Tony is Medialab’s Director of Analytics, sitting in our Apollo (our proprietary marketing intelligence platform) Analytics and Engineering team. Tony works across everything from supporting his team and solving complex data challenges, to shaping the future of our analytics capabilities alongside colleagues and clients. Here, he takes us through a typical day in his life at Medialab.
Pre-Morning
I’m always up early as there is lots to do before starting work. My wife and I get our two daughters ready for school, making breakfast, sorting school lunches, whilst not forgetting to feed the cats before I take myself off to the station for the 7am train.
Morning
I find that I’m more productive early in the day, which is why I like to aim to be at my desk for 8:15am. During this time, I’ll catchup on emails, messages and plan out my most important tasks before the daily calls and meetings start; starting my mornings off like this helps to put me in a positive mindset for the day.
Once the flurry of colleagues come into the office and the day properly starts, my focus moves on to supporting my team. As a Director of Analytics, my role is mostly about helping the team with any blockers they might have and giving them a general direction on the best ways to approach specific challenges. This is what I enjoy most, the mentoring side of my role and getting to see the team successfully solve complex data problems.
Lunch
Just like many of my colleagues, I always try to get away from my desk, even if it is just for 15 minutes. I’ll usually go for a short walk near the office, or at home if I’m working from home – I’m always keen to get my 10K steps in. Although I normally bring my lunch in, if I feel like I deserve a treat I’ll grab the meatballs and mash from the Scandi Kitchen near to the office.
Afternoon
In the afternoon, my role shifts to looking ahead. I spend a lot of time working closely with our engineering team to develop new Apollo capabilities or features that will benefit our client partners in the long run. These conversations could be from expanding the data we already have for a client to planning how to integrate a brand-new data source to enrich our reporting.
I’ll also work closely with our Analytics Managers, helping to troubleshoot any complex technical issues we may be experiencing. Although I enjoy the productivity in the mornings, I find that having a variety of different tasks in the afternoon keeps things interesting, especially as you get to balance long-term strategic planning with hands on problem solving.
After Work
Once the working day has finished, I like to focus my time with my family, whether that’s helping the kids with their homework or making dinner. However, if I do get the chance, I’ll spend 20 minutes on my drum kit learning the next batch of songs that my band will be playing at our next rehearsal. Once the girls are in bed, my wife and I will usually unwind in front of the TV, we’re currently enjoying ‘The Pitt’ and ‘Hacks’. However, this evening was slightly different, the Apollo team and I went to an outdoor escape room in Shoreditch, where we came second out of seven other teams, not bad for our first attempt at an escape room. We always try to find time for activities outside of work, as it gives us a chance to unwind, and spend time together, even if it means there some friendly competition!
If you weren’t at Medialab, what would you be doing?
I would like to think I would be a full-time drummer, but being more realistic, I started my career in finance, so it would be likely I would have ended staying in that industry!
What advice would you give to someone looking to get into the industry/ this particular part of the industry?
For data and analytics roles particularly, while it’s great to have a good technical understanding, the softer skills are just as important. As you progress into senior and director roles, making sure you are a good communicator is massively important. You need to be able to translate complex data into clear, actionable insights for clients, and translate their needs back to your technical teams.
