I started my career teaching maths and computing to adults. The role evolved from being a tutor to a more entrepreneurial one where I led the use of database marketing to find new learners and ways to maximise the income the service generated.
Database marketing roles followed in the mid-2000s. The consistent theme was to use the data to enable commercial objectives, such as growing sales or controlling costs, and to learn as much as I could about the underlying technologies. I then joined a digital agency to set up a data practice within the agency enabling clients to unlock the potential that data and digital technologies could make to optimise the customer journey and profitability.
I joined Morrisons in 2019 to set up and lead the data science function. As data scientist at heart, I helped the business recruit a team of data professionals, understand the value of its data and identify the business areas that would benefit from machine learning and optimisation.