Kartik’s life @GBG
What do we mean by location intelligence?
We provide global location data and technology to business. You know when you type in your address on eBay, and it’s magically formatted, standardised, and verified? Well, that’s Loqate doing its thing. It might seem simple, but to provide that service worldwide and at scale requires a lot of smart tech and a lot of hard work in the background to understand how addresses and locations work around the world.
“6 Primrose Rd, Bengaluru, Karnataka 561025’, might also be known as ‘the Blue House around the corner from the Starbucks.”
Can you give us an example?
So, in some areas of India, an address is not only referred to as we might know it – ‘6 Primrose Rd, Bengaluru, Karnataka 561025’, might also be known as ‘the Blue House around the corner from the Starbucks’! So to build an address capture and verify solution that can detect and correct the address in both scenarios requires a lot of clever tech baked in. I lead the team that tackles these problems to deliver a clean simple experience for our customers.
So, managing global data has its challenges?
Definitely. At GBG, our greatest strength is our data; we have data flowing in from all corners of the world and more accumulates every single day.
Our team has recently been working on the GBG data mesh. It’s a way of governing this flow of data globally while still managing it locally. It’s pretty cool, pioneering stuff. It allows GBG to control, serve and manage data at scale and allows us to innovate how the data is used within and across our Location, Identity and Fraud businesses to bring exciting new data products and solutions to our customers.
Kartik taking time out on the tablas, workshopping with Technology team members and leading a different team in Nara Deer Park, Japan.
And we help customers manage data too?
Yes, a lot of the large global businesses we serve with our Loqate solution have tons of customer data – your and my data – in many different systems. They come to GBG to make sure this critical customer data is verified, standardised, cleansed, and parsed.
A big challenge facing these customers is address and personal data quality. Loqate’s portfolio of address and contact validation, data cleansing and maintenance solutions solve these problems so our customers don’t have to – at the same global scale as their businesses.
“At GBG, our greatest strength is our data; we have data flowing in from all corners of the world and more accumulates every single day.”
What do you love about life at GBG?
I have enjoyed working in distributed teams for many years now, so the GBG way of working when and where we want works for me.
With transparency, respect, and simple but scalable communication methods flexible working provides a great work-life balance. Instead of daily commuting, I do mindfulness sessions every day and that puts me in a great mental state to tackle the day’s challenges. I have recently returned to playing my tablas (Indian percussion instruments) every day as well.
On the flip slide, the great thing about flexible work culture has been, when we do need to converge and collaborate, GBG has locations around the world where we can come together.
