Heather Dawe is a Data and AI Leader with 25 years of experience working across the industry, innovating with data and how it can be used to improve outcomes, quality and efficiency. At UST Heather works with FTSE-100 companies in the financial services, retail, manufacturing and logistics, advising on AI strategy and building associated implementation programmes.
A recognised AI Thought Leader, Heather has appeared on the BBC, Sky News, and numerous national and international news publications including The Guardian, Financial Times and Economic Times. A member of the Responsible AI Group at the Intellectual Forum, Jesus College, Cambridge, with her UST colleague Dr. Adnan Masood, she is co-author of the 2023 book Responsible AI in the Enterprise, a guide to how to succeed with AI in business safely, fairly and ethically. She spoke about AI ethics at the World Economic Forum in Davos in January 2025. With a love for learning, Heather is also passionate about helping others to develop their skills and expertise. She is an advocate for democratising AI as well as achieving greater diversity in those who develop it.
Recently, in an exclusive interview with CIO Magazine, Heather shared insights on the future of work and how AI will impact the skills and expertise required for success in various industries, personal hobbies and interests, future plans, words of wisdom, and much more. The following excerpts are taken from the interview.
Hi Heather. What drives your passion for data and AI, and how do you stay current with emerging trends and technologies?
I have always been fascinated with probability theory and the wider ways we can apply mathematics to real-world problems to improve a situation and make a difference. Within business this is often saving and making money, but it’s important to recognise the ways in which data and AI can be used to improve the quality of outcomes, in healthcare for example.
I stay connected with emerging trends and technologies by remaining hands-on – exploring and using new AI technologies as they become available, through the building of prototype apps and similar, I’ve coded throughout my career and continue to do so. I find building in this way really helps me to imagine how my teams can use the new technologies to both help their own ways of working and inform how we can use them to innovate solutions with our customers.
What do you love the most about your current role?
My current role is very varied in that UST works with Clients across industry verticals, our Client base are in the financial services, retail, manufacturing, healthcare and more. As such we get to see, advise on and develop a wide variety of data science and AI solutions for our Clients. I personally love to problem solve and innovate so this is a great role for me. More than that, because of the variety of our Client base and their differing ways of using data and AI, we can help to spread learning across our Client base.
How do you see the role of data and AI evolving in the future, and what implications will this have for businesses and society?
It kind of goes without saying that the role of data and AI has significantly grown in importance and relevance over the past few years. I think it’s still early days for how generative AI is in the process of changing our ways of working. Increasingly we are going to be combining our own creativity and expertise with AI to both increase our productivity and to accelerate the development of new products, services and technologies.
It is also important to recognise that, while generative AI is proving to be a transformative technology, there is much more to machine learning and AI than GenAI alone. I think in the coming years we will see an acceleration in the pace of other new and enhanced AI technologies. The development of many of these will be accelerated by GenAI, as a data scientist I am incredibly excited regarding how I can work with it to innovate and explore in these areas.
Can you share your perspective on the future of work and how AI will impact the skills and expertise required for success in various industries?
I think it is going to be fundamentally important for us to be in touch with our creativity and our capacity to think critically. Perversely over reliance on AI can cause these aspects of ourselves and our intelligence to become diminished. AI is incredibly good at process based cognitive tasks but cannot be intuitive and creative in the ways we can. And human expertise is going to become even more important as we will use this to work with AI to imagine and build new things.
Many jobs are going to change, particularly those that are at least in part process-based (and in this I include software development, the legal profession, accountancy, data science and more). Ways of working in such professions are going to become increasingly focussed on using AI in the most appropriate manner, assuring that work completed by AI is appropriate and in considering how we enhance and build on such output in ways AI cannot.
What does the term “authentic leadership” mean to you?
To be authentic leadership means being myself, treating others in the ways I would want to be treated myself, seeking to understand how I can help how those who work with me to enjoy and grow in their roles, alongside achieving our deliverables in the best ways. Empathy is an important part of this, it helps me understand the values and motivations of others and how we can achieve all together as a team.
It took me a many years to develop the confidence to bring my whole self to work. I think it’s very important for people to feel comfortable to be themselves – we’re happier and more productive.
What are your thoughts on diversity and inclusion in tech? How important is it to have authentic conversations with leaders, professionals, and changemakers to create more acceptance across the globe?
As a woman technology leader, I’m in a significant minority, and women make up only 22% of the AI development workforce. Quite apart from the fact that we really should have parity within this workforce, a source of bias in AI is from those who develop it. Striving to ensure the diversity of this workforce reflects the diversity of society is really important as we increasingly use AI to make decisions for us in many areas of our lives. Conversations about this at all levels are very important. I’m a STEM Ambassador and visit schools to talk about how amazing a job in technology can be. I have also discussed the importance of diversity and inclusion in tech live on BBC Business News and spoken of it at the World Economic Forum in Davos.
What are some of your passions outside of work? What do you like to do in your time off?
I have two daughters and spending time with my family is something I love to do. My wider passions include painting and creative writing – both fiction and non-fiction. My paintings have been shown in a variety of galleries and exhibitions around the UK and I’m a published author – my first collection of short stories was shortlisted for the Banff Mountain Literature prize in 2024. Painting and writing are really important to me – they help me to relax and think differently.
Which technology are you investing in now to prepare for the future?
In my role as a Chief Data Scientist, I prepare myself for the future by actively exploring and using new AI technologies, as well as seeking to explore how these new technologies can help me to use and benefit existing machine learning and analytics methods. While these days I don’t spend many of my working hours doing this – much of it is Client liaison, client, partner and service development and overseeing and mentoring our delivery teams – it’s an important aspect of my job.
At the moment my mind is being blown by the ways I can interact with GenAI to develop progressive prototypes of new AI and ML services. I am also continuing to explore quantum computing. While we’re probably a while away from this going mainstream, when it does it’s going to have huge impact on our technology landscape.
What is your biggest goal? Where do you see yourself in 5 years from now?
The development of AI is currently moving at an incredibly fast pace. While this is very exciting, it’s also concerning as AI is far from perfect, it often gets things wrong and it’s not a silver bullet. I’ve been an advocate for ethical and responsible AI for many years now, and have significant experience of innovating with AI ethically and responsibly. While some question whether these can go together, I know they can and am grateful that an important part of my role now is guiding large Enterprises to do so. In the future I aim to continue and to scale this advisory and guidance role. And, as we are increasingly seeing the role of Chief AI Officer emerge, I’m excited to see the opportunities that arise in this space.
What advice would you give to aspiring data scientists and AI leaders?
If I had to give three pieces of advice they would be to always seek to deeply understand the problem you are trying to solve with AI and to measure the value the AI brings. In many of our roles this means working closely with non-technical users to unlock both the solutions and value, not hiding away with the algorithms! I would also encourage the recognition that diverse teams have been shown to be some of the highest performance teams. And lastly that in the future our knowledge and expertise as data scientists and AI developers are going to be at least as important as they are now: keep learning and embrace change, I don’t think there’s ever been a more exciting time to be a data scientist.