Pets at Home has appointed its first ever chief data officer to boost the retailer’s ‘Very Important Pets’ (VIP) customer loyalty scheme and veterinary services, drafting in Royal Mail CDO Robert Kent to the role.
Kent has been at Royal Mail for over ten years, joining as programme director; he has held the role of CDO for the past four two years, leading the group business intelligence function in Royal Mail and reporting directly to chief executive Rico Back.
In this role, he was accountable for the creation and curation of the company’s data assets which spans the data governance, integrity, performance measurement visualisation and advanced analytics, generating insights for use across the company, internally and externally.
Prior to Royal Mail, Kent was business relationship manager at Carphone Warehouse, and also had spells at Epiphany UK, Capgemini and Smith & Nephew.
At Pets at Home, Kent will help the retailer maximise the value of its data. In particular, uniting the pet and customer information that sits within the VIP loyalty scheme and veterinary client databases, so it can deliver products and services to customers that are more relevant and convenient.
Launched in 2012, the VIP scheme has nearly 5 million members. It is run by Havas Helia and hosted by GI Insight.
Kent will join the business at the start of November 2018 and will become a member of the group executive management team, reporting to Pets at Home group CEO Peter Pritchard.
Kent said: “Pets at Home is a specialist retailer that has been very successful in the UK pet market. Now is the time for the business to take the next step towards becoming a world class pet care provider, which will need a more integrated, fast moving approach to meet pet owners’ needs. I look forward to working with Peter and the team to unlock the wealth of data within the business, so that we can better deliver the products and services customers really want.”
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