Pearson subsidiary IT boss goes to marketing data specialist

Former Pearson IT director Lester Pulsford has left the company to become European CIO for marketing technology and services specialist Acxiom.

Pulsford formally headed up IT for Pearson subsidiary Edexcel, an organisation that provides exam marking services. It relies heavily on scanning technology and onscreen marking to do this. Pulsford spent six years at Edecxel, where he claims he significantly reduced IT overheads From £23m a year to £16m over a two-and-a-half year period.

Prior to working at Edexcel, he was in charge of IT, operations and facilities at payments processing company TYSYS for three years, where he oversaw a £22m data centre build in the company’s Yorkshire offices.

A statement from Acxiom highlighted Pulsford’s extensive experience in delivering projects around managing huge volumes of data records.

In the statement, Pulsford said: “As the world’s leading consumer data company, we need to ensure our technology systems are best-in-class to provide optimal service to clients and maintain the highest consumer data privacy standards.”