Within our senior leadership team, we are privileged to have several inspirational women who not only excel in their respective fields but also champion inclusivity and diversity within our workforce. Their diverse perspectives and unwavering dedication have not only enhanced decision-making but have also paved the way for innovation through their unique experiences.
Here we delve deeper into their careers, experiences, and the profound impact of being women in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM). Join us as we introduce you to our Managing Director, Dr. Catherine Kelly, Data Science Director, Karen Snape, Client Partner, Hanna Wade, and Analytics Director, Katie Stones.
Question: Tell me about the path that you have taken in data science – from where you started until now?
Catherine: “After completing a mathematics degree from The University of Nottingham I went on to do a PhD modelling an immunotherapy cancer treatment which employed macrophages (white blood cells) to deliver drugs to the cancer site.
“My first business role was a nine-month contract for premium drinks business Diageo which has brands such as Guinness, Smirnoff vodka, Gordon’s whisky and Jonnie Walker. I found Diageo an inspiring business to join and, in my role, I created a regional instore marketing blueprint. This gave me the opportunity to work with the marketing team designing marketing tests and with the sales team to deploy them, harnessing the rich grocery data to analyse the results by brand, region and retailer.
“That experience allowed me to fall in love with marketing at a time when the use of data, analysis and modelling to inform or validate marketing was in its infancy. Following that I took on commercial and operational roles at FMCG Kellogg’s for three and a half years before returning to Diageo to set up a data science team which was called ‘business intelligence’ because data science was a term that did not yet exist.
“I joined Jaywing over seven years ago as Head of Marketing Effectiveness and to lead Jaywing’s Marketing Consulting practice. The practice was at the heart of Jaywing and, backed up by 70 data scientists and technologists, we helped businesses use data and data science to understand customers, solve business challenges and drive value through digital and traditional marketing channels.
“We developed unique approaches to tracking online customer behaviour and using advanced AI and machine learning techniques we accurately attributed sales across marketing channels at an individual level. Utilising data science and driving understanding of individual customer behaviour we helped brands to personalise communications and enhance customer experience.
“My role then expanded to include Epiphany which was the performance agency part of Jaywing to create an integrated media and data science agency which harnessed and embedded the power of data science into our market leading media offer. Among the achievements we gained, included receiving Premier Google Partnership status (which less than 3% of agencies have). This was thanks to the quality of our work, the adoption of innovation, utilising econometrics models to help validate the commercial impact of PR and creating our pioneering link relevancy tool, Relevance.
“Most recently, I’ve become Managing Director at Jaywing, responsible for client delivery and growth, strategy, marketing and new business as well as leading our very talented senior leadership team to drive the agency forward.”
Karen: “My journey in data science began with a strong love of maths from a very early age. A supportive teacher in high school saw my potential and pushed me to do lunchtime learning and take a statistics GCSE which was very rare at the time. This set me on the path that would lead to an MSc in Statistics and a job in data science!”
Hanna: “I studied languages at university and found that they have a similar methodical approach to their structure as data work. I’ve always been driven by a curiosity of the ‘why’ and ‘so what’. My agency career began working at a customer experience agency that put data at the heart of what was delivered for clients. I enjoyed how you can use factual evidence to understand people, businesses, and how you can use data to change behaviours through creative, strategic approaches.
“I thank my first boss for pushing me to innovate, to understand the technical aspects and to implement the data into client pitches. He encouraged me to think anything was possible and apply this to our client strategies. As a young professional female, he encouraged me to lead projects, developing my skills in communicating data driven approaches and client relationship management. You need people like me, who can bridge the gap between the data scientists and those less data savvy to communicate the value of data driven approaches and ensure they are profitable! I’ve been lucky to work with skilled strategists and data experts, and it inspired me to explore innovative solutions like marketing measurement and predictive modelling. I worked with Jaywing in a previous role and recognised its strong data culture, I wanted to work here for several years before it became a reality!”
Katie: “I always loved maths at school, and went on to do a degree in Maths, but then I didn’t really know what to do next. I knew I didn’t want to be a teacher, or do accountancy, as that would involve more studying – these were the typical careers talked about for maths graduates at the time. When I graduated, “Data Science” wasn’t really a thing, so it was hard to find out about careers that involved coding, maths, and analysis. I came into the credit risk world by accident really – I was doing a temp job at the Burton Group and noticed a vacancy in their credit strategy team – which I applied for and was successful! I got the chance to travel abroad which I would always advise to anyone; it certainly helped me to build my confidence and gain experiences that are still useful for me today.”
Question: What are the key challenges you have faced as a woman in data science?
Catherine: “As a child I loved maths and science with a passion and nothing was going to stop me pursuing them, but it was not the norm. When I turned up at sixth form college saying that I wanted to do A-Level physics, my Dad was warned that girls tend to peak at GSCE and maybe I should consider a humanity.
“At University there were only a handful of women studying mathematics and no female lecturers. That changed in 1998, the year I graduated first time, when fortuitously the first female lecturer joined the department and she became my tutor for my PhD. I was lucky to have her to inspire and mentor me.
“I have been extremely fortunate in my career to have been managed and led by some brilliant and supportive people – both men and women. I don’t believe I have ever been discriminated against and certainly never felt judged. People are generally shocked when they hear that I have four children, but I take that as a compliment.
“I am so privileged to have the job I do, to work with the incredible talent I am surrounded by, to solve client problems, design solutions and learn every day.
“I am very lucky, I have got an A team both at work (my extraordinary senior leadership team) and at home (my incredible husband, sisters and parents). I have a balance, but it isn’t static – it fluctuates depending on the needs of my family and the needs of my team.
“It hasn’t always been that easy however. I almost burned out in the first year after I had my twins, which is why I so closely nurture any of my team coming back from maternity leave for the first time. I have made mistakes and learned a lot and now I set myself boundaries. When my children were young, I insisted on always being there for bathtime and bedtime story. I often had to jump back into work once they were in bed, but I didn’t miss that time. Now I have dinner round the table with my children most nights. I have been to every school performance, never missed a parents evening and never missed Mother’s Day assembly. However, I rarely do the school run, I’ve been to one sports day – fell over in the mum’s race and never went back, and my husband does most of the afterschool club taxi-ing. I can’t do it all so I do what I think has most positive impact.”
Karen: “I've encountered a few challenges related to gender bias and stereotypes, particularly at the outset of my career when I spent more time working in banking which was a little more old-school. But having spent most of my career in Jaywing, surrounded by like-minded people with a love for data and a strong contingent of women and advocates, I’ve been fortunate to maybe not face the struggles that others have.”
Hanna: “Early in my career, meetings could be intimidating. Often, I was the only female in a room of older males who I initially perceived to have more experience, giving me a sense of imposter syndrome. I’m quite softly spoken, so I’d have to really speak up to be heard. Diversity in opinion, experience and background is crucial to ensuring that approaches and trends are interpreted in an objective way. I really had to build up belief in myself that my viewpoint and experiences were meaningful in the conversation. It takes a diverse team to ensure data trends and outputs are not susceptible to bias and to produce balanced results/interpretations. It's important to remember that women bring unique perspectives to data “storytelling” and should feel empowered to contribute these to avoid bias.”
Katie: “When I started my career in credit risk management, it was much more male dominated than it is today – I was the only female in the team for a while, and that can be difficult, as you don’t feel like you can always be your true self at work. Things have changed for the better now, with many more women in senior positions within credit risk teams. I feel like young women today feel more empowered to be themselves, rather than feeling like they must behave in a certain way to fit in.”
Question: Tell me about some of your best moments as a woman in data science?
Catherine: “My most fulfilling accomplishment has been creating a positive environment for women to choose to work in and providing them with the opportunities and mentorship to realise their potential. I am proud that during my time at Jaywing, we have experienced an increase in woman in data science roles. This has not been by some artificial design – I am a mother of both a son and daughters and always hire the very best candidate.
“I'm extremely proud to see brilliant female data scientists (Karen, Katie and Hanna) acting as role models and advocates for women in leadership positions in data science. By supporting mentorship across Jaywing, I’m delighted to see our next generation of female leaders being nurtured.”
Karen: “As a mum of two teenage boys who excel at maths, I love taking the opportunity to work with and mentor young women entering the data science world. I’ve been fortunate to work alongside industrial placement students and graduates and share my experiences and knowledge, which is always enjoyable. Seeing these women go off and have fulfilling careers in positions of leadership or technical areas makes me very proud to have played a small role in their development.”
Hanna: “I joined a call with one client’s data science team a couple of years ago and the whole team were women! I love being given responsibility for creating, developing, and delivering our agency’s data-led marketing effectiveness proposition and seeing it take off, making a real difference for our clients. Seeing my own thought leadership pieces published in established marketing publications around the importance of data in marketing. Working at Jaywing where our female MD, from a data science background and our female data science director are two of the best people I have ever worked with and learnt from.”
Katie: “Best moments for me are when you can see the impact of your work, for example building a model that is implemented and which makes better decisions for customers, where you can see the financial impact. Also, when you present your analysis back with confidence, and you’re telling people something they didn’t know previously about their customer base.”
Question: Tell me about any projects that you have worked on at Jaywing that you have particularly enjoyed and your best moments in Data Science?
Karen: “With 21 years in a consulting role, I’ve had the privilege of working across a diverse range of clients, sectors, projects and internal team skillsets. Some standouts include meetings with the data science and marketing teams at one client which turned out to be 10 women on the call; that was really invigorating.
“Other enjoyable clients include the Studio Retail team who now champion data-driven approaches such as our econometrics and attribution modelling. Former CMO Chris Chalmers co-presented at Marketing Week's London Event, and later, Customer and Marketing Director Chris Other joined a webinar, underscoring the significance and impact of data-driven insights for marketing effectiveness—a testament to the power of our storytelling and tangible results.”
Hanna: “I love working on clients where we can use our expertise and business understanding to take a bespoke approach to meeting their goals using data - taking the ‘anything is possible’ mindset and then proving it! Using a data-driven approach with Mazda to analyse their marketing investments has been really rewarding. We identified innovative ways to connect customer journeys across their brand to attributing the value of these to the final sale, leading to a 14% drop in CPL working with their media agency.
“Whilst working with one of our hair and beauty clients – we designed a unique solution tackling the problem of having empty stylist slots. We were able to design and build a bespoke predictive model using our machine learning platform which identified the most likely customers to take weekday slots, driving over half a million incremental booking revenue. Our team can design unique solutions for challenges such as using data to take a more agile approach to budget management, or how can we create a scorecard that tells us the best opportunities to target our clients’ customers to convert.”
Katie: “Jaywing have worked with TSB a lot over the 18 years that I’ve been at Jaywing, and I always enjoy working on projects with them. TSB have a very collaborative culture and a strong female presence in many senior roles there. The Credit Risk team is more balanced by gender vs other banks that I’ve worked with.”
Question: What advice would you give to other women thinking about starting a career in data science?
Karen: “I would emphasise the importance of building a strong foundation in technical skills, continuously learning, and if possible, seeking mentorship. Don't be afraid to advocate for yourself and your achievements. Additionally, actively contribute to and engage with the broader data science community to expand your network and stay updated on industry trends.”
Hanna: “Ask for help. If anything, this makes people respect you even more than they already do, it doesn’t make you look weak.
“This is an industry which will always grow – I’ve not studied my whole life in this area in terms of maths or analytics, but always enjoyed what it represented and the change it could bring. There’s a role for everyone in data science and a need for a diverse range of skills. You don’t have to master deep machine learning or complexity – one of the most useful skills is communication and storytelling, not just about being analytical. Outputs of these approaches are useless if they can’t be understood.”
Katie: “Same as I would give to anyone really! Everyone is different and there’s no “right” way to do it – there isn’t such the same defined path as there is for say Law or Accountancy, where you study to gain qualifications. I would probably say to start off in a larger organisation, maybe on a placement year if you are on a sandwich course at university, or as a graduate analyst, in a big bank where you’ll have the opportunity to learn about a lot of different aspects of credit risk – then that will help you work out where you want to go next – whether it’s specialising in a particular aspect such as forecasting, or model-building, or alternatively moving around between teams to learn about the many different areas of risk management.”
Question: How do you think businesses can do more to support women and girls into leadership, decision-making, business, and STEM?
Catherine: “Implementing diversity-focused recruitment strategies to attract a more diverse pool of candidates, providing mentorship and professional development opportunities, and fostering a culture of inclusivity and support where all employees feel valued and empowered to succeed.
“For example, as part of our talent pipelines and recruitment initiatives into our STEM areas of the business we held several network events with women and non-binary students from local universities. They had the opportunity to have time with recent apprentices, graduates and women further along in their careers to find out about different career paths and get insights into a range of roles in our data and consultancy teams.
“We want to find ways of inspiring the next generations of women into STEM careers”
Karen: “Implementing inclusive hiring practices, providing mentorship programs, and fostering a culture that values diversity will go a long way. Partnerships with educational institutions can also help create pathways for women to enter the field.”
Hanna: “Provide female role models to ensure that there are advocates and mentors at all levels in the business so that women can see themselves in these roles and be inspired. At Jaywing we’re lucky enough to have an amazing female MD who is a brilliant people leader but can also roll her sleeves up to support at all levels. Get involved early in the careers of young females by inviting them to partake in things like hackathons where they can use their skills to solve real world data issues.
“Review business decisions from multiple perspectives by going out of your way to gather opinions from a fair mix of people, don’t just listen to those who shout the loudest. Read ‘Invisible Women’ and get angry about it! And then do something about it.”
Katie: “By making students more aware of the different careers involving data science – it is not all about coding – it’s also about analysis, designing experiments, proving or disproving theories, and telling stories that provide insight and actions.”
Question: What actions are Jaywing taking around recruiting, retaining, and developing female talent?
Catherine: “It’s important to be transparent about family friendly policies including enhanced maternity leave (which we offer at Jaywing), during the recruitment process. Women shouldn’t have to seek out the information during the interview process, it should be upfront and transparent in the job advertisement.
“Flexible working doesn’t just mean part-time; it means empowering women to flex and prioritise – that could look like doing the school run some days and starting slightly later or working from home to be closer to childcare. It's important to create a supportive environment for employees managing both career and family responsibilities.
“Similarly, we’ve added additional benefits in the last twelve months such as leave around fertility treatment and baby loss which have been received well. Everyone should be given the time off that they need whilst still being given a fair opportunity to succeed. It was one of the many reasons behind our recent Great Place to Work certification.”
Karen: “A focus on diversity and inclusion should be embedded in recruitment processes. This includes actively seeking out and promoting diverse talent, providing mentorship programs, and creating a supportive work environment. Regularly evaluating and addressing any gender disparities in pay and promotions is essential for retaining and developing female talent within our business and across the industry.”
Hanna: “Jaywing do a lot in accommodating the additional considerations women face in the workplace. Additional benefits such as leave around fertility treatment and baby loss have really gone down well. The fact you can have the time off that you need whilst still being given fair opportunity to succeed was one of the many reasons behind our recent best places to work accreditation.
“I will never forget, my line manager several years ago approached me and increased my pay very slightly. They had realised I was being paid slightly less than my male peers on the team although there was no difference in our responsibilities. It was a small but incredibly meaningful gesture that showed me the business took equality seriously without the need to prompt them.”
Katie: “It starts at the recruitment and interview stage – we should always make sure we are being fair and not letting unconscious bias influence our choice of candidates. I don’t necessarily agree with female-only shortlists, or prioritising females but we should make sure we don’t accidentally de-prioritise women, by making sure we always have at least one woman from Jaywing doing the interviews or assessments. I also find it interesting how language can potentially deter candidates from applying – if a job spec has a huge checklist of requirements, women are more likely to think “well I can’t tick all of those boxes, so I won’t apply”, when we are only looking for a few of those skills, not all of them.”