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Michelle Patel, Deputy Director, Analysis and Insight, Food Standards Agency

Michelle Patel, Deputy Director, Analysis and Insight, Food Standards Agency

What has been your path to power?

I’m not sure I’d describe it as power, as such! Responsibility, perhaps (to misquote Spider-Man). To be honest, I always thought my future would be in communications, but I’d rather spend my time understanding what makes people tick than answering late night questions from the tabloids. So after twenty years in comms I made a switch to analysis and insight via behavioural science, studying for a PhD in how citizen insight is applied to food regulation while getting the chance to apply what I’m learning on the job. I think it gives me an unusually interdisciplinary focus, as well as an understanding of stakeholders’ interests and opportunities to influence – which you don’t always get in someone that’s a pure analyst.

What impact has the pandemic had on your role?

Fortunately a lot of us worked remotely anyway and we have a really good IT setup, so that part was pretty seamless. The real change was the pace. It made us work faster, and helped us prove the value of good insight for decision making on the fly. I was asked to set up a horizon scanning function, drawing together data, social science and economic analysis and to pivot the focus of a lot of our work pretty much overnight to meet challenges no one had seen coming. We’d already been moving quite a lot of what we do to digital methods, so while lockdown affected our ability to interact with local authorities and food businesses, some of the digital techniques we’d been developing anyway (web-push surveys, online ethnography, for example) really came into their own.

How do you bring your strategic views into discussions about data either in organisations or across industry?

It’s easy for analysis to get sidelined if we’re not focused on what’s important to the organisation and where the opportunities are. You have to hone your antennae and be a little prescient about what’s important both now and in the future, articulate that for the team, take a few calculated risks, and then you’ll be able come up with the insight that’s needed when it’s needed.

What are your key areas of focus for the business in 2022?

There are three things I’d like us to focus on this year. Firstly, joining up across the various analysis disciplines, pulling together intelligence analysis, data science, economics, operational research, social science and statistics to look at a problem. I think we benefit more and are more creative when we look at things from multiple perspectives, and give analysis and interpretation as well as reporting. Then, in the mad rush to deliver, we can’t lose sight of quality. Good, solid independent evidence is the foundation of our trustworthiness as an organisation. And, finally, I would like to raise the visibility of the work we do among communities that could use the data too. The data we collect is paid for by taxpayers, it belongs to everyone, everyone should have the opportunity to use it.

How do you apply your leadership skills a) within your own business and b) externally?

A wise man once told me that your relationships will save you, and I try to make sure that I have good honest relationships with the people I work with in the organisation and externally. It helps to have a genuine excitement and curiosity about what you do, and what other people do, and not to be afraid to ask someone out for a coffee and a chat. In my experience, they rarely say no! In terms of leading a team, I think it’s about making people feel valued, and again being genuinely interested in them and what they do. And then, when the chips are down, it’s about being able to hear all sides and make a decision, and have people trust that you’ll make a fair, and reasonable call.

What key skills or attributes do you consider have contributed to your success in this role?

As someone who covers a reasonably broad portfolio (food touches everything) with a lot of detail in it, it helps that I’ve got a good memory and I can process information quickly, which helps me make connections between what I’m hearing today and a nugget or data point I read or heard three years ago. And as someone who, in this role and my previous role, shared leadership of a team with someone else, it helps to know when to stand your ground, when to compromise, and when to roll up your sleeves and help.

How did you develop – and continue to develop – these skills or attributes?

I think I was fortunate enough to be born with good memory and an appetite for facts. I was and am always reading. In terms of learning to work as a team player, I think that building a working understanding of behavioural psychology can’t hurt. So much of what people do is because of something else – once you understand that about people it gives you ways to influence and also gives you a lot of cause to reflect on your own behaviour.

How do you ensure that you are keeping pace with the goals and requirements around data to avoid lagging behind?

That’s a real challenge. The tension between doing a lot of things quickly and a few things really well is always there. It’s good that there’s the demand for what we do but, especially as a government department, we need to provide *good* evidence – assured, usually peer reviewed, and published openly as a matter of course. That sometimes takes more time than we get. So I try where possible to anticipate the need, move fast and to know where and how to leverage resources. I get excited about innovative methods, so I try to make sure we’ve got access to those and we’re trying new things.

Michelle Patel
has been included in:

100 Brands 2022 (EMEA)