Outra recruits data chiefs to bolster leadership team

Data analytics consultancy Outra has made a double senior appointment, bringing in former Legal & General chief Peter Jackson and ex-DunnHumby director Mark Howland to beef up its top team.

Jackson (pictured, far left) joins from strategic data consultancy Carruthers & Jackson, which he co-founded with former Network Rail CDO Caroline Jackson in 2021.

Prior to that, he was chief data and analytics officer at analytics database management software company Exasol, group director of data science at L&G and CDO at L&G Investment Management.

Jackson has also held the role of CDO at Southern Water, and head of data at the Pensions Regulator.

In his new role as chief data and product officer, Jackson will focus on household and consumer data to provide behavioural insights for property, utilities, insurance, financial services and retail firms.

Meanwhile, Howland (pictured, far right) joins as chief data scientist from Fable, where he held a similar role for three years. Prior to that he was CDS at Starcount, and head of advanced analytics at Aimia. Howland also spent six years at DunnHumby leading insight teams in the US, Malaysia and UK.

Outra was launched in 2016 by Giles Mackay, who sold his property market analytics company Hometrack to Zoopla for £120m. Former DunnHumby boss Simon Hay was CEO of the business between 2017 and 2020, along with ex-Wunderman and Callcredit chief Caroline Worboys as chief operating officer. Hays quit in June 2020 for a top role at loyalty specialist TCC Group. Worboys left in May 2021 and now holds a number of non-exec roles.

According to Companies House, Outra’s other directors include Australian political strategist Sir Lynton Crosby, and Canadians Ajmal Khan and Stephen Parker. American James Messina is chief executive.

The firm consists of three business units: Outra Data, suppling UK residential property data, granular segmentation, customer targeting and multichannel marketing; Outra Media provides customisable and targeted data to enable multichannel media and marketing campaigns to be planned and bought more efficiently; and Outra Labs, which is the data science team and tech platform which powers Outra.

The firm combines clients’ first-party data with its own proprietary data, using advanced modelling, analytics and real-time opinions to help companies understand who their customers are and what influences them for micro-targeting purposes. It claims to have data on 29 million UK households.