Andy Ralphs

I started at dunnhumby in London in 2002, inside the business that built Tesco Clubcard, and spent nine years learning the craft of customer science across the UK, Germany, Mexico and India, finishing as a Vice President.

Every role since has been a version of the same job. At Coles I led customer analytics, building behavioural segmentations that were adopted group-wide. At Quantium I joined the Woolworths supplier analytics business in its first year and built its Melbourne client base to 16 FMCG clients and A$16.9 million in 2015, then led the Woolworths analytics partnership with a team of 35. At Mastercard I built retail data products in Sydney, then ran delivery across Sub-Saharan Africa from Cape Town.

I returned to dunnhumby as Head of Africa, a General Manager role running an 11-country business, before moving to Hong Kong as Group Commercial Intelligence Director at DFI Retail Group, where I built the group's commercial intelligence function on its data lake, putting analytics in the hands of trading teams across four retail banners in Hong Kong and Singapore, then launched its supplier insights business.

In 2026 I came home to Melbourne and founded AVR Advisory, so that retailers and their suppliers could engage that experience directly: senior, hands-on and without the machinery of a large firm.

The through-line is unchanged in 20 years: customer data put to work in commercial decisions and supplier relationships built on shared insight rather than a supplier tax.

I am a graduate of the AICD Company Directors Course, passing with Order of Merit (GAICD), and of Stanford Graduate School of Business's LGBTQ Executive Leadership Program. I hold a Professional Diploma in Marketing from the Chartered Institute of Marketing and a BSc (Hons) from the University of Birmingham. I am an active advocate for LGBTQ+ inclusion at executive level.

I live in Fitzroy VIC and work with clients wherever they are. I write regularly about retail, data and AI on LinkedIn.