ITV has named Sanjeevan Bala as its new Group Chief Data & AI Officer. Reporting to Rufus Radcliffe, Chief Marketing Officer and Director of Direct to Consumer, Bala, who joins in May 2020, will lead the transformation of ITV’s group-wide data and Ai strategy, evolving and consolidating the organisation’s data assets, raising the overall data capability and accelerating the adoption of AI to fuel growth.

Bala will head up a team, providing both data science to create new value, and analytics to power experimentation across ITV’s commercial teams, Direct to Consumer Business, Broadcast, Studios, Marketing and Strategy functions, the Management Board, and advertising partners.

Bala joins ITV direct from his role as Head of Data Science at Channel 4, where he built a multi award-winning team that successfully launched a number of global first commercial innovations resulting in incremental advertising and viewing value.

Prior to this,Bala spent six years within Channel 4 as Head of Planning and Analytics, and has previously held roles within PwC, Dunnhumby and a number of start-ups in Silicon Valley, where he was responsible for building a number of digital businesses.

Radcliffe said: “Accelerating ITV’s data capabilities is at the heart of ITV’s More Than TV strategy, and we are delighted that Sanjeevan is joining ITV at this exciting time in our transformation. Sanjeevan has a proven track record of using data to drive commercial value, and we look forward to him building upon the foundations already established to take ITV’s data strategy to the next level.”

Bala added: “I am thrilled to be joining ITV, it’s a great opportunity to experiment by developing data products that will create value across the business.  Blending human creativity with machine intelligence will allow ITV to navigate a clear path through the fourth industrial revolution.”