8. Andy Hill, chief data officer, Unilever

Looking forward to 2021, what are your expectations for data and analytics within your organisation?

To continue the journey to help Unilever become data intelligent. To help our people make better and faster decisions augmented through the data and analytics available at their fingertips. We are expecting to see further changes in consumers’ needs and attitudes. We are also seeing the demand for more predictive analytics and better use of optimisation to drive both our effectiveness and efficiency. Another area where we will be placing energy is increasing our shared use of data with our suppliers and retail customers to improve our products and operations.

Is data for good part of your personal or business agenda for 2021? If so, what form will it take?

Yes absolutely, Data for good is both a personal objective for me and a business objective for Unilever.

We think about data for good in two main ways. Firstly, how we ensure that our employees, our suppliers and third parties are only using data in accordance with data governance principles and privacy legislation across all the markets in which we operate.

Additionally, in 2021, we are launching our data ethics programme which goes one step further, holding ourselves and our partners to the highest standards of ethics and transparency in data. Trust and transparency are becoming increasingly important for companies today and we believe that addressing ethics alongside privacy and security is a game-changer for businesses operating in a data and digital-first world.

Secondly, we are passionate about our purpose to help make sustainable living commonplace. So we have a number of key sustainability programmes, such as plastic reduction, reducing deforestation and water scarcity where we will be using data and advanced analytics to drive real impact with society.

What has been your path to power?

My role today is based in London with responsibility for the global data, information and advanced analytics agenda across the enterprise. These areas are synergistic, so it’s really good to have them together with an holistic strategy.

I started my career at Unilever in 2017. Prior to this, I spent 22 years at dunnhumby, where I played a significant role in growing the company from a feisty start-up into the world’s leading customer science business.

I joined dunnhumby in 1995 as a graduate from Oxford University and held a variety of roles that spanned operational and strategic positions, including leading both the client and solutions teams in the UK and Ireland, chief operating officer of dunnhumby Italia, senior vice president for the Kroger and manufacturing practice in the USA, and my ultimate role was as the chief operating officer of dunnhumby North America, based in Chicago. I also studied leadership development at IMD, Lausanne.

What is the proudest achievement of your career to date?

I’ve been very lucky as I’ve had a number of really proud moments in my career. Today, I’m most proud of the impact we are having today at Unilever and how data is really helping to drive our performance. Most importantly, how it is enabling our brands to have a positive impact around the world, helping to save lives during Covid-19 through the distribution of key health and hygiene products, such as Lifebuoy hand sanitiser. It’s amazing and really motivating to be part of a company that is really helping people through this crisis.

When I look back on my career, I’m most proud of establishing and managing the dunnhumby North America and dunnhumby Italia businesses, which were both great fun, successful but nail-biting journeys and, most importantly, led me to work with some quite fabulous people across two continents.

I also really enjoyed the work we did with the Kroger Company to help drive its performance with data, digital and e-commerce. Thinking further back, another highlight was launching the dunnhumby “shop” back in 1999, which still to this day is one of its most successful products, must have grossed over €1 billion and helped to create a whole new industry on data monetisation with retailer loyalty data.

Tell us about a career goal or a purpose for your organisation that you are pursuing?

There are two career goals that I am pursuing:

1) How we can use data and analytics at Unilever to have a demonstrable impact on society and the environment, whether that is plastics reduction, carbon reduction, halting deforestation or helping with water scarcity.

2) Improving gender diversity in data and analytics. We have made some small steps to improve gender diversity in data and analytics at Unilever with both external hiring and internal up-skilling, but we still have a long way to go across each of our markets. It’s a career goal of mine really to drive this and ensure that women around the world can see data and analytics as a brilliant career choice.

How closely aligned to the business are data and analytics both within your own organisation and at an industry level? What helps to bring the two closer together?

Data and analytics is at the heart of our business today and our vision for Unilever tomorrow. We have established an enterprise data executive governance group, chaired by our CFO and with our executive team, to govern our data assets and maximise the business value that can be generated through more efficient and effective use of our data to drive the digital transformation (data offence), and to minimise risk to the company from potential data misuse (data defence), enabled through the right choices in data technology, advanced analytics (AI), talent and culture.

We also work closely with industry, too. For example, we are working closely with the World Federation of Advertisers (WFA) data ethics board and other leading global companies to build out the world’s first guide on data ethics for brands. Encouraging companies to adopt the four fundamental principles for the ethical use of data and AI - respect, fairness, accountability and transparency - and to champion data ethics as a cultural challenge.

What is your view on how to develop a data culture in an organisation, building out data literacy and creating a data-first mindset?

Three examples that I have found useful:

• Senior advocacy is key. Nothing is more powerful than seeing senior leaders using advanced tools, data and products and making decisions with them. This is crucial as senior leadership sets the standard.
• Raise the floor and raise the ceiling. Embedding a data culture means you need to take the whole organisation with you. Raise the floor through training all on basic data foundations, analytics and data science understanding. Last year, we trained over 20,000 employees in the basics. Raise the ceiling by building expertise in key data and data science skills. We now have internal MSc equivalents in both, all free to access for our people.
• Create the structures to enable a data culture to flourish. Create the organisation and the governance structures so the business can effectively govern, manage and monetise its data assets, ensuring that data is only ever used for good.