Westpac loses its group head of data and advanced analytics

Westpac's group head of data and advanced analytics platforms Kelley Yohe has left the bank and is headed to the United States.

Kelley Yohe (Image credit: Westpac iQ/Westpac)

Over a four-and-a-half year period, Yohe led the bank’s efforts to incorporate analytics into its customer experiences, standing up a range of data platforms and capabilities.

iTnews understand recruitment for Yohe’s replacement in already underway; the position reports to Westpac general manager for data platforms Meggy Chung.

Yohe walked through a list of her team's accomplishments during her time overseeing the operation in a LinkedIn post.

She said the team had grown from around 280 people to 1500 people in her four-and-a-half years at the bank.

“Our journey took us from traditional batch data, to enabling Westpac into its first cloud instances, big data, machine learning, and real-time API enabled aggregated data," Yohe wrote.

“As a team we had so many 'firsts' for Westpac.”

These included consolidating legacy data environments and launching the bank's first foray into public cloud.

Yohe was also part of the establishment of Westpac’s Data Driven Experience Platform (DDEP) intelligence hub, which sits on Azure.

According to Yohe’s post, the team also:

• created the first real-time data platforms with Kafka and Spark;
• was responsible for launching open data as part of Westpac open banking obligations, “aggregating all of the banks' brands in one platform for the first time, and enabling them with APIs”; and
• establishing a data science and machine learning data platform and big data capabilities.

Yohe’s team also produced a digital data backend to support immediate delivery of Covid-19 mortgage relief packages to Westpac customers.

“I am more than confident that the hard work that we, as a team, put in has and will continue to change Westpac's data and digital trajectory forever,” wrote Yohe.

“I am excited to see and hear what comes next, and see the leadership team take the next step forward and continue to take Westpac to the next level.”