Samuel Richmond

An enthusiastic and dedicated professional with experience of enabling global organisations to realise their data dividend. Commercially aware and business focused with a track record in building successful data strategies, departments, platforms and teams from the ground up. A focused and confident leader with a strong work ethic and friendly approach.

Go-Ahead Group Head of Data September 2022– Present

Responsibilities

● Data Strategy:

○ Accountable for budgeting, development and implementation of all strategic data initiatives across the

Group.

● Team Leadership:

○ Forming, growing and developing a highly capable and collaborative data team.

● Technical Leadership:

○ Owning the strategy, development, service continuity and budget for all Group data platforms. (Azure - Data

Factory, Databricks, Data Lake Storage, Snowflake, Synapse, Power BI)

● Agile Programme & Portfolio Management:

○ The formulation and roadmap prioritisation of all business data initiatives. (Answering to and being a key part of the Group Data Steering Committee)

Achievements

● CEO’s award 2022 (jointly with the IT Leadership Team) Successfully led communication and recovery activities from a data perspective in the wake of a critical cyber incident, posing a significant risk to the continuation of business operations.

● Built a high-performing data team and prioritised delivery roadmap providing value across Engineering, Operations,

Commercial, Finance departments in alignment with business strategy.

● Developed a value driven data strategy, aligned with business & IT strategy for the Group, backed by the Data

Steering Committee and Group Executive Committee.

● Repaired and built strong relationships with senior stakeholders across the Group, following years of challenges and lack of trust.

● Developing a strategy, roadmap and business case for simplifying, standardising and transforming data activities across the group with over £2m in savings and cost avoidance.

● Reduced the time to deliver data solutions by 46% on average through more efficient ways of working.

● Reduced monthly cloud data platform costs by 32%.

● Led the team to understand and address 100’s of historical bugs, significantly improving data pipeline reliability.

(From 33.6% to 99.1% on average)

BA Business Management & Information Technology