Why we’ve partnered with Women in data…

Because we recognize that we need to reach out to the widest range of possible candidates to achieve a representative group of people within the team. As the Data & Data Science field as well as the energy industry itself are often heavily skewed towards men, so reaching out to a group like Women in Data is a good step from our perspective to target under-represented groups more.

Julia Janosi, Senior Business Information and Reporting Analyst

Bio

Expertise: Data Analysis, Dashboard building, Report building, Stakeholder engagement and management, Metering and Smart Data

Education: BSc Economics and Industrial Organization with Honours – University of Warwick

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/julia-v-janosi

Growing up in Hungary I have always had an interest in the sciences when it came to my studies which drove me to graduate secondary school with an emphasis on Mathematics and English with a minor in IT. I chose Economics for my degree as it allowed for a focus on Maths and Statistics in an applied real-world setting. I was overjoyed when I was accepted to the University of Warwick which is known for their world class Economics department, and even though it was challenging I made the move to England for University working part time in hospitality alongside my studies to support my degree.

I had my start in the energy industry with my first post-university job as a Smart Metering Analyst in 2018 working for Opus Energy. Here it became my responsibility to support the data driven decision making, install and resource forecasting, data sharing and progress tracking for the Opus smart meter rollout.

The variety of the day to day was a welcome challenge and helped push me to familiarise myself with using different software, methods of interpreting and visualising data and building my confidence directly working with senior management around the business.

Strategic problem solving and finding data solutions for the various business problems we came across has really given me a platform to cultivate and utilise my analytical ways of thinking and allowed me to express creativity in finding solutions that work. Over time with restructuring of the business I found myself picking up more and more senior responsibilities and eventually my team was moved under Drax Business Information and Reporting which has broadened the business areas with which I work to Customer Operations-wide. I moved into a Senior role in April of 2021 to reflect the many additional responsibilities I had taken on. The many of areas I work with and varying complexities of reporting and data asks is a welcome challenge, and I find my colleagues are always happy to help when I have a question in an area outside of my expertise. Management is also very supportive in pushing for personal development at every opportunity.

Barbara Bormann, Senior Data Science Manager

Bio

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/barbara-bormann-ab711aa1/

I came into Data Science from a business background in a Swiss logistics company, having previously studied Political Science, Economics, and Law in Germany. In 2016 I moved to London from Switzerland and joined the newly emerging Data Science practice in a consulting firm with a strong focus on the energy industry. This gave me exposure to a large set of companies, data science topics, and challenges to resolve. I joined Drax in August 2020 as the first permanent member of the Data Science team and we started building up the team. There are lots of interesting Data Science problems in Drax and the demand for our skills is very high, so we are now in a position to bring in even more people to the team which is very exciting. We work on everything from multi-objective non-linear optimisation for decision-making solutions to turbine blade failure prediction or forecasting of diversity targets across different parts of the business, always closely linked with our colleagues in the platform & data engineering teams.

“Reaching out to a group like Women in Data is a good step from our perspective to target under-represented groups more. “

How drax sees the data landscape changing in the UK in the next five years

Firstly, millions of sensors are installed across industries during the last decade and massive data is being collected online. Secondly, having new cloud technologies for storing and computing in a cheap and scalable manner provides new arrays of opportunities that haven’t been seen before. Finally, as the third side of the triangle, more talent is attracted to the field of data science and AI makes it possible to drive a real business value out of data in different industries. Retailers and big tech companies were the first wave of industries utilizing the data and now it’s the time for more traditional and heavy industries to adopt it. Over the next 5 years, we will see a huge upside in data value chain utilization and more companies will get to this area. Despite having a better supply of data professionals, the demand side will still be stronger which keeps the market very competitive.

about drax

Drax Group is a renewable energy company engaged in renewable power generation, the production of sustainable biomass and the sale of renewable electricity to businesses. Drax operates a generation portfolio of sustainable biomass, hydro-electric and pumped hydro storage assets across four sites in England and Scotland. It is the UK’s largest source of renewable electricity. The company also operates a global bioenergy supply business with manufacturing facilities at 13 sites in the United States and Canada, producing compressed wood pellets for its own use and for customers in Europe and Asia. Enabling a zero carbon, lower cost energy future is Drax Group’s purpose and in 2019, it announced a world-leading ambition to be carbon negative by 2030, using Bioenergy with Carbon Capture and Storage (BECCS) technology to remove carbon dioxide (CO2) from the atmosphere at scale whilst delivering reliable renewable electricity.