more cross-functional projects, or just supporting and encouraging others to up-skill themselves. Externally, this means being a public face and sharing my thoughts and ideas, supporting others to pursue a career in data where I can.
What key skills or attributes do you consider will be essential your success in this role?
Active listening and really understanding other people’s points of view and challenges to find areas on which we can collaborate. Being a great communicator, both of an inspiring vision for uses of data science and for telling great stories with data. Finally, leading and supporting a team to be at their best and produce high quality work.
How did you develop – and continue to develop – your current skills or attributes?
I was recently part of the Circl coaching program, which has really helped me be a better coach, listener and leader in general, and as a bonus get to work with young people from under-represented backgrounds learning the same skills. I seek out feedback from others to help me see strengths I can build on and set development goals and always try to learn from my mistakes. I try to note down my thoughts and reasons for decisions, so if something doesn’t go to plan, I can reflect on it. Finally, I try to be open about my development goals so it’s easier to hold myself accountable.