Tony Ohlsson wins 4th in IAPA 2019 Top 25 Analytics Leaders program

2 August, 2019

Tony Ohlsson has been awarded 4th place in the IAPA 2019 Top 25 Analytics Leaders award.

IAPA (Institute of Analytics Professionals of Australia) is Australia’s peak industry body for analytics professionals. Their panel of analytics and business leaders judge nominations on their contribution to strategy and impact; influence and advocacy; innovation and improvement; and team growth and leadership.

Tony’s award recognises his contributions as Chief Analytics Officer at Volt Bank and as Founder and Managing Partner at AlphaZetta.

At Volt Bank, Tony leads the analytics function. Volt was conceived from day one to compete on data and analytics as it aims to take on the big 4 banks in Australia. Data and analytics are a core part of the organisation’s strategy. At Volt, analytics powers the real time customer experience around journeys (rather than products) using nudges and real time advice and support to help customers. A number of innovative techniques are used across the bank, from digital onboarding and fraud and threat detection, to the real time analytics architecture that allows real time decisioning models to run in transactions and interactions.

AlphaZetta is a digital analytics and data science consultancy. Tony is the founder and leads our global team with an infectious passion and determination to lift analytics capability and help analytics professionals develop and realise their full potential. AlphaZetta is one of the fastest growing analytics companies with 700 consultants in 45+ countries. AlphaZetta is designed to level the playing field between large traditional consulting companies and independent analytics consultants.

Data ethics

Tony’s passion for data ethics and restoring trust in the analytics industry sees him speak both for Volt and AlphaZetta on open banking and data ethics as well as collaborate with the industry privacy groups for progressive change.

AlphaZetta was conceived and funded to support the independent analytics experts and small start ups. AlphaZetta now has 147 independent experts in Australia and supports that community with projects, knowledge sharing and networking and learning events and meetups. In addition the AlphaZetta Academy provides a wide range of training, providing both public and private courses to enable large organisation transformations.

AlphaZetta also collaborates with Data Science Sydney to support content and information sharing throughout the community, and runs the Global Analytics Summit (GAS) conferences around the world to create networking, knowledge sharing and development opportunities for participants.

Tony’s leadership on data ethics will result in Volt Bank being the first gender free financial institution in the country, meaning it will not store gender records against its clients. This is in line with data minimisation as part of data trust by design and good data ethics. Whilst seemingly a small step, it’s a significant change that physically renders gender bias in credit and other decisions obsolete. It’s also a very progressive step for gender equality and for gender anonymity. It also means that Volt clients are treated in service functions and communications as individuals on their own merits, regardless of their gender.

AlphaZetta congratulates Tony on his award – well deserved we say!

IAPA announced the 2019 top 25 at a presentation in Sydney on 1 August. The award was run for the first time in 2018.