Describe your career to date
I am the Chief Data Officer at St Andrew’s Healthcare (STAH), a large private mental healthcare organisation. My experience spans multiple industries, including Finance, Insurance, Investment, and Healthcare. Throughout my career, my mission has been the same: to empower organisations in leveraging data as a valuable asset to drive efficiency, foster innovation, and create substantial value.
With a hands-on technical background, my career has evolved into leadership roles, where I am a passionate evangelist of data and influence stakeholders at Board, Executive, and Operational levels regarding the critical importance of data-driven decision-making. I have successfully steered organisations in need of data improvements and built data departments from the ground up for organisations without prior data capabilities.
As a leader, I am dedicated to people-centric leadership, providing my colleagues with opportunities for personal growth and nurturing new talent from within the organisation. Notably, I have successfully recruited diverse individuals from departments like HR and Finance, harnessing their organisational knowledge, problem-solving skills, and inquisitiveness. Their existing customer relationships and knowledge proved instrumental in uncovering areas where we can add value. These individuals have excelled, possessing the fundamental soft skills required in a data role while rapidly acquiring technical skills through comprehensive training programmes.
I have been fortunate to transform STAH into a data-driven organisation by being the driving force in advocating the transformative power of data. Over time, even sceptics have become dedicated supporters, enabling me to assemble a coalition of data advocates across all levels of STAH. This collaboration has yielded many solutions that enhance the lives of STAH patients. Examples include proactive responses to high-risk patients, optimising organisation-wide staffing (a complex challenge in healthcare) and developing statistical modelling to enhance quality and performance. A significant achievement was developing analytical solutions that empower clinicians to tailor patient treatments for optimal outcomes, resulting in improved patient care and faster reintegration into community settings. The sense of fulfilment in knowing our work improves the lives of people in need is unparalleled.
Motivated by our success, I felt compelled to assist other healthcare organisations facing similar challenges. Therefore, through a global NHS data network, I led a programme that shared our journey and best practices with numerous healthcare organisations. This type of external collaboration was a first for STAH, and significantly elevated our innovation reputation in the healthcare industry.
To further advance my career, I recently completed an Executive MBA, achieving First Class Honours. This accomplishment not only validated my existing leadership attributes but also equipped me with new skills and diverse sector knowledge that have made instant positive impact on how I manage my teams. My dissertation, Understanding Barriers to Innovation and How Creativity Can Be Legitimised in an Organisation, resulted in the creation of the concept of an Innovation Framework, which enables us to curate, manage, develop, and deliver innovative ideas from all levels of the organisation.
Driven by a passion for thought leadership and continuous learning, I am a public speaker and Governing Body Member for two influential Chief Data Officer Networks in the UK: Evanta (a Gartner company) and Corinium Business of Data. These roles help me to identify emerging trends and common data challenges across varied industries and facilitate better leadership and technical decision-making to further enhance our Data and Analytics capability.
