The Challenge
OVO were moving fast on AI. Their data and AI function was scaling, GenAI was being rolled out across the business, and they needed a senior technical leader who could shape strategy without losing sight of the engineering reality. Not your usual data science leadership hire. Whoever came in had to be credible with engineers, useful to product and senior stakeholders, and confident enough to stay hands-on when it mattered. The market was tight, the comp was being benched against profiles often priced well above it, and OVO were keen to move the dial on female representation in senior tech leadership.
The Fix
We ran it as a retained search and got properly under the skin of the brief. Long conversations with OVO leadership to understand the team, the systems, and what success actually looked like beyond the job spec. From there we mapped the market, qualified people technically rather than on titles, and built a shortlist around the things that genuinely mattered: AI systems thinking, ML engineering maturity, leadership presence, and long-term motivation.
The Result
We placed Aleksandra Dragon as Principal Data Scientist. She brings exactly the mix OVO were after: hands-on ML engineering, a platform-led view of AI systems, and the leadership chops to influence across multiple teams. A strategic appointment as OVO scale their AI capability, and a meaningful step forward on senior female representation in technical leadership too.
