About me

2 minutes to read

For over a decade I’ve worked as an Ecommerce Director and Chief Digital Officer at a range of B2C and B2B ecommerce businesses, where I’ve led ecommerce, marketing, development, and BI teams. Data science has always been a major part of my work and has helped my teams produce far better results.

Like most other people working in the field, I kind of stumbled into it. I originally trained as a biologist, and did Master’s degrees in taxonomy and bioinformatics, where I developed a love for software engineering and data analysis.

After a decade working in publishing (writing, editing, and developing websites and magazines) I decided to move to the field of ecommerce and marketing and then did a third Master’s degree in Internet Retailing to brush up on the specifics.

When I’m not working (or fly fishing), I’ll be found learning new data science techniques or reading about new things to try. Practical Data Science serves as my notepad for the side projects I do at home, and helps me remember how to do things when I forget in the future. I hope you find it useful.

Career history

2021-Present - Ecommerce and Marketing Director
2015-2021 - Chief Digital Officer
2013-2015 - Ecommerce Director
2010-2013 - Ecommerce Director
2001-2010 - Technical Writer > Senior Developer > Editor-in-Chief
1992-2001 - Freelance Technical Writer

Qualifications

MSc in Internet Retailing, Manchester Metropolitan University
MSc in Bioinformatics, Leeds University
MRes and DIC in Advanced Methods in Taxonomy, Imperial College, London
BSc (Hons) in Freshwater and Marine Biology, University of Wales

Personal GitHub projects

In my spare time I create open source tools for data scientists working in ecommerce and marketing, primarily so I can use them myself and save time at work.