{"id":2111,"date":"2026-04-20T08:28:58","date_gmt":"2026-04-20T08:28:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/datadecoded.com\/ldn\/?post_type=speaker&#038;p=2111"},"modified":"2026-04-20T08:31:11","modified_gmt":"2026-04-20T08:31:11","slug":"laurence-mcdonald","status":"publish","type":"speaker","link":"https:\/\/datadecoded.com\/ldn\/speakers\/laurence-mcdonald\/","title":{"rendered":"Laurence McDonald"},"content":{"rendered":"<div role=\"presentation\">Laurence leads Advanced Analytics at the Rugby Football Union, where his team is building the customer analytics capability that underpins helps boost the profile of Rugby across fans players and volunteers. We focus on understanding fans, players, and volunteers through segmentation, lifetime value, propensity modelling, and pricing analytics etc, turning data into decisions that shape how the RFU grows the game.<\/div>\n<div role=\"presentation\"><\/div>\n<div role=\"presentation\">Our work sits at the intersection of data, strategy, and storytelling, building the platform and models on one side, and helping the business act on what they tell us on the other. Laurence is particularly interested in how sports organisations can use analytics to deepen fan relationships, unlock commercial growth, and support participation at every level of the game.<\/div>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":2112,"template":"","speaker-category":[10],"class_list":["post-2111","speaker","type-speaker","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","speaker-category-speaker"],"acf":{"position":"Advanced Data Analytics Lead","business":2113,"email":"","phone":"","website":"","address":"","linkedin":"","facebook":"","instagram":"","youtube":"","x":"","bluesky":""},"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v26.6 (Yoast SEO v26.6) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Laurence McDonald - Data Decoded LDN<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/datadecoded.com\/ldn\/speakers\/laurence-mcdonald\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Laurence McDonald\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Laurence leads Advanced Analytics at the Rugby Football Union, where his team is building the customer...\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/datadecoded.com\/ldn\/speakers\/laurence-mcdonald\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Data Decoded LDN\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/DataDecoded\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2026-04-20T08:31:11+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/datadecoded.com\/ldn\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2026\/04\/Laurence-McDonald-BW.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"814\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"890\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@DataDecoded_HQ\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"1 minute\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/datadecoded.com\/ldn\/speakers\/laurence-mcdonald\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/datadecoded.com\/ldn\/speakers\/laurence-mcdonald\/\",\"name\":\"Laurence McDonald - 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