Worldwide, IT teams took on the job of guaranteeing company continuity, reacting to the abrupt catastrophe quickly and nimbly. Organizations changed to remote working almost instantly, and all corporate transactions were conducted electronically or online, compressing the years-long digital transformation programmes into a few hectic weeks. The executive committee’s IT staff gained many allies and new advocates for their quick responses to operational difficulties, such as quickly expanding network capacity, modernizing security, introducing new platforms, and guaranteeing the reliability of systems.
Tim Conroy is the Chief Technology Officer Decision Analytics at Experian UK&I. He has successfully worked in the IT business for more than 25 years in a number of leadership and transformation roles. Through industrializing operational procedures, fostering skills development within the workforce, and motivating teams to provide customers with excellence, he is accountable for promoting Digital Applications solutions as market-relevant and guaranteeing optimal delivery of these solutions.
Tim’s main role at Experian is to create, inspire, and encourage a team of talented individuals to operate seamlessly as a unit to provide exceptional customer outcomes.
Outside of people, Tim’s responsibilities at a high level are to set the direction for Technology and Delivery, alongside full accountability for the delivery of the Technology Vision. His job is to bring the vision to life for a 400+ FTE technology and delivery organisation that includes a wide array of technologists and delivery resources spanning multiple countries, providing direction and inspiration within a high performing environment.
He states, “If you have a highly engaged workforce who buy into the culture that your company and you believe in, it’s amazing how the rest is actually easier to solve. You create an operating rhythm where everything is achievable.” He further adds that in terms of pure business success, ultimately, it’s all about delivering against the business objectives, obsessing about the client experience and delivery performance.
Tim’s primary competencies are managing all stakeholders effectively, implementing organizational change at a large scale, and utilizing resources to solve complicated problems.
The Journey
Tim sums up his journey in two words: complex and fortunate. Complex in that he was part of a mixed-race adoption in 1972—fortunate, because he was part of a mixed-race adoption in 1972. He recalls, “There were plenty of ups and downs, but those experiences fundamentally defined who I am today, which I hope is seen as someone very normal, trying to do their best in the right way whilst seeing all as equal.”
Tim took a possibly unconventional path to get where he is today. After spending seven years in the City of Sheffield, England, studying civil engineering and construction management, he took the less obvious step of joining the UK’s largest postal service as a graduate software developer. Tim focused on Cobol, CICS, and DB2. Tim explained to his parents that it was a deliberate choice and that the similarities between construction and information technology, both of which involve the creation of a product, were obvious. However, the underlying motivation was that he wanted to keep playing football for the neighbourhood team. Tim states, “I spent 2 years coding, and actually realised I wasn’t the best but had been told by a number that I managed to create an environment where people worked well together, so purely by chance, I did a role swap with the then team leader who wanted to go back to being technical, and with that, so began the obsession with working with Tech Teams.”
Tim spent a total of seven years working for the Postal Service before becoming a part of the significant outsourcing to CSC. Tim was lucky to be given his first significant managerial position there in 2003, and he hasn’t really looked back since. However, the point of fascination remained technology and watching an idea become a reality, so that’s where he continues to operate today, with Experian, which he joined in 2019 and operates as CTO of the UK Decision Analytics Business. He actively sought out leadership roles across a variety of domains because he wanted to understand the pressures across the entire supply chain: sales, technology, delivery, operations.
Joining Experian UK&I
Experian is a global organization of 20,000 people across 44 countries, comprising 94 nationalities and spanning five generations. Its mission is to unlock the power of data to create opportunities for people, businesses, and society. The firm’s strategy is to improve financial health for all through its core products, social innovation, and community investment schemes. As Tim states, “By investing in our people, technology, and innovation, Experian responsibly harnesses data to transform businesses, help communities prosper, and enable people to thrive.”
Tim joined because of Experian’s passion to do the right thing and bring financial equality to all, coupled with a unique and unwavering focus on culture. Combing the two meant his move from the SI world into financial services was a no-brainer.
Major services offered by Experian UK&I
Experian’s Decision Analytics division comprises of decisioning tools, Identity & Fraud, and Analytics, all of which assist their clients in providing for both potential and current end users. From the economic climate to the legal and regulatory framework, from corporate operations to competitive problems, the market as a whole is complicated. Utilizing the firm’s toolkit and the knowledge of our employees that work in decision analytics day in and day out, the team assists in transforming complicated circumstances into confident conclusions. The group minimizes fraud losses while fostering and defending trustworthy relationships with customers and enterprises. Additionally, it aids in risk assessment and assists businesses in entering new markets safely while confidently adhering to current regulatory and compliance standards.
Passion for the Sector
Tim was drawn to the information technology industry because he could take a notion or vision and work with individuals who could make it a reality. There have been many hurdles, but attempting to deviate from the paradigm of a traditional leader in a corporate company was arguably the toughest one he encountered. His main piece of advice to everyone is to be authentic and laser-focused on your most valuable resource: other people. Tim works in technology, but technology is only technology without a fantastic team to transform it into a product the market wants.
People often enquire “how did you manage to succeed?” “When did it click for you?” “What happened?” and all Tim can reply is “it’s a time thing.” It came with a combination of self-assurance, an awareness of his people skills, and a genuine understanding that your greatest asset will always be the people you work with. Take care of them, and the rest really does take care of itself.
Keeping Vision Align
Tim believes that having a highly engaged staff that embraces the culture that your business and you believe in makes the rest of the problems seem less difficult to resolve. It indicates that the business has established a workflow pattern where anything is doable. In terms of pure commercial success, meeting corporate objectives while stressing customer satisfaction and service quality is ultimately what counts.
Advice for the next generation of IT visionaries
Tim believes in a world where the tech industry continues to grow, it’s crucial that one’s leadership style sets him or her apart from the many. He suggests, “Be passionate about what you do, be driven to succeed, and believe in your cause, and don’t take any knockbacks personally.” He further adds that things don’t always go to plan, but it doesn’t matter, bounce back. He adds, “If you can master this, then I personally believe that you have every opportunity to succeed in such a way that you will be one of the industry’s unique and authentic leaders.”
Due to the pace of technological advancement and the increased global reach that social media platforms are providing, he also thinks that there has never been a better time to be a tech leader. He advises aspiring tech leaders to surround themselves with excellent people, work hard, and seize the opportunity with both hands.
Scott Hardiman
Managing Director Decisioning Software and Analytics
With 15+ years’ experience in commercial, sales, and business management roles, Scott Hardiman has substantial commercial expertise in the technology business, having shaped, negotiated, and delivered outsourcing and system integration contracts. He has worked with a variety of clients, including those in the financial services, public sector, networking/communications, and quick-moving consumer goods industries.
Ahead of Competition
Scott and team Experian have always believed that data has the potential to transform lives and create a better tomorrow. But to do this, data needs to be understood, interpreted and acted on. So, fundamentally, that’s the focus of the company’s innovation and investment.
He states, “Everything we do is about helping organisations unlock the opportunities data holds as simply as possible, so they can serve their customers and grow as sustainable businesses. We do this by investing in digital platforms that give lenders not just data but also analytics and models that provide actionable insight and foresight fast.” Critically, the team concentrates on how to use this in practise. When placed into production, it is usable and scalable. It sounds straightforward, yet usability and utility are sometimes overlooked.
For Scott, problem-solving is just as important to innovation as data and analytics.
He genuinely thinks Experian is setting the bar for innovation in the sector. And the reason for that is that it has a strong cultural foundation. He shares, “Our company was founded on the fundamental belief that we can use data, analytics, and software to deliver fairer, more accurate, and faster decisions to clients and consumers. This ethos still underpins innovation at Experian today.”
The awards Experian has won in recent years reflect this. It is a Forbes top-100 innovator, a FinTech Breakthrough Awards winner for best consumer lending product, and its DataLabs have been recognised in the top tech awards honouring innovative technology executives.
Contributing to Constant Progress
Scott’s job is primarily concerned with the ongoing advancement of technology and analytics. He is in charge of groups of data scientists, technologists, and industry professionals who are pushing innovation and looking into how the company’s solutions may address client and consumer issues throughout the lending, management, and collections lifecycles. His team is concentrating on utilising data to derive business value, followed by minimising deployment complexity to enable industry-leading benefit realisation at scale and velocity.
Scott sees his role as an enabler. In the last few years, he has ensured that the company actively invests in its people to support their development. He finds, “There’s a real challenge in technology and analytics to stay relevant and to make sure your people are continuously learning new skills.” He further adds, “But thanks to our innovation strategy, this is something I believe we’re managing very well and that’s why we’re seeing the results in our products and services.”
Expert View
Machine learning that’s instantly deployable through our decisioning software, allows lenders to create models and scenarios in real time, so they can make fast, fair, confident lending decisions – increasingly with less and less manual input. It’s all about understanding customers, ensuring they have access to the right products at the right rate, quickly, while also minimising risk. Giving the current pressures many consumers face with the rising cost of living, helping people in this way is what drives us.
Specific innovations include Boost, which helps consumers improve their credit profiles and ultimately get access to the credit they deserve. From a lender’s view, it adds significant value through its ability to increase the number of people they can accept, while also reducing bad-debt rates. Ultimately, it is machine learning that powers these capabilities. The reality is that we have used machine learning to power our capabilities for decades – in fraud, scoring, models and wider. More practically, to enable new channels such as chatbots and more. Today, new ML techniques, languages, and technologies simply offer us the opportunity to do that in new ways, to create new value. But critically, it also enables us to ensure decisions are fair, explainable and controllable. These are often barriers to adoption.
Approach towards Innovation
Scott argues that in order to develop and co-create, Experian has always aggressively collaborated with industry, whether it be regulators, clients, or partners. Additionally, it collaborates with customers to examine economic and credit market trends in order to pinpoint any potential demands. That was especially crucial in the recent years via Covid. He shares, “We quickly pivoted our innovation agenda during the pandemic to support our clients and consumer audiences. Not only did we offer new, valuable services such as access to free credit reports, but we also enhanced our models with new data and analytics to give lenders greater confidence and provide better customer outcomes. The impact was really inspiring.”
Learnings during the Career
Scott has had many roles during his career. He started as an engineer, but changed tack in his early career to primarily lead commercial strategy. Despite this change, he often looks back at basic engineering principles by asking himself if he understands the problem. He adds, “If so, do I have enough data or experience to inform solutions? If the answer’s no, the task is probably a distraction until I do.”
Although it is challenging to implement in practice, Scott truly believes success comes from ruthless prioritisation. This doesn’t always make him popular, but it differentiates busy leaders who deliver inputs or progress actions, from outstanding, highly effective leaders who deliver business outcomes. He asserts, “This approach requires self-belief and, at times, having the courage to stand by your convictions when you have the data or experience to back them up.”
For Scott, the greatest engineers deliver amazing outcomes by removing complexity, which is something he seeks to do every day. He recalls, “As I’ve progressed in my career, I’ve learned that I’m only as good as my team. This is something that took me several years to really understand, but today it is my number one focus. I’ve learned to build teams with diverse skills and experience and to actively encourage constructive challenge, but above all, to ensure that I’ve got the best talent working on the biggest problems.” His advice for aspiring CTOs is:
- Simplify, simplify, simplify!
- Focus on the business outcome you want, and quickly decide whether you really understand the problem and have the inputs to solve it.
- Create the optimal team and culture to solve the problem.
- Be honest with yourself regarding talent and technology, and don’t avoid difficult conversations if change in either is required.
Eduardo Castro
Managing Director, Identity & Fraud
Due to the trainee programme in Brazil, Eduardo Castro joined Experian in 2011. He has since held positions in a variety of divisions, including finance, strategic planning, and most recently product management. He relocated to London in 2020 to assume the position of Managing Director of Identity and Fraud in the UK, leaving Sao Paolo.
Offerings
As Eduardo sees it, clients are at the centre of everything the team does at Experian. It constantly strives to work with the customers to ensure its services are best suited to their needs. He says, “We value their input and strive to ensure it goes back into our innovation, ensuring we’re best innovating and delivering what they need.”
In order to directly assure that its innovation is in line with customer needs, the Experian team has improved its client interaction strategy and now uses Think Tanks, Advisory Boards, and User Groups. Eduardo reveals that the management team regularly hosts a CRO Summit to remain on top of market demands. Recently, the team even brought clients to Parliament to meet with regulators face-to-face. Both the clients and ourselves profit from it. These client groups value the group conversation to help address shared market concerns and have an opportunity to hear from their colleagues in the market as well as Experian, particularly in fraud, where they are battling a common enemy.
Eduardo states that Experian has enhanced its client service by creating a dedicated Customer Success team whose goal is to foster client involvement, collaboration, and continual development. This is a crucial position since they work closely with clients to update existing fraud rules, enhance performance, increase operational reporting visibility, and support team training. He adds, “Think of a fraud risk engine like a car. Regular maintenance is necessary to keep it running smoothly. And our Customer Success team provides that ongoing tune-up to fraud rules to keep pace with fraudsters.”
He also mentions that there isn’t one specific thing that sums up the firm’s client experience. But by putting the client in the centre, and engaging with them at every stage, the team ensures they are delivering the best client experience they can, and that’s what Eduardo expects of himself and his team.
View on Organization’s Strategy
“Our clients need to make accurate decisions on customers, hundreds, thousands, even millions of times a day. Through data, analytics, and technology, we enable clients to do so in a way that’s quicker and more convenient, and in line with the expectations of today’s digital-first consumer,” says Eduardo.
He further adds that the help Experian’s clients recognise true identities to establish relationships with legitimate customers. And it helps keep fraudsters out with products designed to help detect, monitor and assess the risk of fraud. He asserts, “We use machine learning to augment traditional fraud scores and provide fraud teams the ability to reduce the time spent on manual reviews. We are actively investing across our solutions, using our vast array of customer data to deliver an effective set of solutions across the entire consumer journey, from onboarding, through in-life fraud management, and account takeover. It’s our ability to provide the components alongside the sophistication which not only reduces manual processes but offers the ability for firms to accelerate their immediate strategies to prevent and detect fraud in real-time, and critically verify identities on any channel.”
Experian products are changing and modernising to keep pace with new regulations and new consumer demands. As the leader in the industry, it serves hundreds of thousands of organisations in more than 40 countries, from small start-up businesses to multi-nationals and governments. The team of technologists and data scientists work collaboratively with clients, listening to them, identifying problems and then helping find the best solutions for their needs. Eduardo opines, “No one else has the data, expertise, and technology.”
Working to Bringing Collaborative Commitment Across the Sector
While Eduardo thinks the team and the company made progress, he does think as an industry and as a product organisation, Experian needs to move faster to meet the challenges ahead. He says, “Fraudsters are fast. They are agile and not held to the same processes, regulations and establishments that organisations adhere to. To that end, we need to move quicker. As fraud fighters, we need to be more agile.” He also believes that the team needs to be able to respond to market problems, client input and solve these challenges faster.
Experian thinks one way the world can continue to fight fraud is encourage more data sharing and develop an ecosystem of fraud and identity data. People need to be collaborative, across sectors and industries, and even across competition. He states, “We’re all fighting the same challenge, and by creating a network of shared data we will make an impact. We need to look at every way people interact, how we onboard and manage customers, and how we manage identities. We then get to a place where we are not only able to better manage fraud but mitigate it.”
Written by Steve Sanchez.
