Quentin Casares — Executive data & AI leader

Profile

A data leader for environments where trust, control, and commercial judgement have to coexist.

Quentin Casares turns fragmented enterprise data into trusted commercial, regulatory, and executive decision infrastructure.

Quentin Casares is a London-based data and AI leader with more than 26 years of experience across Tier 1 banking, insurance, public sector, and regulated enterprise environments.

His work sits where commercial performance, regulatory control, and executive decision quality meet: building data functions, modernising platforms, improving data quality, and creating governance that gives senior leaders confidence in the numbers.

He combines board-level credibility with hands-on technical fluency in Python, SQL, cloud data platforms, applied AI, RAG patterns, knowledge graphs, and agentic systems. That mix matters because the hardest executive data decisions are rarely solved by a platform selection alone.

The consistent thread is pragmatic transformation: turning fragmented data estates into decision infrastructure that can be governed, audited, scaled, and used by commercial teams.

Operating range

Senior enough for the boardroom, technical enough to challenge the architecture.

Quentin's profile is unusual because the executive narrative is backed by current hands-on engineering practice.

26+

years in data leadership. Across banking, insurance, public sector, and technology environments.

£20M+

documented efficiencies. Delivered through transformation, automation, and operating model change.

40+

person teams led. Blended employee, contractor, offshore, vendor, engineering, and analytics teams.

30+

country EMEA remit. Regional data, reporting, analytics, and governance across complex markets.

40%

data quality uplift. Achieved through remediation, process controls, and governance redesign.

Career narrative

The chronology matters less than the repeated pattern.

Across Alpha Bank, Volante Global, HSBC, RBS, Barclays, MTC, Dufrain, Walgreens Boots Alliance, and Korn Ferry, the pattern is consistent: make fragmented data usable, governed, and commercially meaningful.

2024 to present

Alpha Bank London

Head of Data

Sole senior data leader for a boutique private bank, accountable for enterprise data strategy, governance, analytics, regulatory reporting data quality, and applied AI adoption.

  • Chairs the Data and AI Governance Working Group.
  • Led BCBS239 remediation across finance and risk reporting data.
  • Deployed Microsoft Purview plans across 500+ Critical Data Elements and 18 finance database views.
  • Designed Salesforce FSC integration and core banking data remediation pipelines.

2022 to 2023

Volante Global

Head of Data Engineering and Analytics

Built the data function for a high-growth specialty insurance technology business with full ownership of engineering, analytics, BI, governance, and commercial data products.

  • Stood up the cloud data platform on Azure and Databricks.
  • Created commercial analytics for underwriting, pricing, exposure, customer, and margin decisions.
  • Recruited and led a multi-disciplinary data team.

2013 to 2018

HSBC

Head of EMEA Data, Reporting and Analytics

Accountable to the HR Executive Committee for data, reporting, analytics, vendor delivery, and governance across a 30+ country EMEA portfolio.

  • Led a blended 40+ person team across employees, contractors, and offshore delivery.
  • Delivered major cost efficiencies through re-engineering, automation, and operating model change.
  • Directed Accenture and Deloitte partnerships and GDPR readiness work.

Earlier leadership

Dufrain, MTC, RBS, Barclays, Walgreens Boots Alliance

Transformation, BI, data quality, and governance roles

Delivered advisory, public sector analytics, enterprise BI, investment banking data management, and healthcare data quality programmes.

  • Improved data quality by up to 40% in transformation contexts.
  • Built reporting estates and governance models for high-stakes decisions.
  • Operated across commercial, risk, operational, workforce, and regulatory datasets.

Qualified mandate

Use the profile when the problem needs an executive, not just a delivery lead.

For confidential transformation review, board advisory, or fractional leadership, the contact route captures enough context to qualify the conversation.

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