CATHY ARNOLD - Head of Data Services, University of Leeds

Fireside Chat with Cathy Arnold, Head of Data Services, University of Leeds

Q: Cathy, let’s start with your journey. How did your career path bring you into data leadership?

Cathy: I started as an architect in the private sector in the 1980s and was lucky to work on some exciting projects in the airport sector, education and regeneration including the development of Canary Wharf. I got interested in contract disputes and qualified as a Chartered Arbitrator in 1990. That legal dimension coupled with my design work was all joined together by project delivery and over the years I moved to local government and then the Civil Service and began to deliver projects outside the estates world, in digital and cyber and eventually data and here I am in Leeds. What this shows is that there is not always a logical or straight path to the data world and a leadership position does not mean detailed technical data expertise (although some is helpful), but it is about people and empathy. Good data leadership is about culture and that is enhanced by diversity.

Q: When you think about diversity in data teams, what does that mean to you?

Cathy: Our team at University of Leeds was established at the beginning of 2023 to support the University with its digital and data transformation strategy, part of the overall Global Strategy.

(Ed: The digital element can be found here )

Our recruitment campaign was supported by Women in Data and deliberately so, as we wanted to address the issue of under-representation of women in data roles. We also wanted to have a properly diverse team, not just by gender, but looking at how we can support carers, neurodivergent individuals, different ages and backgrounds to join the data profession.

With Women in Data’s help, we developed a recruitment strategy to include different modes of engagement both online and in person, opportunities to question our leadership ahead of the application process and the chance to see interview questions in writing. These are just a few of the tools used.

Q: Can you share an example of how diversity in your team has sparked innovation or new ideas?

Cathy: The University of Leeds has a research farm as part of its Global Food & Environment Institute. A meeting between our data engineering team and some of the researchers has led to the development of ideas around how to harness their data to improve the impact of data from their projects on wider research activity. With the advent of MS Fabric, there are opportunities to make things easier and more innovative for our research colleagues.

Another area of work has been the partnership with Smart Data Research UK, which has its Healthy and Sustainable Places Smart Data hub in Leeds. We helped them by building the data portal or front door to the data hub at https://hasp.ac.uk/. Having a diverse team means you get different perspectives on the approach to innovation and new projects. This work was delivered with one of our key data partners, MetadataWorks, who provided a project team and expertise using their metadata solutions to develop the portal for researchers. Whilst providing their expertise, what I like about their approach is the way in which MetadataWorks support upskilling of in-house team members and the knowledge transfer needed to sustain things once the project is complete. We hope to be able to allocate funding to build on our initial projects with MetadataWorks to develop a one stop shop for all things data at University of Leeds. With the data portal, anyone who is looking for details of our student, operational or research datasets will be able to search and source the relevant metadata simply and efficiently. We hope we can deliver this during the next 12 months.

Q: How do you create an environment where everyone feels they can contribute ideas?

Cathy: For me, authenticity and empathy are core values and these are woven into the way our team works. When we first came together, we used the Insights Discovery model to provide individuals with assessments of their preferred working and engaging style and how to maximise this or adapt it when working with stakeholders. We then built on this with work on coaching and listening, and team dynamics.

The model helped us develop a common language to support conversations and empower team members to know that there is no one size fits all and that we can all adapt our delivery approach to suit different situations. Hierarchy has its place from an accountability perspective, but otherwise I believe in flat structures when it comes to delivery with every voice being equal.

I am often heard saying there is no such thing as a stupid or wrong answer, just different points of view and they are all valid. In data, it is important to have a measured approach to risk to protect data, especially from a regulatory point of view, but it is also important to take risks to enable ideas to bubble up and become innovative data products. This is supported in our team by empowering initiative and allowing team members to develop ideas and bring them forward for discussion and development in the wider group. Everyone plays to their strengths and this is where leadership style is important – let others take centre stage, listen, support and nurture ideas.

Q: You’ve said before that not everyone in data needs technical skills. How can people from different backgrounds still make a difference?

Cathy: A key aspect of data leadership, indeed data work more widely, is managing people, their behaviours and their culture. It is also about understanding their business and what they need from their data to provide real insights and process improvement. This is where stakeholder management and governance skills come in.

A combination of people who understand operational culture and those who have in-depth technical knowledge enables us to deliver projects effectively. Our team has people from different sectors – Civil Service, health, higher education, retail, telecoms – and this adds depth to our understanding of how businesses work and what they need to manage their systems and results.

Q: What would you say to professionals looking to transition into data from other careers?

Cathy: Anyone interested in data should seek to network with data professionals, hear about their journeys and take advice on how they managed their careers.

A good start would be to join Women in Data – you will definitely find your tribe there and that applies to male allies as well!

The range of career options in data is wider than people think and includes communications work, governance, legal and ethical as well as technical roles, so there is something for everyone. Don’t let anyone convince you there is no role for you, as there undoubtedly will be.

Q: What practical steps do you think organisations can take to make sure people feel they truly belong in data teams?

Cathy: I strongly believe this is about giving everyone space to be heard and also to be quiet. Not everyone wants to shout their ideas from the mountain top and some folk like to feed their ideas quietly and in writing. The different approaches are all valid.

It is about respect and support that is authentic and not just to tick boxes. I think it is always obvious when it is not authentic and I hope that those working with our service can see that they are getting a real, honest approach to delivery where team members are free to challenge and disagree in a healthy way.

All ideas have their value and different groups will have different ways of sharing their ideas – we need to give everyone the right space.

Q: How has diversity within your teams influenced the impact of your work at Leeds?

Cathy: This can be about matching the right people to a project so that they can show their empathy with and experience of an issue. Where we have individuals who may find it challenging to engage with some stakeholders, particularly more senior ones, we will make sure they are supported through the right kind of introduction and empowered with the techniques they have gained through our Insights work.

Using lighthouse projects, an idea promoted by one of our partners Oakland Group, to demonstrate success has also helped. This means we can use our results to help stakeholders see that we can design and deliver effective data products. Oakland Group has supported us with mapping our current student and curriculum data landscapes and helping us prioritise work to improve our management of these data to improve insight and analysis of student experience. Through work on these lighthouse projects, we have been able to develop repeatable patterns for data products, making the roll out of new and innovative products more efficient as we build up our catalogue.

Over the last two years we have built our enterprise data platform and also a number of data products to support student experience, research and health data work. As these products are successfully launched, confidence in our team grows.

Our issue now is how to focus on the right projects for the university whilst seeing increasing demand for our services. This is where tying things back to the overall strategy for the University of Leeds is key. Our institutional enabling strategy is to “organise the intellectual, operational, digital and physical assets to enable our talented, diverse, digitally-literate, collaborative and empowered community to deliver our academic ambition, and underpin our sustainable societal impact.” From a data perspective this means getting buy-in at the top of the organisation and across the business to champion improvements to our data literacy and data ambition. We have started that journey in partnership with Oakland Group and another of our partners, Data Literacy Academy (DLA). Data literacy is not at a high level across our organisation and, like many other higher education institutions, is something we need to build on to support business teams with making their data a real asset.

DLA and Oakland held workshops with senior leaders in late 2024 and we are now moving into the next stage of our data literacy agenda to support all staff to make effective use of data in their day-to-day roles. DLA and Oakland are supporting us with the understanding of the balance needed between people, process and technology. Through workshops to date, we have been able to pinpoint the key challenges and opportunities for the University of Leeds and use this to develop the brief for data projects across the change programme for the organisation. Diversity and the understanding of managing diversity is very important if we are to get the best out of people to harness technology and improve our processes.

Q: From a leadership perspective, how do you make sure diversity drives innovation rather than slows things down?

Cathy: This is about fostering a sense of belonging and actually walking the walk. The saying goes you cannot be what you cannot see, so this is why diversity is so important.

As others look in and see the diverse range of individuals that make up our team, they will see that this is key to our success, but that only works if that diversity is championed by the leaders – so by our CDO and me as well as other leaders across the organisation.

We need to value all points of view and champion equity as part of our overall leadership culture. Allowing ideas to surface and not micromanaging means that the team members lead the team – we are all leaders and that is how it should be.

Q: And finally, looking ahead, how do you see diverse and inclusive teams shaping the future of data strategy?

Cathy: With the pace of change in data and in technology more widely, in areas like generative AI, learned language models, predictive analytics and sustainable data management, it is more and more important to accept a diverse range of views, business models, approaches and people to support us as we grapple with the tensions between innovation and sustainability.

Climate change is a massive challenge. We know the impact AI is having on water usage and data strategies need to adapt to ensure we can move into the future with confidence to reduce or halt the impact data strategy is having on our environment.

In that journey we need all views and all ideas, so diversity is critical to success.