Lifetime Achiever Keith Dugmore and a “bolt from the blue”

“It came like a bolt from the blue for me last year when data gurus Martin Squires and Tim Drye got in touch to say that I was being considered for DataIQ’s Lifetime Achievement Award,” he said. “I looked at the list of previous recipients, which includes Edwina Dunn, Clive Humby, Professor Merlin Stone, and former Information Commissioner Christopher Graham, and thought’ ‘goodness, what an honour’.”

“This prompted me to look back and realise that I’d been working with data for 47 years, having an enjoyable life bringing some major commercial companies together to talk freely at the Demographics User Group, and building bridges to Government and academia,” he explained.

“Few of us do what we do for the recognition. Yet when it is given - especially by such a significant peer group - it validates all the effort over decades. When the Award was announced it was a joy to receive messages from various friends who had been with me along the way.”

Dugmore added: “There are many people who have worked to create the data industry we all operate in. Sometimes they operate behind the scenes, which is what makes DataIQ’s Lifetime Achievement Award all the more valuable. If you know someone like this, do please consider nominating them. Personally, it was an honour that I would like to see extended to more of our data people.”

To nominate somebody for the 2020 Lifetime Achievement award, email editorial@dataiq.co.uk by 15th June.

Listen to Keith Dugmore talking about his career in data and what it meant to receive the award.