Catherine Brien joined the digital team of AlixPartners, a global consulting firm, as a partner and managing director. Brien brings breadth and depth of experience helping retailers and other consumer businesses digitally transform their operations. She is based in London.
Brien spent 16 years in consulting at Oliver Wyman, where she was a partner in the retail and consumer practice. She advised clients, addressing growth challenges such as understanding customer motivations and behaviors and improving operational effectiveness using a digitally enabled approach. Most recently, Brien was chief data officer (CDO) at Guardian News & Media for four years, and data science director at co-op group, where she established strong capabilities and used her expertise to drive significant commercial value across both organizations.
Brien is also passionate about social impact. She is currently a Trustee of Nesta, the UK’s innovation agency for social good; and from 2014 to 2020 she was a Trustee of PEAS (Promoting Equality in African Schools), a mission to expand access to affordable, quality secondary education across Africa.
“We are excited to welcome Catherine to the firm as AlixPartners Retail practice continues to advance its digital capabilities. Catherine brings a balance of strategic, transformational, and hands-on experience to augment our “Digital First Retail” practice and offerings,” Matt Clark, partner and managing director at AlixPartners, said. “AlixPartners has created an industry-leading Retail Analytics Platform and we look forward to Catherine being positioned to continue with this and take it to the next level.”
