2016 Discussion Leaders (Europe)
Considered one of the leading digital measurement experts in the world, Gary leads EY’s Digital Analytics Practice. EY acquired Gary’s previous company, Semphonnic, in 2013. As President, Gary led Semphonic’s growth from a 2-person practice to one of the leading digital analytics practices in the U.S. Voted the most Influential Industry Contributor by the Digital Analytics Association, Gary writes an influential blog (http://measuringthedigitalworld.com), has published more than twenty whitepapers on advanced digital analytics practice and is a frequent speaker at industry events.
Tom Betts is Chief Data Officer at the Financial Times. He is a member of the FT Board and leads the FT’s data capability and strategy. This involves working with a global team to support all parts of the organisation in their use of data to improve and optimise their work.
Tom previously held positions at FT’s former parent – Pearson – as VP Analytics, building analytics teams across a range of educational businesses. Prior to that he was Head of Data Analytics for FT.com, having joined the FT in 2009. He was instrumental in establishing data as a core competency for the Financial Times and grew a team who have successfully catalysed the use of data in decision making right across the organisation.
Prior to the FT, Tom worked in a consultancy capacity delivering large scale data mining projects in a number of industry sectors.
Lucy Butler heads up the Digital Intelligence team at retail giant Argos. In this role she is responsible for Argos’ digital analytics and conversion rate optimisation programmes working closely with Argos’ agile development teams.
Prior to Argos Lucy worked in marketing strategy and analytics at EMI Music, strategy consultancy at OC&C Strategy and management consultancy at ZS Associates.
Lucy has a degree in Natural Sciences and a PhD in Developmental Biology, both from the University of Cambridge.
John Larder heads up the Digital Analytics team at the BBC, the UK’s biggest broadcaster, and the only UK organisation in the list of the world’s top 100 websites.
Prior to joining the BBC, he headed up the Analytics, Personalisation and SEO team for Barclays and was a strategy planner at the Telegraph Media Group.
Like any other digital analyst, he has no hobbies but absolutely loves analytics and data.
Sandra heads up digital personalisation at Barclays Bank. Sandra’s team creates optimised and personal experiences for customers, using testing and rich data, both on the website and Barclays’ award-winning banking app.
Sandra has been involved in digital testing and optimisation since 2006, first at the FT, then moving vendor-side to Maxymiser. Here she led the media sector and later the UK client services function, building high-touch, specialist sector teams, working with clients ranging from the BBC and Channel 4 to EasyJet, Interflora, Comparethemarket and Santander.
In over 10 years in digital analytics and marketing, both as single contributor and team leader, Federico enabled data-driven decisions in several companies across different markets. On the client side as well as a consultant, he supported outlining the digital strategy by providing a measurable path toward the realisation of business goals.
He is currently head of the European web analytics team for Nike.com, responsible for digital assets across 21 countries and 9 languages. Prior to joining Nike, he worked in various roles, among which Digital Business Analyst with Vodafone Netherlands and as independent consultant with his own web marketing consultancy firm, both in the Netherlands and in Italy.
Anna Denejnaja is Head of Data Analysis at Hermes NexTec, a full-service e-commerce provider for the fashion and lifestyle industries. Anna is responsible for business intelligence solutions and all digital analytics for Hermes NexTec and its clients.
Prior to joining Hermes NexTec, Anna was a web analytics consultant at etracker, a web analytics technology solution. She worked closely with clients from different industries to set up and improve their analytics. Anna helped develop and later took over the leadership of the “etracker Academy", a competence centre for web analytics, designed for the further professional education of web analysts. Anna is a DAA Certified Web Analyst™ and holds the “Award of Achievement in Digital Analytics" from the University of British Columbia.
Tim Robinson – Web Analytics Manager, Marks & Spencer
Tim Robinson leads a dynamic and diverse web analytics team at Marks & Spencer. He has spent the last 3 years with the retailer, redefining and driving the analytics for their new platform which launched in February 2014. He has grown the team and the role of web analytics significantly across the organisation, more recently developing how M&S exploit their clickstream data to enhance their customer-centric analysis using data science.
Tim Robinson leads a dynamic and diverse web analytics team at Marks & Spencer. He has spent the last 3 years with the retailer, redefining and driving the analytics for their new platform which launched in February 2014. He has grown the team and the role of web analytics significantly across the organisation, more recently developing how M&S exploit their clickstream data to enhance their customer-centric analysis using data science.
His previous experience includes analytics roles at lastminute.com and Review Centre, as well as looking after web analytics for Tesco.com.
Dwayne is a managing consultant at Accenture Interactive specialising in both digital and offline analytics solution architecture. Prior to Accenture, Dwayne headed up the Digital Insights team at EE, UK's largest mobile network. He joined EE in 2012 and was responsible for building out their analytics capability to cover not only digital insights and technology but also voice of the customer, personalization and business intelligence. Dwayne has several years of experience as a digital analytics consultant working with clients such as Disney, Invesco Perpetual, Etihad Airways and Bristol Myers-Squibb. Dwayne started his career at Fujitsu as a systems engineer specialising in UNIX systems and Oracle databases.
Stéphane Hamel is a seasoned and distinguished thought leader in the field of digital analytics. Named Most Influential Industry Contributor of 2012 by the Digital Analytics Association, he has made significant contributions to the industry, including creating the Digital Analytics Maturity Model, the Web Analytics Solution Profiler (WASP) quality assurance tool as well as other tools and concepts. Stéphane has previously held board positions with the DAA. He thought hundreds of students enrolled in the UBC Award of Achievement in Digital Analytics and graduate-level marketing classes at Laval University. In addition , Stéphane co-manages the largest Google Analytics user community on Google Plus (100k+ members) and serve on a number of advisory boards.
He is frequently called upon to speak at conferences around the world and an often-quoted media contributor on the topic of digital intelligence and analysis. Oh, and he also does consulting, especially in the area of digital analytics maturity. Stéphane holds an MBA in eBusiness and work from home in an historical heritage area called Île d’Orléans, near Québec-city, Canada.
David McBride is an analytics and product leader focused on helping companies grow revenue by developing meaningful, data-informed customer relationships. His extensive knowledge and experience has been honed through 15 years of professional experience in industries as diverse as retail, telecom, consumer electronics and transportation. David's functional expertise is primarily in Analytics, A/B Testing and Data Product Management with additional expertise in Finance at companies like American Eagle Outfitters, Comcast and Dell. He is currently works in Intel's New Devices Group as Director of Wearable Data Products.
Federica Ancona - Insight Manager, Sky Now TV
Prior to Sky, Federica established a standard reporting practice and engagement model for insights at commercial broadcaster Channel 5. During her time in the media industry she has been contributing to the enhancement of online TV audience measurement as a subject matter expert for BARB’s Project Dovetail. Before her move into broadcast media Federica gained experience in several verticals including FMCG, finance, retail and pharmaceuticals, advising clients on digital analytics, multi-channel marketing optimisation and information systems as a consultant at DigitasLBi and Starcom Mediavest.
Federica currently leads customer insights for Sky’s Over The Top (OTT) service, Now TV. While at Sky Federica set up the analytics capability for Sky's next generation TV platform Sky Q.
Prior to Sky, Federica established a standard reporting practice and engagement model for insights at commercial broadcaster Channel 5. During her time in the media industry she has been contributing to the enhancement of online TV audience measurement as a subject matter expert for BARB’s Project Dovetail. Before her move into broadcast media Federica gained experience in several verticals including FMCG, finance, retail and pharmaceuticals, advising clients on digital analytics, multi-channel marketing optimisation and information systems as a consultant at DigitasLBi and Starcom Mediavest.
Benjamin Erhard started his career 2009 within Allianz Germany Operations Controlling where he contributed to the creation of a SAS BI solution for telephony data and promoted the functional reshaping of Allianz Germany telephony reporting. In January 2013 Benjamin joined Allianz Managed Operations & Services (AMOS) as first dedicated SAS BI consultant and supported the creation of the Digital Analytics department to orchestrate the global rollout of BI & Analytics solutions within the Allianz Group . In his current position he oversees several implementation projects and promotes Allianz Digitalization strategy by gradual enhancement of AMOS’ BI & Analytics service portfolio.
Antje Wolter has over seven years of digital analytics experience. She is currently a Digital Performance Analyst at one of the biggest toy brands in the world – LEGO. Antje is tasked with helping transform the traditionally offline toy company into a digitally-driven business whilst keeping to strict marketing to kids regulation. Her responsibilities include setting up a data strategy, developing meaningful KPIs and optimising user experiences through analytics and A/B testing
Prior to Lego, Antje worked for the digital arm of one of Germany's largest TV channels - ProsiebenSat1 Digital. There she optimised online entertainment offers through meaningful data analysis for several websites and apps.
Antje holds an MBA equivalent diploma form the Technische Universität in Munich.
Craig has been consulting for the last 4 years, helping optimise the growth rate and insight of companies like Google, Lego, eBay, Spotify, Asos, as well as small companies, non profits and charities like Guide Dogs for the Blind. Craig had previously been with Belron since 2008 (the 4Bn Group that owns Autoglass), improving the sites for 34 brands in 19 languages. He built a specialist team of technical marketers, optimisers, UX professionals, SEO specialists and project managers and grew their world conversion rate by 67% in 2 years.
Craig has been blending a fun mix of Agile, UX, insight, analytics, split testing and optimisation techniques for several companies over the last 12 years. He has built teams, run projects or used conversion voodoo on the likes of John Lewis, LOVEFiLM, Ocado, Waitrose, Zoopla and a smattering of tech start-ups. He tweets on topics like UX, Neuropsychology, Mobile technology, Persuasion, Copywriting and more as: @OptimiseOrDie. Craig talks regularly at events and is given good feedback from delegates because of his knowledge of his subject area and a wealth of practical tips you can take away and use. He shares a home in Blackheath, London with his two girls, Duke the Pug, Rolf & Coco the cats and is a part time DJ at weekends for entertainment.
Jim Sterne is an international consultant focused on measuring the value of the online marketing for creating and strengthening customer relationships since 1993. Sterne has written seven books on using the Internet for marketing, produces the eMetrics Summit - www.emetrics.org and is co-founder and current Chairman of the Digital Analytics Association - www.DigitalAnalyticsAssociation.org.
Hugh has worked in digital communications since 1994, switching from roles in media where he was Head of Online Planning and Buying at Manning Gottlieb OMD, to Senior Analyst at Logan Tod, now part of PwC. In 2007 Hugh founded Engage Digital Ltd, an independent web analytics and conversion optimisation consultancy working with a variety of clients in different industries. Hugh was one of the first in the UK to be awarded the Digital Analytics Association Certified Analyst qualification and has held it for the past three years. He also wrote the regular Web Analytics Pro column for .Net magazine for more than five years. Hugh holds a degree in Sociology and Social Policy from the University of London, Royal Holloway.
Ulla is Vice President at Sanoma, a Finnish-Dutch media and learning company. She heads up Sanoma’s Analytics Center of Excellence (ACE), which comprises of Data Science, Online Performance, and Data Management teams. ACE aims to drive personalized and high-value consumer, advertiser, and learning experiences and build world-class analytics assets for the utilization of consumer data. In 2013, Ulla was nominated the Information Leader of the Year in Finland. Prior to Sanoma, Ulla worked in management consulting and telecommunications. She has a PhD in Economics from the Helsinki School of Economics.
Benjamin Stephens - Web Analytics Manager, ASOS
Benjamin currently leads the web analytics function at ASOS where he has spent the last 3.5 years helping to develop a growing team of analysts. His role has seen him re-implement the analytics tools across all of the ASOS web and native mobile properties as well as evolve the processes and structures around the use of analytics and quantitative data within the business. Benjamin has a background as a consultant where he worked for a digital agency specialising in analytics and data analysis. This allowed him to develop his skills in both practice and technology while working with some of the largest businesses in the UK.
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Adrian is the digital analytics lead within PwC’s data analytics capability. He has 16 years’ experience helping organisations improve their marketing effectiveness, grow their revenue, customers and profitability, discover new value from existing data or embed new analytics capabilities. Prior to their acquisition by PwC in 2012, Adrian was Head of Analytics & Insight at Logan Tod, a leading digital analytics consultancy. Adrian’s recent projects have included optimisation of customer acquisition marketing and customer re-targetting, digital trading optimisation, developing KPI’s and data strategy and measuring customer sentiment and engagement through the application of text analytics, natural language processing and machine learning tools to social media data.
Lukas Grebe - Senior Digital Analyst, Chefkoch.de
Lukas is Senior Digital Analyst for Chefkoch.de - subsidiary of Gruner + Jahr - the food website with the widest coverage across Europe, ranking 3rd globally. His work focuses on building and growing an insights infrastructure and team to drive chefkoch.de’s business. Prior to chefkoch.de, he spent 7 years building tracking technology and analyzing web data for the metapeople agency group (now NetBooster SA), sparhandy.de and HRS. Passionate about digital analytics, Lukas has been attending the Digital Analytics Hub (xChange Europe) since day one.
Carmen Mardiros - Senior Digital Analytics Manager, navabi
Carmen is Senior Digital Analytics Manager at navabi GmbH, the premium women’s fashion retailer for the plus size market. She is responsible for developing the measurement strategy demanded by a fast growing ecommerce company operating in a dynamic ecosystem. She oversees the development of tools and processes to enable access to knowledge throughout the company. Previously she has worked as a freelancer with ecommerce companies and startups helping them make use of the data they have to increase their understanding of the business. Carmen is fascinated with behavioural analytics and is continously expanding the range of analytical techniques, programming skills and business questions to ask in order to better understand the customer journey and customer intent.
Christoph Hell - Senior Manager Web Intelligence, Sky Deutschland
Christoph Hell is Senior Manager Web Intelligence and joined Sky Deutschland in 2010. He is part of the Web Intelligence team coordinating Sky's overall web analytics, digital intelligence and optimisation activities. The team is offering knowledge and best practice to departments like Sales, CRM, editorial boards and social in order to get insights from digital analytics and to improve company's digital marketing efforts. Christoph is responsible for defining and introducing standards for tracking digital assets, KPIs and business procedures and how to analyse user behaviour on websites and apps. Christoph graduated from the Munich University of Applied Sciences and holds a diploma in economics specialised in Tourism & Hospitality management.
Nick Redding heads up the web analytics team at William Hill, where he is responsible for analytics, optimisation and personalisation across a suite of web and mobile products. There’s a lot of data to work with. Each year 3.7m people in the UK bet online. William Hill processes 400 customer transactions per second, and on its busiest days handles more transactions than Amazon does on Black Friday. Nick has over 15 years’ experience in Digital Marketing, having started agency-side writing, managing and reporting on campaigns for clients such as Sony, Walt Disney and Time Warner. He has specialised in analytics and optimisation for the past five years, but has used analytics tools his whole career. Before joining William Hill, Nick built the web analytics functions at Dyson and Hargreaves Lansdown. He is now based in Gibraltar with a growing team of analysts and optimisers - and Europe’s only population of wild monkeys.
After several years in academia, Dan moved into more “traditional” analytics working on valuation models to drive application decisioning improvements at Capital One; he soon found his true calling in digital analytics and optimisation. A few roles later, covering most facets of digital analysis and conversion optimisation with various FS companies and a telco, Dan now leads the conversion analytics team at TUI (UK&I). Working in an increasingly agile setup, his team are the source of digital insight to drive forward the optimisation of TUI’s websites in the UK and Ireland (Thomson, First Choice and Falcon).
Dan’s main passion in his work is split testing, being able to physically see improvements for the customer and the business benefits gained from peoples’ hard work. One of his current focuses is to grow this programme at TUI.
You can find out more about Dan on LinkedIn (dangraingertuigroup) – feel free to connect.
Teemu is responsible for data driven sales & marketing activities across channels building a seamless customer experience for the largest insurance company in the Nordics and Baltics since September 2015. The data driven approach includes leading the data & analytics initiatives at If to support a digital first and customer oriented strategy. Before joining If Teemu headed Online Performance operations for Sanoma, one of the biggest media player in Europe including digital analytics, conversion optimization and digital marketing in the Netherlands and Finland. Besides of the marketer and publisher perspective Teemu has been founding digital analytics agencies in Finland.
Holger Offermann works as a consultant for Microsoft Mobile and manages the Online Analytics Team to provide related IT services for Microsoft's global Digital Marketing and Online Services. Holger's responsibilities include the operation of several digital marketing tools such as Adobe Digital Marketing Cloud and Tealium iQ in addition to in-house solutions across a diverse, fragmented and hugely international organisation. Over the last 15 years Holger held various R&D management positions at Nokia driving the implementation of E-commerce and Single-Sign-On. Holger studied Electrical Engineering in Bochum, Germany and holds an engineering degree in Telecommunications.
Eric is the Insights Manager for Dixons Carphone, the multinational electrical and telecommunications retailer. He has over nine years of experience optimising and exploring digital experiences. Six Sigma trained with expertise using online metrics to optimise performance and facilitate data-driven decision making. Eric has experience in a wide range of digital areas including product development, digital marketing, social media, SEO, content management, digital analytics, performance management and e-commerce.
Ashish currently leads the optimisation practice at Tesco Digital Product. He is responsible for driving strategy and shaping best in class data informed product performance and customer experience optimisation. This is achieved through building maturity in A/B, Multivariate Testing, UX, Personalisation, Lean Analytics, Cross-Channel & Cross Device (Online, Mobile & In-store), across all the verticals of the Tesco Group.
Ashish is helping architect an integrated big data environment to build and leverage data science tools for enhancing real-time services and analytics. He has a long standing academic research background in Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, Neuroscience, Statistics and Sociobiology. More recently, Ashish has been working on Consumer Neuroscience, Cognitive Science, and using Data Science to understand Decision Systems and Influence Networks for Online/Offline Customer Behaviour.
Charles is the founder of Digital Nation. We combine digital analytics and usability to enable our clients to get a complete picture of how their websites and apps are used. Charles has been analysing user behaviour for 20 years and has worked across a wide variety of companies and organisations including Disney, Pets at Home, The Cabinet Office and Renault. When not tweeting @charlemeaden, he is busy experimenting with new ways to record and analyse visitor behaviour.
Guy Jacobs has studied and worked within the behavioural sciences industry for almost 20 years. He is regarded as a communication and engagement expert who enables individuals to find their natural communication style whether it be to live audiences or digitally through their website.
Guy creates frameworks for companies to research, engage and close potential clients that are easy to follow and quick to implement.
