Women to Watch Index: Leigh Stuart & Carys Lee

WiHTL & Diversity in Retail, have launched their annual Women to Watch Index, produced in partnership with The MBS Group. Now in its 6th year, The ‘2024 Women to Watch in Hospitality, Travel, Leisure and Retail Index’ highlights an incredible lineup of over 100 women role models and trailblazers. Throughout the Index, women demonstrate visionary leadership, commercial and operational excellence, and a dedication to raising the bar for women across the industry. For the first time, the 2024 edition had an exciting new section, ‘Women to Watch in Technology & Engineering’, and we’re delighted to share that Carys Lees, Head of Data Science and Leigh Stuart, Head of Business Solutions have been listed. Read on to find out more about their remarkable career journeys.

“After a ten-year stint in consulting, I am a newcomer to the world of luxury retail. My career has taken me on a meandering journey through many industries; healthcare, government, retail finances, FMCG, and entertainment. Through each of these, my focus has been on large-scale process improvement, opportunity exploitation, and automation – all achieved through applications of Data Science and Artificial Intelligence. Particular highlights include: designing and implementing a system at a retail bank which prevented vulnerable adults from being exploited by PayDay loan companies, working with the UK government to ensure that the UK hit its green energy targets through investment in efficient energy sources, and creating a one of a kind system to share information securely amongst various organisations and charities to help prevent the proliferation of human trafficking in the UK.” – Carys, Head of Data Science

“I could say that my retail career started at 15, as a teenage girl sitting through never-ending shifts on a Sainsbury’s checkout, praying that at some point I’d be able to see the end of my queue! But it was probably when a surprised and slightly scared History graduate joined Andersen Consulting (now Accenture), that I began my love of all things retail. As a Consultant, I worked with some fabulous brands. Highlights include a three-year stint at Coles in Australia, supporting the launch of the Banana Republic brand in the UK, and navigating the weekly back-and-forth to Scandinavia in the depths of winter whilst six months pregnant! For the last 16 years, I’ve been ‘in-house’ with interesting roles (back) at Sainsbury’s, Kingfisher and now Harrods. I’ve proudly worked for Harrods for over five years now and am still inspired and challenged every day by the uniqueness of this business from top to bottom and the excitement that the luxury sector brings.” – Leigh, Head Of Business Solutions

If you’d like to download the full index, you can below.