Rich Hunt is Data and AI Director at Openreach, where he leads an award-winning team of analysts, engineers, data scientists, and strategists delivering insight and AI at scale across the organisation.
His career spans more than 18 years at Openreach and began in hands-on operational roles. Trained in computer science and mathematics, Rich started as an apprentice network engineer installing copper phone lines, before moving through a range of operational positions. That early experience built a deep understanding of how the business functions on the ground and continues to shape his approach to data leadership.
Rich moved into data roles as the organisation’s needs evolved, standing up Openreach’s first dedicated data engineering team and industrialising core logic and analytics. He later led a transformation insight function that underpinned more than £500 million in quantified business benefits over five years, demonstrating the impact of tightly aligned, outcome-driven analytics.
Rich runs a multidisciplinary data and AI organisation of 100 professionals. He is known for maintaining a strong connection between data teams and operational reality, ensuring insight is relevant, trusted and actionable. His leadership philosophy is rooted in the belief that data teams only deliver value when they are embedded in the business and supported by strong executive sponsorship.
As a data and AI leader, which traits and skills do you think matter most, and which of those have been most influential for you in your current position?
“In my experience I think effective data and AI leadership boils down to three things: being a translator, acting as a guardian, and operating with resilience.
“Ensuring that all this complex data and AI work turns into commercial outcomes is what turns a data and AI team from a cost discussion into a value conversation. Keep your data strategy aligned to your business strategy and make sure every pound spent is improving the business or saving money so we can connect more customers.
“Our market is highly regulated, so fostering integrity and transparency in our models is critical to honour our regulatory commitments. We must ensure guardians of those obligations while also keeping the challenger mindset we need to stay competitive, which is a tricky tightrope to walk, but one we do well.
“Overall, creating a strong culture of resilience in my team is the single biggest contributor which has taken us on journey from legacy report churn to cutting-edge insight. I’ve built a team that embraces the ever-changing tech stack and AI opportunity but doesn’t forget the importance of strong and stable data foundations.”
Reflecting on your career, what is one non-traditional piece of advice (outside of technical skills) you would give to an aspiring data or AI leader aiming for the C-suite?
“Go and get dirty. Spend your time in the parts of the organisation where data is a foreign language. Climb a pole and sit in the call centres so you can see first-hand the manual workarounds and the gutfeel decisions that fuel the business day by day. The most successful data and AI leaders aren’t the ones with the most advanced models, but the ones who have built the most social capital and speak the language of the business. You must be able to sit in the boardroom and make a compelling case for your data strategy without using any technical jargon. Tell the story in the language of your audience.
“I’ve found that actively listening to my stakeholders’ unspoken anxieties about AI is far more valuable than building the machine itself. If you solve this person’s problem, data adoption will follow, and you’ll be a lot more successful. You need to level up from being the person with the answers to being the person who understands the questions that others struggle to articulate.”