Stefan Dupey-Whyte

Data Analyst – Product Analytics

  • Information Technology Management for Business (ITMB)
  • Loughborough University
  • Placement Year (10 Months+)
  • HSBC

Why did you join the HSBC UK industrial placement (IP) programme?

It stood out because of the values HSBC has which coincide with my own and promoted diversity which for me is massive, as it is nice to see people from the same background as yourself. HSBC had shown they were willing to develop a continuous improvement approach, which meant I would have an impact on how the programme worked.

Briefly describe your role in your industrial placement.

A data analyst within the Commercial Banking (CMB) function involves working with many different product managers to provide underlying data, revenue/growth opportunities or redress. The final type of work we do for them is sales work where we identify how we can sell products to customers who do not generate as much income as others may. The role typically involves using programs called SAS/Python to retrieve data and using data visualisation tools such as Excel/Qlik Sense to present the final output.

What have you enjoyed the most during your industrial placement?

The stakeholder engagement and relationships, I have been able to develop which is thanks to my amazing team providing me with a lot of responsibility. I have never come across anyone in the business who is not friendly and willing to help, which has made my development journey on the IP programme 100x better. As a result of this, I have been able to spend days with different parts of the business and be exposed to senior members of the company through the relationships I have built and be able to improve my knowledge of the company and the data used to provide more insight for stakeholders.

How would you describe the IP community here at HSBC?

The IP community is amazing, my cohort was very diverse with people from all backgrounds and ethnicities. As a result of us all being diverse, whenever we did work on projects together, idea generating was never an issue as we were able to look at things from many different angles and get all different perspectives to allow us to come to the best conclusion.

Had you had any preconceptions about HSBC and the financial services industry before you joined HSBC UK and how did these change after starting with the bank?

I expected the culture to be very serious and hard-working but it turned out to be hardworking and really friendly. This made turning up to work every day a blessing as no one was ever moody and everyone wanted to make work the best experience possible for everyone which ultimately made the work place even more productive as it allowed development of professional relationships with all my colleagues.

What transferable skills have you taken from your degree course and applied to your industrial placement?

Being an ITMB student, I was able to find a lot of relevance between my course and my placement as a data analyst. Modules which I would say helped me the most on my placement year would be ones which involved using databases and SQL. These modules focused on using data, which is the main focus for a data analyst, so these modules went hand in hand with what I was doing.

If you could go back in time what career advice would you give yourself?

Don’t be afraid to ask questions as the worst that can happen is that you will be told no.

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