Caroline Worboys, Chief operating officer, Outra

Path to power

 

I have always loved data and have been lucky to work with great clients and great people who have helped me to learn over the last 30 years. I founded a data business, which I sold to News International and then to Callcredit (now TransUnion). After selling Callcredit to private equity, I was lucky enough to lead data and insights at Wunderman, firstly in EMEA and then globally from New York. I have also led mergers and acquisitions and I keep my interests going through various investments in data-centric organisations and fintech. I am vice chair of the DMA Group. Last year, Simon Hay and I founded Outra and we are building a SasS data science business enabled by new technology, unique data, automation and fantastic data science.

 

What has been the highlight of your career in the industry to date?

 

The progress we have made at Outra, bringing real ROI to customer data. We are working with unique data and using the latest technology and data science techniques to drive incredible value in short time frames in an effective and efficient manner. It is a dream come true to be solving the accumulated challenges now which we have faced with data over the years.

 

If you could give your younger self some advice about how to progress in this industry, what would it be?

 

Be curious and never be afraid to challenge the status quo. History isn’t always the best guide to the present and future!It turned out to be better than expected. GDPR happened and clients started to realise the need to focus on driving value, precision and predictability from their own data, which is good for us all. I still don’t think the full impact of GDPR has reached every part of every organisation.

 

What do you expect 2019 to be like for the industry?

 

I think the ethics and reasonable use of data is starting to get the attention it deserves. This will encompass everything from data sources to science.

 

Talent and skills are always a challenge to find - how are you tackling this in your organisation?

 

Our culture is everything to us in our desire to be bold and inquisitive in challenging the way data is delivering so little of its promise to so many companies. We encourage constant learning as the data world is changing rapidly - we never rest and our team enjoys this.

 

What aspect of data, analytics or their use are you most optimistic about and why?

 

It is great everyone is talking about AI. We are excited to be doing, rather than talking!Data and analytics technology/service provider