The Story

Several markets needed local data ownership in places where the role had not previously existed. There was no incumbent to describe what good looked like, no local precedent to hire against, and no established view of how the role should sit alongside the rest of the country organisation. The complicating factor was reporting lines. These hires would report locally rather than to me, which meant that everything afterwards — standards, ways of working, what the role actually became — depended on influence rather than authority. Getting the hire right mattered more than usual, because there would be limited opportunity to correct it later. That pushed the assessment in a particular direction. Rather than fitting each market to a standard role description, the role was shaped around what that market actually needed. And where there was a choice between the strongest technical profile on paper and someone who could operate alone — make judgement calls without a peer group, escalate the right things, work out what mattered locally — autonomy won. Local data ownership was established in each case. Several people brought in on contract moved into permanent roles and were later promoted. In a market of one, autonomy matters more than depth: technical gaps can be closed, but someone who needs a team around them to make decisions will struggle where no such team exists.

These are the problems I find worth the effort: unglamorous, constrained, and consequential. If you have one like it, I would like to hear about it.

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