team profile
Caroline Carruthers
Co-Founder / Chief Executive
Caroline is an award-winning data expert and co-founder of global data consultancy Carruthers and Jackson. She was one of the first women to take on the role of Chief Data Officer in the UK public sector for Network Rail and has worked across multiple industries to build data capability from the ground up, delivering real change to each organisation around how they valued their data as an asset.
Caroline has authored several best-selling books on the role of data in organisations, including the renowned “chief Data Officer’s Playbook” and the bestselling “Data Driven Business Transformation.” Working alongside co-author, and co-founder of Carruthers and Jackson, Peter Jackson, Caroline now consults public, private and charity sector organisations around the world on how to get the most out of their data.
Caroline was named one of the top 20 inspirational female role models in data by The Female Lead in 2018 and won Computing’s Rising Stars Entrepreneur of the Year Award in 2020 for her work consulting major international organisations on their data operations.
Likes:
Family and Friends, Books / escape and learning, Roller Coasters, Chocolate, Sunshine, Travelling.
Dislikes:
Being Bored.
Who inspires you?
My Mum. Trail blazing women.
What’s the best advice you have ever been given?
Be brave, be bold and be yourself.
About you:
I’m a wife, mother and a total data cheerleader. I’m also an accidental entrepreneur as I just started solving problems and ended up setting up a global data consultancy – I wouldn’t change a thing. I think life is an amazing journey and I think it is important to enjoy the ride.
Peter Jackson
Co-Founder
Peter is currently Chief Data and Product Officer at Outra and a Director at Carruthers and Jackson. In previous roles he had a global role as Group Director of Data Science at Legal & General and Chief Data Officer of Legal and General Investment Management. Before joining Legal and General Peter was Chief Data Officer at Southern Water and prior to that, Head of Data at The Pensions Regulator (TPR).
Peter is a specialist in Data Strategy, Data Technologies, Master Data Management Strategies, Data Governance Frameworks, GDPR and Data Science. Peter is the co-author of ‘The Chief Data Officer’s Playbook’, published by Facet in November 2017, ‘Data-Driven Business Transformation’, published by Wiley in March 2019 and 2nd edition ‘The Chief Data Officer’s Playbook’, published in 2020.
Peter is an international speaker on Data, Innovation and business transformation and co-founded the Chief Data Officers’ Summer School, which has an international alumni of 1000+.
Likes:
Some match Caroline’: roller coasters, sunshine, travel. The sea. Good Ice cream (Morgensterns NYC).
Dislikes:
Wasting my time, onions, bad weather.
Who inspires you?
Pele. My peers and colleagues.
What’s the best advice you have ever been given?
Adapt and overcome.
About you:
I enjoy my work, being creative and pushing boundaries. Work life balance is very important to me, achieving a healthy balance it is very hard. I believe in seizing opportunities when they present themselves and I’ve been very fortunate to be presented with lots of great opportunities.
Jem Ranson
Managing Director
With many years consulting experience, Jem founded Praesto after witnessing the difference that true expertise brings to a project. He handpicked the very best people in the industry.
Likes:
Football, Travel, Cars
Dislikes:
Politics in organisations
Who inspires you?
My kids. Energy, happy smiling faces… all most of the time. My wife, the rock behind the scenes that enables everything else to happen.
About you:
I love working with talented people and the old cliché of working hard – playing hard is definitely what I try to do – and that’s easy when everyone around you are so talented and are genuinely nice people. I run a kids football team, an enthusiastic but average golfer and enjoy travelling the world with my family.
Michael Stanhope
Managing Director
Mike is currently Managing Director at Carruthers and Jackson, and has a background is in consulting where he lead teams with a focus on data, analytics and integration technologies. Mike worked in Finance for many years, helping clients to create information systems for external reporting, planning, transfer pricing and other processes within Group Finance and Group Tax.
Likes:
Having a project and something to aim for. Whether it’s a sports competition or home improvements, I like enjoy both the planning and the doing.
Anyone who is striving to improve whether that relates to the workplace, hobbies, education or health and fitness.
Sports, especially Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. I also love golf but only when I occasionally have time and the weather is good.
Spending time with my kids which often revolves around (can you guess it?) sports.
Podcasts and audiobooks, for both entertainment and learning.
Dislikes:
Overcomplicating things. Some topics are complicated but I like to keep the genuinely simple stuff as simple as possible. Is there only one half-good option? OK, do it without hesitation.
Knowledge hording. Write useful information down, make it accessible and proactively share it.
Labeling people as non-technical. If you want to learn to work with data or write code, it’s a great time to be alive and we can all learn new skills.
Who inspires you?
When I look at how much my kids can develop in a year, either in school or sports, I am inspired to set ambitious goals and to go outside of my comfort zone.
What’s the best advice you have ever been given?
It’s not who’s good, it’s who’s left. This was given in a sporting context but highlights the importance of consistency and simply not giving up on goals. If you’re improving, you’re winning.
About you:
I am a calm problem solver and a firm believer in putting one foot in front of the other. Outside of work, I am a father and a husband, and I help out with the coaching for a couple of kids’ sports teams.
Adam Smith
Commercial & Operations Director
Likes:
Coaching, presenting, making an impact, building brilliant relationships Oh and TOTTENHAM HOTSPUR!
Dislikes:
(too much) Red tape, poor communication, dishonesty, grandstanding and Arsenal (I’m joking… or am I?)
Who inspires you?
I am cheating and having three:
- My Parents. The example I strive for every day!
- My Wife. Wow – her patience and loyalty
- My Children. No Filter – Love it (most of the time)
Slightly less cheesy… sure. I particularly appreciate the work of Simon Sinek.
What’s the best advice you have ever been given?
Pause and reflect – emotionality can impact judgement.
About you:
I really enjoy growing strong and sustainable organisations alongside brilliant people. Purpose is important to me – Not only our own, but understanding others, so that partnerships can be much more legitimate. How do I help with this? I don’t mind looking after some of the necessary “boring stuff”, I really enjoy the art of negotiation and I try to bring humour (where appropriate) to the day. Life’s too short.
Samuel Toseland
Community manager
Likes:
Dogs! My biggest like of all time. Prosecco, gardening – get me in the garden any time of any day. Planting plants, cutting grass – I love it! Also, another like of mine is an awkward situation, an awkward silence… I absolutely love them.
Dislikes:
I dislike sitting around, I cannot do it, one day maybe but any more than that I feel myself getting extremely restless and irritable.
Who inspires you?
David Attenborough, wow what an amazing man, the knowledge he has just has me absolutely fascinated.
What’s the best advice you have ever been given?
That if we lived a life without anxiety, we would be walking out in front of busses trains and putting ourselves in extremely dangerous situations, learn about anxiety everyone has it and we cannot survive without it. Once you have learned how to manage this and be knowledgeable about what this feeling is, life will become much more exciting.
About you:
About me… I live in a small village called Sawtry. I have a French Bulldog called Olive, who is my absolute world. As I touched on further up, I love doing my garden, perhaps not the most common hobby for someone my age but I find it extremely relaxing and therapeutic. I have not yet discovered at what point you stop buying plants and competing to make your grass the greenest, saying this I absolutely love a challenge, so I doubt it is going to stop at any point soon.
Andy Lunt
Data Management Director
Likes:
Coffee, Data, Red Wine, Belgium Beer.
Dislikes:
Rude People.
Who inspires you?
Friends & Family.
What’s the best advice you have ever been given?
Sometimes you just have let the situation unfold before you decide what to do.
About you:
I’m a father and husband first then a data management consultant second, I live in a small cottage near to the peak district. I love the great outdoors, I have lots of hobbies – I like shooting clay, rock climbing, travelling and sport.
Ashley Cairns
Delivery Director
Likes:
Animals; in particular cats (I have a few). This has led to a not insignificant amount of animal jewellery which I’m rarely seen without a red panda, axolotl or increasingly obscure animal necklace.
Crafting; I’m an avid attempter of crafts; sewing, knitting, embroidery, punch needle, felting and trying many others. Though I wouldn’t say any come particularly natural to me.
Data; possibly too obvious given the job I do. I love making use of data in companies. Freeing up time and space for people to be creative and spend time using data rather than cleaning/inputting/searching for it. My heart still leans towards great visualisations and innovative use of data story telling to transform data into its beautiful form.
Dislikes:
Coffee! A big shocker here in the modern world, plus our unofficial tag line of coffee and cake. For me its got to be tea and cake.
Who inspires you?
Fozzie Bear (in particular the muppet babies version). An odd choice but he was frequently uncomfortable but carried on and used humour (often bad humour) to keep the other muppets upbeat. He’s probably a significant factor in my love for bad cheese jokes.
In general I’m inspired by people who stand up for what they believe in and use their voice to make the world a better place. We live in a fantastic time for people doing this and mostly people way younger than me!
What’s the best advice you have ever been given?
Whit’s Fur Ye’ll No Go By Ye
A Scotism much lauded in my family. Basically if its meant to be it, it will. For me its always been a good reminder that if things don’t work out as planned/hope that there’s good things around the corner that you just might not see yet. Or in a lot of cases its not a no, it’s just not yes yet.
About you:
I love working with organisations to find the best solution for them to unleash the potential of their data. My background is in Business Intelligence/Data Analytics. I’ve spent many years building data platforms and analytics/reporting tools in most of the major applications; Birst, OBIEE, Tableau, Power BI, Snowflake, Informatica, to name a few across the last 10 or so years.
Jane Orr
Senior Data Consultant
Likes:
All animals but especially dogs, long walks with picnics, naps, brunch, reading books in coffee shops, learning new things, sunshine, making plans, visiting old mansion houses and castles, singing, and watching live performance of all kinds.
Dislikes:
Drizzle, being cold, dishonesty, cruelty, unfairness, crowded places, scary movies.
Who inspires you?
Gonzo the Blue Weirdo from the Muppets. Because he embraces and celebrates his weirdness and is a performance artist with an enviable creative genius, that continues to devise ambitious acts despite his numerous (and painful) failures.
About you:
I currently live in a small town in Wales, having spent the previous 10 years living in California. I have had a varied and interesting career starting off as an Ecologist, then moving into sustainability consultancy, then became the Director of an innovative art and technology children’s summer camp, qualified as a dog trainer and ran my own business for 4 years whilst also pursuing a career in data, analytics and insights. I love to push myself, learn new things, and work with varied and interesting people. Most of all I want my work to be enjoyable, purposeful and to do some good for people and the planet.
Mark Bates
Senior Data Consultant
Likes:
I love creative thinking, problem solving and improving things, especially if they are fuelled with espresso and carbonated water. I am a great believer in balance and taking a moment of mindful and reflective thinking before action.
Dislikes:
Fixed mindsets, ill-informed metrics and that brown muddy water otherwise known as tea.
Who inspires you?
Inspiration comes in many shapes or form but for me it is anyone I have worked with that truly wants to help the people around them to be their best selves. That builds an environment of trust from which great things flow.
About you:
I am an experienced problem solver and improvement arbiter and have designed and developed services at all stages of my career. I have developed highly performing teams, physical environments, quality management systems, and people, in order to drive value to the business. I am a big advocate for driving balance in data through organisational data literacy.
Chris Welch
Lead Consultant
Likes:
Making my wife and kids laugh. Finding out how things work. Turning ideas into working code/frameworks/products. Rocks (geology). Coffee. Beer.
Dislikes:
Hypocrisy, intellectual grandstanding and code bashing – especially when I’m the one guilty of it.
Who inspires you?
Everyone. Everyone’s got a story to tell, we just need to make time to listen…
About you:
At heart I’m a problem solver. It doesn’t matter if it’s a problem with a big dataset or with the plumbing, I’ll find a way of fixing the issue through finding required team or information and just getting started. I’m passionate about breaking down learning barriers through using games/gamification.
Charlie Lennox
Senior Data Consultant
Likes:
Football, Squash, Golf, CrossFit – if it’s a sport, I’ll play, do, or watch it. I thrive on being busy, whether that’s tackling a full workday, pushing towards a physical challenge, or making the most of a packed social calendar.
Dislikes:
Loud chewing, being stuck in traffic and syntax errors.
Who inspires you?
As a child, my only answer would have been David Beckham. Now, with a bit more perspective (and the football trials not having gone to plan), I’d say my friends and family. They shape who I am every day.
Best advice you’ve ever been given?
Great things are built through small, consistent efforts every day. It’s about showing up, making incremental improvements, and committing to a long-term vision.
About you:
Originally from Shropshire, I now call London home. I’m passionate about working with talented people and constantly learning, which makes every day exciting. Growth, whether personal, professional, or physical, is what drives me, and I love pushing myself in new ways. Outside of work, sport is my obsession, but I also love to travel, going to live music events, and spending as much time as possible with family and friends.