Data Leaders Who's Who: Elisa Koch

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elisa koch

Head of Data & Analytics, Australian Football League (AFL)

In Elisa's three years at the AFL she has been busy moving the needle in the data analytics team. Elisa shares on all things strategy & leadership in this in-depth article around the AFL's journey raising data literacy, maturing their data capability and building an end-to-end data capability for the AFL and all 18 clubs.

She also shares on the team's agility during the pandemic and successful launch of the team's first operationalised ML model to reduce member churn.

During this interview, Elisa shares a wealth of information in answering the following questions:

What are the essential qualities of a data leader?

I believe the most important mindset a data leader can take is to not consider them a ‘data leader’, but rather a ‘leader’ in the organisation and position yourself to the business with this in mind. This has been a journey for me to understand that although my expertise is in data, I can contribute to the broader organisational agenda even when data expertise is not required.

How have you found success in raising data literacy in your organisation? How do you get involved in educating peers and execs?

My Data & Analytics team at the AFL is a team of eight, comprising an Analytics team and Data Engineering team. My team not only services all key functions within the AFL, but also all 18 Clubs as a data & analytics shared service. In other words, we essentially service 19 different businesses. With my team’s vision of making the entire football industry more data-driven, a key strategic pillar of my team is to upskill the industry in data and analytics best practice. As the saying goes: Give a man a fish, and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish, and you feed him for a lifetime. Internally, this is achieved through formal and informal training programs for AFL and Club staff. For Clubs, we have created a ‘Tableau Creator Community’ to ask questions and share visualisation and dashboarding best practice. It is incredibly fulfilling to see such highly competitive Clubs share and collaborate within these analytics communities.

“The most important candidate attributes are their capacity to learn. I also believe diversity is a key ingredient for building a successful analytics team.”

Elisa also shared her thoughts on:

• What work at the AFL are you most proud of?

• What have you found to be the key ingredients to make data analytics capability create an impact on business outcomes?

• How do you build an effective analytics organisation?

• What have been major AI watershed moments in your career?

• What is the best way to structure your data and analytics teams? What processes and methodologies are key to underpinning analytics project success?

• What new technology and innovations do you see as being the most critical to the industry over the next 18 months?

• What legacy do you hope to leave behind you at your organisation?

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