Announcing the Top 25 Analytics Leaders for 2021

At a black tie virtual event on the evening of 16 June, IAPA announced the 25 people at the top of analytics leadership in Australia as part of the IAPA 2021 Top 25 Analytics Leaders program.

“This is the most diverse set of entrants we have ever seen in the Top 25 Analytics Leaders. We are encouraged that the industry is so robust and represented by an incredible range of talent in Australia,” stated Annette Slunjski, Managing Director, IAPA. “This is the first time we have seen someone from the legal profession enter into our top 10 and we are excited that we are broadening the recognition of data analytics in this country.”

While there is a widely known gender imbalance in the industry, 40 percent of the top ten are women, encouraging Slunjski that Australian businesses are well positioned to navigate key industry issues of bias and ethics.

“With a spotlight on advanced analytics techniques like machine learning and AI, it’s important for analytics teams to have strong governance and ethics guidance but it’s impossible to discuss bias and ethics without discussing diversity and having diverse teams in the discussion. Forty percent is encouraging but we still need more women and more diversity in analytics teams,” noted Slunjski.

The number one ranked analytics leader for 2021 is Lionel Kho, Vice President, Data and Analytics, Dentsu International.  (pictured below)Within the Dentsu business transformation program, Lionel demonstrated the value analytics added to the renewed organisation, c-suite and clients – expanding the data and analytics service in the face of covid.  

“Lionel’s ability to deeply understand organisation strategy, influence leadership and embed a new way of working with the business is what the Top 25 program is all about – analytics adding real ROI to organisations,” stated Slunjski.

Lionel commented that, “It is truly an honour to be so highly recognised by a judging panel of my peers, and IAPA in 2021. Data practitioners are now being elevated to C-Suite positions and creating an organisational culture for data practitioners to thrive is paramount, and I am proud to play an active role in this work at Dentsu. Furthermore, as a person of colour, I hope my own recognition…inspires young data and analytics practitioners from a wide cross section of our community, and I will use this opportunity to continue to advocate for cultural diversity in executive leadership in corporate Australia.”

2021’s number two ranked analytics leader is Virginia Wheway, Vice President, Data and Analytics, koala, a brand synonymous with online only furniture. Virginia’s diverse experience over the judging period included leadership of data projects for billion-dollar outcomes, delivering predictive analytics benefits to operations, and identifying additional online revenue flows during covid.

Virginia says that “It's an honour to be recognised as one of Australia's top analytics leaders, it's a role and profession I've been passionate about for over 30 years.

I have been supported in developing and deploying koala's first data and analytics strategy, as well as being an analytics change agent - it is refreshing for me working in a such a fast paced environment with such a thirst for using data and analytics as koala moves from start-up to scale-up, whilst also being able to have analytics contribute to that awesome customer experience it is known for.”

Rounding out the top five analytics leaders are Brad Petry, Executive Director, technology and Insights, Department of Jobs, Precincts and Regions; Alex Antic, Head of Data Science, Australian National University and Sally Smith, Head of People Analytics at National Australia Bank. .

The 2021 cohort of top 25 leaders in analytics represents a range of industries including government, education, banking, retail and agencies.

Judged by a panel of leading analytics and business leaders, the 2021 IAPA Top 25 Analytics Leaders recognises excellence in four key areas strategy and impact; influence and advocacy; innovation and improvement; and team growth and leadership. The top ten for 2021 are as follows: 

  1. Lionel Kho, Vice President, Data & Analytics, Dentsu International
  2. Virginia Wheway, VP, Data and Analytics, Koala
  3. Brad Petry, Executive Director, Technology and Insights, Department of Jobs, Precincts and Regions
  4. Alex Antic, Head of Data Science, Australian National University
  5. Sally Smith, Head of People Analytics, National Australia Bank
  6. Karthik Venkatasubramanian, Vice President, Data and Analytics, Oracle
  7. Shaheen Saud, Head of Data and Analytics, MinterEllison
  8. Lisa Marchant, Head of Communications Transformation, NAB
  9. Nonna Milmeister, CDAO, RMIT
  10. Andrew Woods, Strategic Analytics Manager, Sydney Water

The full cohort of 25 appears below in alphabetical order.

The IAPA 2021 Top 25 Analytics Leaders program is proudly sponsored by Sisense and Zetaris

“The future of analytics is moving to more AI-driven insights that provide actionable intelligence to everyone, regardless of title or skillset,” said Eyal Mekler, Regional Vice President of Asia Pac at Sisense. “We believe it’s about providing a flexible, customizable and extensible platform to build solutions customers need to make analytics more approachable and enable faster, better decisions at the right time, every time.”

 

The IAPA Top 25 Analytics Leaders for 2021

In alphabetic order by surname:

  • Alex Antic, Head of Data Science, Australian National University
  • Jolie Baasch, General Manager, New Business and Information Services,  NSW Land Registry Services
  • Arnie Bhattacharya, Chief Analytics Officer & Vice-President of Data, Infomedia Ltd
  • Edwin Camilleri, Senior Data Scientist, Wesfarmers
  • Vishal Kapoor, Head of Innovation, Prospection 
  • Duhita Khadepau, Director-Analytics and Data Science, Assignar
  • Lionel Kho, Vice President, Data & Analytics, Dentsu International
  • Kerri Lam, Analytics Lead, Wesfarmers
  • Catherine Lopes, Head of Data Strategy & Analytics, ME Bank
  • Jeremiah Mannings, Associate Director Data Science, Capgemini Invent
  • Lisa Marchant, Head of Communications Transformation, NAB
  • Dave Massage, Director, Data & Analytics - Strategy, Growth & Digital, KPMG
  • Nonna Milmeister, CDAO, RMIT
  • Dominic O'Halloran, Analytics Lead, Wesfarmers
  • Brad Petry, Executive Director, Technology and Insights, Department of Jobs, Precincts and Regions
  • Kshira Saagar, Chief Data Officer, Latitude Financial Services
  • Kay Salcedo, Head of Analytics & Optimisation, Coles
  • Shaheen Saud, Head of Data and Analytics, MinterEllison
  • Romina Sharifpour, AI/ML Specialist Solutions Architect, Amazon Web Services
  • Sally Smith, Head of People Analytics, National Australia Bank
  • Raymond Tse, Head of Data Science, Tabcorp
  • Karthik Venkatasubramanian, Vice President, Data and Analytics, Oracle
  • Virginia Wheway, VP, Data and Analytics, Koala
  • Andrew Woods, Strategic Analytics Manager, Sydney Water
  • Ben Yi, Head of Analytics, Prospection

From the virtual black tie Announcement Event

IAPA Top 25 Analytics Leaders is proudly sponsored by Sisense

Sisense goes beyond traditional business intelligence by providing organizations with the ability to infuse analytics everywhere, embedded in both customer and employee applications and workflows. Sisense empowers businesses to act on their data at the right time, every time with Sisense Fusion -  the highly customizable, AI-driven analytics cloud platform. For more information, visit sisense.com.

IAPA Top 25 Analytics Leaders is proudly sponsored by Zetaris

Zetaris provides a unique, world-leading analytical data virtualization solution that massively simplifies and expedites data platform building, governance, and data access across the enterprise. Using Zetaris, organizations can create a single view of all their enterprise data, in the cloud or on-premise, instantly, through a simple point and click data layer software interface. There is no longer a need for expensive data preparation or monolithic data platforms. Organizations building data mart, data warehouse, and cloud database solutions will be able to accelerate their development time tenfold while dramatically reducing their cloud usage costs. Find out more about Zetaris.