“I am fearless because I believe in me.”

Edwina is globally recognised as one of the true pioneers of Big Data. She started her career in geodemographics at CACI, which applied the principle “You are where you live”. After leaving in 1989, she founded and became CEO of global data science company dunnhumby which she sold to Tesco in 2011. This was all about ‘You are what you buy”.

She then become Chair of Starcount which uses Social Media analytics to describe customers “You are what you love”.

In 2013 Edwina launched the non-profit organisation The Female Lead, dedicated to offering alternative role models to young girls and inspiring the next generation of leaders. The Female Lead: Women Who Shape Our World (published February 2017), was donated to 18,000 schools across the UK and USA to inspire the next generation of female leaders. Acclaimed as one of the Top 5 initiatives for Female Empowerment, its reach is over 5m people globally. You can read all about the project and send a free copy of the book to your chosen school here:
https://www.thefemalelead.com/get-involved

She is also an Advisor to Government. Currently serving as a Commissioner to Government’s Geo-Spatial Commission under Sir Andrew Dilnot since 2019 and as Deputy Chair of Government’s Centre for Data Ethics & Innovation (CDEI), exploring the ethics of use of AI and other technology.

In addition to being a former Trustee of the Science Museum (2013-2018), she was a Non-Executive Director of HMRC from 2013 to 2016 focused on Data & Digital Transformation, as well as Chair of the government-backed, private sector-sponsored Your Life campaign, which sought to promote STEM subjects (Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths) to 14-16 year olds across the UK. It involved the creation of Future Finder, a careers advice app that was downloaded 100,000 times. To date it remains the biggest free careers advice app on the market.

Her contribution to Data Science and Business has been widely acknowledged. Edwina is a Fellow of Lucy Cavendish College, Cambridge.

She was awarded an OBE in the Queen’s Birthday Honours 2019, for Services to Data and Business as well as receiving Honorary Doctorates from University of Middlesex, University of Derby and Kingston University and in 2018 was the recipient of the Fashion 4 Development Women’s Champion.