“The most exciting time in my career is right now.”

The Dawn of First Direct: Pioneering Customer-Centric Banking

I started working at First Direct when it had just opened.  It was an exciting time, but not without its challenges.  Looking back at how much it changed the banking industry makes it clear just how far it was ahead of its time. 

The most visible thing being the fact that it was a bank which has never closed since it opened in 1989 (at a time when most banks shut at 3.30 and were completely absent at weekends), but to my mind the really revolutionary thing about First Direct was the fact that the whole business, including the IT systems, were built around the customer. 

I still talk to businesses today 35 years later who struggle to get beyond an account or transaction-based view and still haven’t delivered a complete view of customer information to drive a great customer experience. 

In my opinion that is one of the key reasons why First Direct always had customer satisfaction ratings far above any other financial organisation (of course delivered by excellent banking representatives which was another key ingredient). 

I worked in the Information Management area, and we delivered ground-breaking models and systems which put most lending decision in the hands of front-line call centre staff which meant quick decisions and immediate access to the credit granted and saved lengthy wait times being transferred to specialist teams for most people. 

Jaywing's Early Days: Bringing Data Science to Marketing

I moved to Jaywing in 2000 as employee number four, behind the original founders (Andy Gardner and Martin Boddy) and Nick Sime who is still a colleague at Jaywing today.  We wanted to bring data science and modelling to clients across a wide range of sectors where the techniques were largely not being used across both marketing, fraud and risk. 

We’re still doing that today, even though just about everything has changed more than we could ever have imagined it would have done.

In the early days of the company, we were always running up against the limitations of data and software, but we were still able to use data insight and modelling to inform, power and measure across a wide range of disciplines. 

Initially this might be delivering targeting to make direct mail campaigns more efficient, but the digital landscape was changing fast, and the growth of search engines and later social media brought fantastic opportunities for us to use our data skills and statistical approaches to deliver improved performance across paid and organic for our clients. 

The Digital Revolution: Adapting to a Changing Landscape

It's not just the digital marketing landscape which was changing either.

More and more organisations were realising that using data was a great opportunity for them. At the same time data processing power was increasing exponentially (pretty much following Moore’s Law) and bigger datasets became available along with the capability to process them. This in turn led to advances in mathematical techniques too.

In 2017 we developed our first AI model using a deep-learning neural network, a technique we still use for most of our modelling these days. Because we deliver models in regulated areas explainability was a key requirement as well, so we developed ground-breaking modelling software called Archetype which allows the creation of powerful deep learning models without writing code and delivered model explainability before it became widely available. 

AI and Deep Learning: Pushing the Boundaries of Modelling

But everything was about to change again. Out of the public eye Google published a paper announcing the transformer architecture which was followed by huge investment from the tech giants to develop powerful large language models. 

Then in November 2022 Open AI’s Chat GPT burst onto the scene to quickly become the most downloaded app in history. This ushered in a new era of generative AI which the business world is still coming to terms with and working out how to use.

The language models are fantastically powerful technologies which are improving all the time, and they can be applied to a massive range of use cases. So much so in fact that it can be a bit daunting to make sense of it all and develop the applications which provide the most benefit, especially as many of the skillsets needed to do this are in their infancy.   

Accelerator Lab: Driving Innovation at Jaywing

That’s why we launched the Accelerator Lab at Jaywing.

It brings together our data management and modelling experts with our brilliant innovation team and connects them to our domain experts in creative and media who are on the front-line delivering great marketing solutions to our clients. 

These cross-functional teams are the best way to use the fantastic new technology available to deliver innovations which directly deliver improved marketing performance. 

I feel privileged to have been given the role of leader of the Accelerator Labs meaning I work with these talented experts on a daily basis. The work is often complex and always challenging but some of the breakthroughs we’ve made I’d scarcely have thought possible a few short years ago.  

Reflections on a Career in Data and Marketing

That’s why I think the most exciting time in my career is right now.

The opportunity to use data and technology to transform customer experiences and drive better marketing outcomes has never been greater. Not only that, but generative AI is empowering people in the workplace to be able to achieve much more whilst automating routine tasks and being more efficient. 

We delivered an internal masterclass in the use of generative AI to try and promote its safe usage for a wider number of things across every department in the business. Since we’ve done it I’ve been amazed by the ingenuity of people in all departments to use it so effectively for a wide variety of tasks.  The technology is fantastic, but it’s the way our domain experts are using it which impresses me even more.

I’ve seen so much change in my career, and especially in my 25 years at Jaywing; not only that but the pace of change is speeding up rather than slowing down.

The media often focus on the negative aspects of it and the threats it poses; change can be difficult to embrace, and some people can feel threatened by it. But I can only focus on the opportunities which are becoming available to us.

The barriers to deliver great products and services which are truly personalised are being removed whilst our ability to deliver more effective marketing to target audiences is growing even faster than the ever-increasing complexity of the media landscape.

It’s a brave new world out there and I feel so fortunate to work with such a talented group of people who are pushing the boundaries on what is possible.