Andrie Galaktiou: Building a Retail Data Management Team at John Lewis

Andrie Galaktiou, former Head of Data at John Lewis Partnership,
discusses the role she played in establishing John Lewis’ data
management team during her 13-year tenure at retail giant For a
retail giant like John Lewis Partnership, the growth of digital
commerce in recent years has created big opportunities to drive
sales and optimize processes with data and analytics. But as former
John Lewis Partnership Head of Data Andrie Galaktiou says in this
week’s Business of Data podcast episode, few in the industry are in
a position to take full advantage of these opportunities. “It’s
exciting, because I think the retail industry’s definitely moving
forward,” she says. “What we need to understand is, the
foundational pieces need to be done first, before you can start to
think about being innovative.” After starting her career at John
Lewis in its merchandising department, Galaktiou moved into the
company’s data function and played a key role in establishing its
central data management team before starting a new role at Publicis
Groupe in September 2021. Kickstarting Data Investment at John
Lewis While the Global Financial Crash kickstarted data governance
investment in the financial services sector, the retail industry
has had no parallel event to kickstart its path to data maturity.
As a result, it’s taken longer for retail executives to prioritize
strategic data investments. “The first [challenge] will always be
getting the buy-in and the funding within that space,” Galaktiou
says. “Sometimes it helps to start things small or start things
with specific projects or pieces of work.” “If you don’t understand
what your stakeholders need or want, you’re not always going to get
the right results from them” Andrie Galaktiou, former Head of Data,
John Lewis Partnership “It’s really hard to try to move forward
with some of these things if people don’t get it,” she adds. “So,
educating and training the business on what data is, how it works,
what it can do for them, is absolutely key and one of the biggest
challenges.” For Galaktiou, starting with key programs that
showcased what data could do for John Lewis helped her to securing
buy-in for further investment. She also believes her background in
merchandising meant she understood what mattered to stakeholders in
the business. “Having worked in that space and really understanding
how systems work from their perspective – how they use the data,
what they need to do with it – made it a lot easier,” she argues.
Building a Data Management Team for the Retail Sector Once
Galaktiou and her colleagues had secured executive support and
signed off the company’s data strategy, her focus became building a
team with the right skills to drive those plans forward. “I don’t
believe there is a textbook answer for what a data team should look
like, what the roles should be and what people should do,” she
says. “You’ve got to really understand your organization, bring in
the expertise from the organization as well as the expertise from
understanding data and data management to really drive that
forward.” “Providing you’ve got the backing and the funding to do
it, it’s about really understanding the business and where the
business is at and where it’s going” Andrie Galaktiou, former Head
of Data, John Lewis Partnership “For me, it’s [about] finding
people who can speak the data language, who can really understand
the business,” Galaktiou continues. “The data team often sits
between the business and technology, and so they have to speak
three different languages. You need to be able to find people who
can speak all those languages and really bring it together.” She
adds that ensuring data team roles have enough breadth for staff
members to work on a variety of projects and choose the projects
and focus areas that interest them most is important for staff
retention. “It doesn’t all just happen really quickly,” she
concludes. “Getting the people in place is one step of that
process. You’ve then