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