Our People

Simon is the longest-serving person at dunnhumby, having joined the company in 1991 to look after its client-facing operations.

Having graduated with a degree in Human Geography, Simon spent seven years with the market analysis company CACI, working on the analysis of patterns of retailing. It was his interest in using customer insight and transforming it into business strategies that initially attracted him to dunnhumby.

Managing the Tesco relationship for the seven years up to 2001 as client services director gave Simon a broad range of responsibilities as this key client represented the bulk of the company’s activities during much of this time.

Having also handled various short-term projects outside the UK, Simon took up the challenge of leading dunnhumby’s expansion to the United States through a partnership with major grocery retailer Kroger. In his six years at the helm of dunnhumbyUSA, Simon saw the company grow from a team of just four to the several hundred we have today, reflecting the success of its work for Kroger and other clients. The quality and importance of Simon’s leadership was honoured in 2009 by Ernst & Young, who named him Entrepreneur of the Year.

Simon returned to London in 2009 to take responsibility of our UK & Ireland business. Still galvanised by the challenge of gaining ever-more actionable insight from our clients’ data, Simon became dunnhumby’s new chief executive officer in March 2011.

Stuart joined dunnhumbyUSA as its Chief Operating Officer in 2009, bringing with him over 15 years of marketing, academic and technical experience across a variety of industries. The thread running through Stuart’s career, from his position as Executive Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer for Michael’s Stores to running Marketing Strategies for Safeway, has been his passion for doing what is right for the customer and rewarding the behaviour you seek.

That passion attracted him to dunnhumby, a company that he has followed for years. dunnhumby is the one company he believes to truly help its clients practice a philosophy that puts the customer first. Stuart is driven by the opportunities that come with unlocking the potential of our clients’ data assets. With his broad range of retail experience, Stuart is ideally suited to ensuring that dunnhumbyUSA continues to help its clients deliver a better customer experience and therefore improve their own business performance.

Striving for ever-increasing levels of insight, Stuart is greatly looking forward to working with our clients to realize the full potential of listening of what customers are telling us.

Dave Balter is a man after our own heart. Driven by a passion to put customers first rivaled only by our own, Dave founded social marketing company BzzAgent in 2001 with a game-changing approach: market with consumers, rather than at them, and you won’t just improve the way customers experience brands — you’ll deliver measureable value for those brands, too. It’s no wonder that, more than a decade later, Dave and BzzAgent are still providing amazing brand experiences that get people talking, face-to-face and across social media.

Forever a fan of new challenges (and rarely fond of sleep), Dave has penned two books on the power of advocacy (Grapevine and The Word of Mouth Manual, Volume II), co-founded the Word of Mouth Marketing Association and currently sits on the advisory boards of the Wharton Future of Advertising Project and Massachusetts Innovation & Technology Exchange. He also founded six different companies and is an investor/advisor to dozens of startups, as well as an Entrepreneur in Residence at MIT.

Dave is excited about the potential of developing the power of a customer-first philosophy, with a special interest in how digital and social channels can create an ever better experience for customers.

We’d be remiss to not mention that Harvard University dubbed him one of Boston’s “Hottest Technology CEOs” in 2007. Whether for brawn or for brains, we’ll let you decide.

At dunnhumby, Yael Cosset provides strategic leadership on all aspects of technology, infrastructure and product offerings throughout the organization. As Chief Information Officer, Cosset provides leadership focused on building innovative, world class products and solutions including an expanded portfolio in the personalization area. Cosset also serves as Chief Executive Officer of KSS Retail, a dunnhumby company and a global provider of price modeling and optimisation solutions for retailers worldwide. In this capacity, Cosset interacts with executives and clients from both companies in order to ensure access to the value and services they jointly deliver. He also serves on the Board of Directors for KSS Retail.

Cosset joined dunnhumby as Executive Vice President, Consumer Markets, leading the non-grocery business for dunnhumbyUSA. Prior to joining dunnhumby, Cosset served as Vice President of Operations, West Region of MicroStrategy, a global leader in business intelligence technology, where he managed one of the largest and fastest growing segments of the business, including implementation projects with Fortune 500 companies such as Safeway, The Gap, Nordstrom, Intel, Disney, Universal Studios, American Express and Visa, among others. Prior to his work with MicroStrategy, Cosset served as an executive business consultant in which he provided insight and direction on market expansion, product launches and growth strategies for global companies including Schneider Electric and Gregori International.

Originally from France, Cosset graduated Valedictorian with a Masters from Ecole Superieure de Commerce in Chambery, France.

Since joining dunnhumby in 1999 Nicola has held a number of roles, reflecting the global growth of our business. On joining dunnhumby, Nicola spent five years working with Tesco in the UK, putting the customer at the centre of their strategy and business decisions. As dunnhumby focused on expansion into new markets, Nicola played a key role defining how we start partnerships with new retail partners, including establishing the Joint Venture with Casino in France in 2006.

As the rapid global expansion of the business continued, Nicola spent three years in India creating and developing our Global Services Hub, providing the spectrum of dunnhumby solutions to our clients worldwide, before moving to France to lead the Joint Venture with Groupe Casino in Paris.

Now Head of Global Operations on the Executive team, Nicola is focused on maximising the value we bring to clients through best practice, innovation and global ways of working. She is excited by the opportunity the global scale of our business brings and is passionate about our great people and culture, which are key to our continued success.

Andrew joined dunnhumby as our Global Head of Security in 2006. Initially excited by dunnhumby’s entrepreneurial spirit, he was impressed by how we transformed our understanding of the customer into tangible and relevant value.

Andrew has a diverse background that has provided him with a wide-range of skills enabling him to make informed decisions based on his experience. He started out his career as an accountant but has also been a Captain in the U.S. Marine Corps and has held senior consulting roles with Booz Allen and Accenture.

Andrew also provides strategic support to the Executive Team and is looking forward to driving dunnhumby’s strategy for growth while ensuring we continue to effectively manage risk.

Mark is one of dunnhumby’s longest serving employees, having joined in 1996 as an analyst on the Tesco UK partnership. He has had many roles within dunnhumby including 5 years in the US where he helped build our business with Kroger. This experience also enabled him to play a pivotal role in our international expansion. During his time at dunnhumby, he has worked in both Commercial and Solutions roles, providing him an excellent understanding of our business.

Mark has always been a strong advocate of the customer and believes that understanding and meeting their needs is pivotal to the success of a retailer. He is looking forward to using the huge increase in information being generated from social media and digital channels to help understand customer better than ever. Building on his broad international experience, Mark is accountable for dunnhumby’s work in all the Tesco markets in which we work.

Terri joined the dunnhumby leadership team in 2012. She is responsible for helping dunnhumby meet its objectives via our brilliant people. Her role is all about ensuring that dunnhumby remains the great place to work it is today and involves developing and embedding strategies for inspiring, enabling and retaining our brilliant people and attracting the very best talent in the marketplace.

Much of Terri’s background has been in enabling companies to achieve their goals whilst transitioning through periods of change or growth. Terri came to us from Tesco where she was a part of the original team that started up its U.S. business, fresh & easy neighbourhood market. She moved to the UK in 2010 and most recently was the Regional HR Director for Tesco’s operations in Central Europe and Turkey. Prior to Tesco, she worked primarily in the Financial Services/Insurance sector for companies including Liberty Mutual and Safeco Insurance.

Sarah has held the position of dunnhumby’s Global General Counsel and Company Secretary since August 2010, having joined dunnhumby in 2008 as Legal Counsel for UK&I. During her time as Legal Counsel Sarah also enjoyed getting to know dunnhumby’s international businesses through playing a pivotal role in the negotiations of the Monoprix and Metro Canada engagements. Sarah now leads a team of six lawyers and is responsible for all legal and compliance matters across dunnhumby globally. Sarah is a member of the dunnhumby Global Executive Team.

Prior to joining dunnhumby, Sarah spent nearly seven years at the London office of top law firm Slaughter and May, specialising in IT, IP and commercial contracts. She enjoyed working with a broad range of multi-national blue chip clients across all sectors, and spent six months with the firm’s Paris office. Before embarking on her legal studies, Sarah graduated from Durham University with, like many dunnhumbians, a degree in Geography.

Andrew is responsible for dunnhumby’s global Finance team and supporting sustainable and profitable growth for the organisation.

Prior to joining dunnhumby in 2008, Andrew worked at Marks and Spencer where he headed up Finance for their Food business. He also has experience in Pharmaceuticals and FMCG businesses.

Andrew has always taken a broad business perspective, rather than a pure financial approach. He was attracted to dunnhumby as he believed in customer insight and understanding driving action. This is at odds with many organizations that talk about putting the customer first but too often focus on internal factors or lack sufficient knowledge on their customers to take the right decisions.

Andrew is a Chartered Accountant (ACA), having qualified with PricewaterhouseCoopers in 1994.

Andrew is focused on both providing solid financial discipline and helping drive dunnhumby’s global growth by delivering for our clients.

Mick began working with dunnhumby five years ago with a track record as a globally experienced senior executive across Europe, Asia Pacific, Japan, China, Australasia and the USA. Until mid 2001, Mick was Company Group Chairman of Johnson & Johnson’s Consumer business in Asia-Pacific. Prior to this, Mick spent 22 years at Procter & Gamble, latterly as Regional Vice President based in Hong Kong and then in Japan. In all, he spent almost 20 years as General Manager / VP, with 11 years as a Regional CEO of Asian business.

In his time with dunnhumby, Mick has brought his leadership experience to bear across the business, having been responsible for our global expansion since 2006, the UK business in 2009 as well as helping to develop our growth strategy and organisational structure. In all of his work, Mick’s passion for transformational change has been evident.

This can also be seen in what he does outside work, being the founder of the leadership development resource LeaderValues and is, amongst other positions, a member of the Board of Trustees of Save the Children (USA) and a Visiting Professor of the Business School at the University of Leeds.

In his current position as dunnhumby’s Head of International Markets and Business Development, Mick is ideally placed to lead dunnhumby’s growth both geographically and by sector.

Dr. Rex Davis is a leading retail scientist who has spent his career exploring the phenomenon of human behavior and decision-making within the retail environment. As a marketer, researcher and an analyst, Rex brings over a decade of experience to dunnhumby in helping businesses better understand their customers and adopt a customer first approach as a key growth strategy.

Rex oversees the company’s Gurgaon, India office and leads the global analyst and technology teams responsible for storing and interpreting customer data and insights for clients around the world. Prior to his current role, Rex served as Vice President, Insights, USA and was responsible for leading the insights solution group, providing leadership in the development of data modeling techniques and the delivery of customer-driven implications for The Kroger Co. and consumer packaged goods partners. Since joining the company, Rex has been instrumental in shaping innovation and best practice standards on a global scale.

Prior to dunnhumby, Rex spent seven years in marketing, customer loyalty and analytics at Coles Myer, one of Australia’s two major retailers. At Coles, as National Loyalty Manager Rex was accountable for the company’s investment in fuel, loyalty and direct marketing. Before that as Head of Analytics, he was responsible for driving insights out of an extensive database that covered 15% of the Australian retail economy.

Striving for ever-increasing levels of insight, Rex is a major asset to our India team as the team maximizes the value that India brings to dunnhumby globally.

Marc has a wealth of experience in engaging major companies with the concept of putting the customer first. Before joining dunnhumby, Marc led the creation and launch of Tesco’s Operating Model into China, Japan, Turkey and the USA. He has also been the General Manager for two of Diageo’s country business units (France and Poland), and has directed strategy development and execution in Asia and Europe for Diageo’s Global Strategy Team.

Marc joined dunnhumby in 2007 as Head of Global Client Development. Alongside that position, he also managed our Best Practice Sharing initiative, which means that he brings a deep understanding of how to put the customer at the heart of a business to his work. He went on to become the COO of dunnhumby in Canada as we launched our partnership with Metro inc, the major Canadian grocery retailer that operates Metro supermarkets, as well as the Food Basics and Super C discounted banners.

Based on the success Marc had with leading dunnhumby Canada, and his prior multi-market experience, he became COO of International Markets, assuming responsibility for overall operations in two of dunnhumby’s largest international markets, Canada and France.

Brian joined dunnhumby in early 2010 as the Head of Manufacturer Practice for the Canadian market. In this role he was responsible for setting up the insight and communications business with our manufacturer partners.

Prior to joining dunnhumby, Brian had an extensive career in retail starting with 13 years spent at General Mills in a variety of sales and marketing based roles, followed by a move to Nielsen and finally as a Category Director for Loblaws.

Since 2012 Brian has been General Manager of dunnhumby Brazil & Colombia. Responsible for nurturing and developing the relationships with our retail partners in these markets, Brian and his team are passionate about guiding our partners towards an ever-more customer centric strategy.

James joined dunnhumby as a graduate in 1999. In his twelve years at dunnumby James has led different parts of the dunnhumby business in the UK and internationally, working with retailers and with suppliers, as well as spending time heading up the development of new solution areas in the UK. His variety of experiences during his career at dunnhumby has made him the rounded leader he is today with an expert knowledge of our business and how we add value for all our clients.

He was one of the founder members of our supplier business in the UK, seeing it grow from four clients in 2001 to 50 clients in 2005. Moving to France to head up our engagement with Casino, he led the creation of dunnhumby’s third joint venture with Groupe Casino in 2006.

James believes passionately in an unrelenting focus on the customer and our clients, and that success is best gained through a deep understanding of both. He believes it is only when we achieve this level of understanding, from the insights we see in data, that we know what our clients need to do differently for customers and how they can get it done.

James is now applying this principle as COO of dunnhumby Italia, our joint venture with Gruppo PAM.