Employee Stories

Romy Irawaty

Data Analyst careers at Standard Chartered

Demystifying the work of Data Analysts in Wealth & Retail Banking

What is really like working as a Data Analyst like for Standard Chartered? What do the team do on a day to day basis? We interviewed Romy from our Retail Analytics team at Standard Chartered, Singapore to learn what he does in this role and what he thinks of his career as a Data Analyst.

Romy studied Information Systems at university, and always has a deep interest in programming and data mining. However when he joined Standard Chartered, he started with the Credit Risk team instead of the data team as he originally wanted a focus in business.

During his role in the Credit Risk team he had a chance to work with the Retail Analytics team where he learned more about their roles. He discovered his interest in data analytics because the work was a combination of programming, data and business which were his passion. He applied for an internal transfer and was given the opportunity to join the Data Analytics team, and hasn’t looked back.

Can you describe your role in a nutshell?

We provide insights and analysis for all areas of business to help inform and drive strategic business decisions and solutions. We work closely with businesses to understand their needs and problems. We then develop a data analytics strategy where we work with Centre of Excellence teams to collect, analyse, transform, validate and visualise data. We then report and communicate the business insights and recommendations back to businesses.

We are also responsible in generating leads for campaigns and fulfilments of campaigns, where automation is not possible.

In what ways do you work on data modelling and AI?

At Standard Chartered, high-end data analytics, modelling and AI are managed centrally by the Centre of Excellence (COE) team in the Group. Being part of the country Retail Analytics team, as we understand country specific data and business contexts, we provide consultancy and validation support to the COE team. We work very closely with business teams as we are expected to challenge a proposed model and ensure the data attributes used for each model are relevant and up-to-date.

What your typical day is like?

On a typical day, we are very busy extracting data for campaign leads or insights. We are also heavily involved in discussions with stakeholders to understand requirements, seek clarifications and make adjustments on the data strategy. We also spend quite a lot of time on dashboards and presentation deck preparations.

“Data Analytics is the best spot for someone like me who has a collective passion for programming, data and business.”

Romy Irawaty, Director, Retail Analytics, Wealth & Retail Banking

What is unique about working in Data Analytics team in Standard Chartered?

Working in Data Analytics team at Standard Chartered is very different from working in other set ups. At Standard Chartered, analysts are given the responsibility for managing end-to-end campaign analytics support, which means we are able to do insights, sizing and execution of campaigns. It provides analysts a comprehensive view of their own portfolio and a wide exposure of the projects. It trains up our analysts to be all-round experts in the field which is beneficial for their career growth and advancement.

Can you share an example of work where analysts managed an end-to-end campaign analytics support?

Many of the campaigns start with a problem statement such as how to improve sales, how to target the right clients, or what caused increase in attrition. The problem statements might not come with a hypothesis, and we need to define that. When the statements are shared with us, we use available data to provide insights and answers to the questions. Business teams would then construct campaign programmes using our insights, and continue working with us in campaign criteria, sizing and execution. We will also support performance tracking to evaluate campaign success.

What are the most important skills working in the Data Analytics team?

I would say both technical skills and people skills are equally important. We need to have programming and data skills to do our data job. At the same time, as we work with stakeholders to discuss business needs and impact daily, people in our team also need to have very good social skills and a high level of business sense and knowledge.

Learn more about our career opportunities in the Data and Analytics Team in Wealth & Retail Banking .