Supporting and promoting the great work of Women in Data to improve equality in data & tech

The core objective of this role is to establish and grow a data practice within the Genius Sports Group. The responsibility of this practice is both to deliver analytical insights to the business while creating a new data platform and supporting business processes to democratise data. This role is tasked with the strategic transformation of how data is used in Genius Sports.Key Achievements:- Building out teams and capabilities - Over two years I grew the Data and Analytics group headcount from 4 to 22 and split a single BI team into multiple teams with specific focus, including: Enterprise BI, Data Engineering, DataOps, Data Business Partners and Data Management.- Implementation of new data platform - Drove the modernisation of the Genius Data Platform using cloud native technologies including Snowflake, Power BI, Dbt, Databricks and Fivetran. This new platform has significantly reduced the time to insight while increasing the number of people using the Genius reporting platform from 50 to over 700 monthly active users.- Introduction of Data Stewardship and a Data Catalogue - Data Stewards now exist in each team across the business. These Data Stewards are accountable for the data owned by that domain and are responsible for ensuring that it is fully defined in the Data Catalogue. This ensures that all key data points within the business are searchable and also have a point of contact - Creation of customer facing reporting portal - The Genius BI Portal was created to improve data sharing with customers and extended the functionality of Power BI to customers and partners including Draftkings, Bet365 and the NFL. This portal is now treated as a product with a roadmap for planned features including a content recommendation system driven by machine learning.

Leading the data team responsible for the loading, security and storage of all data. Managing a cross functional team of data professionals, improving working efficiency through the implementation of agile methodologies within the team. Working with business leaders to develop the optimal data strategy based on the current and future requirements of the product teams as well as the strategic goals of the business. Maintain an executive presence, working alongside C-Level and aboveKey responsibilities • Management and ownership of all data within Kurtosys• Promoting the data strategy of the technology team to the wider company• Team leadership• Vendor management • Technical and non-technical mentoringSuccesses• Talend to SSIS platform migration – The goal of this project was to migrate the current Talend based ETL platform to a new platform build on Microsoft SSIS. The migration was highly complex due to the number of different data loading applications involved as well as the legacy nature of many of the implementations. The culmination of this project will have a significant impact upon the operating costs of our platforms.• Implementation of data DR strategy – Pioneered the use of Microsoft Azure Site Replication to offer a reliable, low-cost approach to disaster recovery. The Data team has led the way in terms of planning and DR operations.• Advanced planning and resource forecasting – The Data team have adapted Agile methodologies to ensure that our delivery process is consistent and predictable. One personal innovation is the creation of a quarterly tear down session where we plan the work that will be delivered in the approaching quarter. This session allows the whole team visibility on what we will be working on as well as the ability to effectively plan out cross team dependencies. Since their inception, these tear down sessions have been fully adopted by the team and have evolved into the cornerstone of our planning process.

Leading the design and development of a new data storage system for high volume, semi structured financial data. My primary tasks were focussed on the development of the storage schema but I also work heavily on the implementation of a caching layer and the ingestion of data into the system.• Working with the business leaders to understand and gather requirements for enhancements and new functionality.• Ensuring the quality and consistency of all database code and developing solutions to revolutionise the deployment process within the company.• Leading a team of data professionals ensuring the quality of their work and promoting the transfer of skills.Successes:• Developed the Unified Data Model schema at the core of our new platform. The role of this schema was to collect the various different types of financial data that our clients send us and organise it in a uniform and efficient way.• Used a number of different database technologies to ensure that our data was not only consistent but delivered to the end user as quickly as possible. An in-memory database was used as a read-only caching layer to ensure that query response times remained in the millisecond scale regardless of the load on the system.• Implemented a Continuous Integration system for all of our SQL Server databases. Database code was only ever changed in development databases, before being checked into source control. At this point a new database was automatically created by our build system and the unit tests were run. Successful builds were then versioned and deployed out to our integration environment. This allows us to fully version all database changes and ensure that all further deployments were 100% codeless.• During my time at Kurtosys I have lead a team of data professionals and overseen all aspects of our data layer. This has given me a wealth of experience in managing people and have been enormously rewarding.

Working with software development teams and head of product and strategy in an Agile development environment, contributed to the development of a new data model to support the creation of a new platform and oversaw its implementation. Key responsibilities • Create and manage application persistence and metadata layers• Create and manage client data models for product applications• Manage source code and deploy database changes in conduction with software applications• Creating database logic and procedures to support software and API development• Refactor and devise new database features based on product development strategies• Support implementation teams, train and educate other database users on best practice and new developmentSuccesses• Implementation of Unified Data Model across Kurtosys• Worked with cutting edge No SQL database platforms to provide industry leading performance • Expanded the role of data professionals within Kurtosys which lead to eventual creation of a dedicated Data Team

My responsibilities at Cisco gave me a global reach providing efficient, secure and robust solutions to many different aspects of the business. I worked on a number of projects from design to delivery as well as supporting and improving existing systems. • The design and implement database solutions with either a global or regional reach. • Provide consultative services to business units looking to implement solutions to business problems. • Take responsibility for the enhancement and maintenance of existing systems. • Work with other business units to ensure that knowledge and skills are passed on.Successes:• I was part of a small team that developed a brand new web application for processing the salary increases and bonuses of all the employees across the globe. My role was to architect the database and data access layer of the system. Our team delivered an efficient and secure system that was globally recognized for its ease of use and earned us a nomination for a CEO Award.• I was again part of a team tasked to design a system for handling a vast number of orders from a new client. This system was used by a client outside of our corporate network and was able to communicate with our internal ERP in a secure and efficient manner. My work on this project earned me a number of awards.• Tasked with troubleshooting performance problems within the company's implementation of IBM ClearQuest. I was able to not only make huge performance gains in troublesome areas but to do so in a way that was separate to the core system, this saved large amounts of time when testing new versions of the application. • In my time at Cisco I expanded outside of my original role to become the first point of contact for database related questions. I was in regular contact with IT teams across all regions working to provide secure and robust data solutions.

My day to day administrative duties included owning the full backup and data loading processes, performance monitoring and security. I was also tasked with the development of new database architecture for both internal and external projects as well as managing the on-going development and optimisation of existing database objects.Maintaining onsite, co-location and off shore databases. Replication is used extensively to propagate data; one of my primary roles is to ensure the consistency of this data. Develop and maintain maintenance plans, disaster recovery models and failover systems.Working with web developers to roll out new client requirements. Developing automated load and processing systems using SSIS.Performance tuning on problem databases.Successes:• Using a hashing algorithm and a high level of indexing, I was able to reduce the runtime by 90% for client data string matching over a 25+ million record dataset. This allowed us to move away from overnight processing and model the data in real time further allowing the company to scale its client handling capacity and revenues.• Using SSIS to replicate data to off shore servers using CSV Data files and an SFTP. Standard replication topologies were discounted due to network security and access issues. With this in mind, I developed two packages that worked in unison to collate the days changes, encrypt the data, export the data to a number of CSV files and then upload those files using the clients SFTP client. • I regularly succeeded in automating many of the day to day repetitive tasks performed around my role within the company freeing my time up to take on additional projects and further expand my responsibilities.

Developing solutions to client’s functionality requests using T-SQL to augment or replace existing stored procedures, functions, views and triggers.Maintaining onsite and remote databases including performance improvements.Setting up maintenance plans, managing upgrades, backing up and restoring processes many involving highly available databases.Working with other developers and clients to provide efficient solutions to large projects. Providing exposure to the .NET Framework, C#, XML and Crystal Reports. Testing our application and databases compatibility with new versions on MS SQL and existing functionality such as mirroring and replication.Providing third line support to clients, several of whom had already formed strong bonds with me while I worked on first line support in my previous role. Successes: • Selected for fast track promotion and training. • Developing new support packages aimed at database administration, which were monetised by the company as part of an on-going revenue stream. • Personally selected to be part of a team involved with two large development projects to customise our product for two of the biggest recruitment companies in the UK. • Regular requests by clients for my attendance personally on-site support during new implementations.