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Welcome to another episode of The Data Debrief, the companion show to Driven by Data: The Podcast, where hosts Catherine Dowden-King and Kyle Winterbottom unpack Tuesday's episode, share what's been on their minds, and explore the realities of leadership, culture, and capability across the data and AI landscape.
This week, Catherine returns from a two-week break to catch up with Kyle on the conversation with Joanne Riseborough, Group Data Management and Culture Director at Lloyd's Banking Group, alongside a wide-ranging catch-up covering AI ethics, the future of education, and why context is everything when it comes to new technology.
They cover:
Programming note and community shout-out: Catherine's back from a two-week camping-and-patio-laying hiatus (send help, or bricklaying tips), and registration for Driven by Data LIVE is officially open, with a growing list of bespoke, invite-only events also on the horizon. Make sure you're on the events list to hear about them first.
This episode is a reminder that the unglamorous, unsexy fundamentals, data management, clear accountability, honest conversations about ethics, are usually what make the shinier stuff actually work.
In Episode 17 of Season 7 of Driven by Data: The Podcast, Kyle Winterbottom is joined by Joanne Riseborough, Group Data Management and Culture Director at Lloyds Banking Group, where they discuss why the AI boom has quietly made data management one of the most strategically important disciplines in the boardroom.
They explore why AI is shining a spotlight on data quality, governance and culture, how large enterprises balance modernisation with legacy technology, and why organisations that invest in strong data foundations will be best positioned to realise meaningful value from AI.
They also discuss:
Thanks to our sponsor, Data & AI Literacy Academy.
Data & AI Literacy Academy is leading the way in transforming enterprise workforces with data literacy across the organisation, through a combination of change management and education. In today's data-centric world, being data literate is no longer a luxury, it's a necessity.
If you want successful data product adoption, and to keep driving innovation within your business, you need to start with data & AI literacy first.
At Data & AI Literacy Academy, they don't just teach data skills. They empower individuals and teams to think critically, analyse effectively, and make decisions confidently based on data. They're bridging the gap between business and data teams, so they can all work towards aligned outcomes.
From those taking their first steps in data & AI literacy to seasoned experts looking to fine-tune their skills, our data experts provide tailored classes for every stage. But it's not just learning tracks that they offer. They embed a deep data culture shift through a transformative change management programme.
They take a people-first approach, working closely with your executive team to win the hearts and minds. We know this will drive the company-wide impact that data teams want to achieve.
Get in touch and find out how you can unlock the full potential of data in your organisation. Learn more at www.dl-academy.com.
In Episode 16 of Season 7 of Driven by Data: The Podcast, Kyle Winterbottom is joined by Priya Enefer, Chief Information Officer at Hakluyt & Company, where they discuss why the tension between CIOs and CDOs isn't a people problem, but an organisational design problem.
They explore how operating models, accountability, product thinking and executive alignment determine whether technology, data and AI become genuine competitive advantages or simply create duplication, politics and confusion.
They also discuss:
Thanks to our sponsor, Data & AI Literacy Academy.
Data & AI Literacy Academy is leading the way in transforming enterprise workforces with data literacy across the organisation, through a combination of change management and education. In today's data-centric world, being data literate is no longer a luxury, it's a necessity.
If you want successful data product adoption, and to keep driving innovation within your business, you need to start with data & AI literacy first.
At Data & AI Literacy Academy, they don't just teach data skills. They empower individuals and teams to think critically, analyse effectively, and make decisions confidently based on data. They're bridging the gap between business and data teams, so they can all work towards aligned outcomes.
From those taking their first steps in data & AI literacy to seasoned experts looking to fine-tune their skills, our data experts provide tailored classes for every stage. But it's not just learning tracks that they offer. They embed a deep data culture shift through a transformative change management programme.
They take a people-first approach, working closely with your executive team to win the hearts and minds. We know this will drive the company-wide impact that data teams want to achieve.
Get in touch and find out how you can unlock the full potential of data in your organisation. Learn more at www.dl-academy.com.
In Episode 15 of Season 7 of Driven by Data: The Podcast, Kyle Winterbottom was joined for the third time by Vin Vashishta, CEO and Founder of V-Squared, where they discuss why the organisations getting the most value from AI are focused less on models and use cases, and more on outcomes, information architecture and business transformation, which includes;
Thanks to our sponsor, Data & AI Literacy Academy.
Data & AI Literacy Academy is leading the way in transforming enterprise workforces with data literacy across the organisation, through a combination of change management and education. In today's data-centric world, being data literate is no longer a luxury, it's a necessity.
If you want successful data product adoption, and to keep driving innovation within your business, you need to start with data & AI literacy first.
At Data & AI Literacy Academy, they don't just teach data skills. They empower individuals and teams to think critically, analyse effectively, and make decisions confidently based on data. They're bridging the gap between business and data teams, so they can all work towards aligned outcomes.
From those taking their first steps in data & AI literacy to seasoned experts looking to fine-tune their skills, our data experts provide tailored classes for every stage. But it's not just learning tracks that they offer. They embed a deep data culture shift through a transformative change management programme.
They take a people-first approach, working closely with your executive team to win the hearts and minds. We know this will drive the company-wide impact that data teams want to achieve.
Get in touch and find out how you can unlock the full potential of data in your organisation. Learn more at www.dl-academy.com.
Welcome to another episode of The Data Debrief, the companion show to Driven by Data: The Podcast, where hosts Catherine Dowden-King and Kyle Winterbottom unpack Tuesday's episode, share what's been on their minds, and explore the realities of leadership, culture, and capability across the data and AI landscape.
This week, Catherine and Kyle reflect on the conversation with Peter Crouch, Group Innovation Director at Lloyd's Banking Group, digging into what it really takes to build an innovation function that earns its keep, why "solving the right problem" beats "solving the problem right," and the discipline required to stay pragmatic about AI when the pressure to look busy is everywhere.
They cover:
Kyle's thought of the week: prompted by Catherine, Kyle unpacks a pattern he's seeing across senior searches, talented specialists (using data governance as the example) who've risen to the very top of their track, out-earning some CDOs, only to find themselves boxed in with nowhere left to go. He explains why deep expertise in one domain rarely translates into credibility for a central, cross-value-chain leadership role, and why the people who make that jump early, often before they feel ready, tend to end up better positioned long-term. His advice: get genuinely clear on where you want to end up, be honest about whether your current track can get you there, and be willing to take a sideways or even backward step now if it sets up the bigger move later.
Catherine's thought of the week: inspired by Harry Kane losing his voice mid-interview, Catherine reflects on her own voice-loss moment hosting last year's Driven by Data Live, and makes the case for giving everything to your work when it counts, leaving it all out on the pitch without apology, while still knowing that pace isn't sustainable every single day.
Plus, a programming note and a community shout-out: Catherine is off for a short camping-holiday hiatus, so the show will pause for a couple of weeks, and the mentorship scheme's winter cohort is now open, get in touch to be paired with someone outside your usual industry and hear how genuinely non-linear most people's career paths really are.
This episode explores why real innovation isn't about chasing shiny new ideas, but about building the capability, confidence, and psychological safety to work on the right problems, know when to walk away from the wrong ones, and be intentional about where your own career is actually headed.
In Episode 14 of Season 7 of Driven by Data: The Podcast, Kyle Winterbottom was joined by Peter Crouch, Group Innovation Director at Lloyds Banking Group, where they discuss why the organisations that thrive in the AI era won't necessarily be those with the best ideas, but those that build the strongest innovation capability, and how large enterprises can adopt startup thinking without compromising governance, risk or customer trust, which includes:
• Why innovation capability matters more than individual ideas.
• How solving the right problem is more important than solving the problem right.
• Why large organisations should adopt startup principles to innovate faster and reduce risk.
• How staged funding and rapid experimentation prevent costly investment in the wrong ideas.
• Why innovation requires a completely different operating model from traditional delivery.
• How regulated organisations can create space for experimentation without compromising governance or customer trust.
• Why embedding innovation into the business creates greater impact than isolated innovation teams.
• How portfolio thinking stops organisations falling in love with ideas too early.
• Why modern engineering platforms are essential for accelerating innovation.
• Why AI should always be driven by business outcomes rather than technology hype.
• How agentic AI is more likely to augment high-value work than replace skilled professionals.
• Why the biggest opportunity for AI in software engineering is removing friction rather than writing code.
• How replacing certainty with a learning-first mindset transforms innovation culture.
• Why treating failure as learning is essential to building innovative organisations.
• How creating intrapreneurs unlocks innovation at enterprise scale.
• Why proving value early is the key to scaling innovation successfully.
• How embedded, personalised financial services could redefine the future of banking.
Thanks to our sponsor, Data & AI Literacy Academy.
Data & AI Literacy Academy is leading the way in transforming enterprise workforces with data literacy across the organisation, through a combination of change management and education. In today's data-centric world, being data literate is no longer a luxury, it's a necessity.
If you want successful data product adoption, and to keep driving innovation within your business, you need to start with data & AI literacy first.
At Data & AI Literacy Academy, they don't just teach data skills. They empower individuals and teams to think critically, analyse effectively, and make decisions confidently based on data. They're bridging the gap between business and data teams, so they can all work towards aligned outcomes.
From those taking their first steps in data & AI literacy to seasoned experts looking to fine-tune their skills, our data experts provide tailored classes for every stage. But it's not just learning tracks that they offer. They embed a deep data culture shift through a transformative change management programme.
They take a people-first approach, working closely with your executive team to win the hearts and minds. We know this will drive the company-wide impact that data teams want to achieve.
Get in touch and find out how you can unlock the full potential of data in your organisation. Learn more at www.dl-academy.com.
Welcome to another episode of the Data Debrief, the companion show to Driven by Data: The Podcast, where hosts Catherine Dowden-King and Kyle Winterbottom unpack Tuesday's episode, share what's been on their minds, and explore the realities of leadership, culture, and capability across the data and AI landscape.
This week, Catherine and Kyle reflect on the conversation with Diana Comsa, Global Director of Customer Data Products at Condé Nast, diving deeper into what it takes to reframe customer data as a growth engine rather than a marketing function, the value of professional friction in shaping better thinking, and the practical blueprint for translating technical output into commercial outcome.
They cover:
Kyle's thought of the week: put on the spot by Catherine, Kyle lays out his blueprint for commercial articulation, the skill of anchoring data work to what a business actually cares about. He walks through the logic of tracing everything back to organisational goals and KPIs, then down through the decisions that influence them, before returning to his newspaper analogy: lead with the headline (the business outcome), not the small print (the technical how). Kyle unpacks the difference between an output (an improvement in data quality) and an outcome (what that improvement enabled for the business), and why board members and CFOs care almost exclusively about the latter. He also stresses that the narrative changes depending on the audience, a CIO, CFO, and CMO each need a different version of the same story. For anyone wanting to act on this today, his advice: ask your boss why you're doing what you're doing, build relationships with your CFO before you need them, and use tools like Claude to research a company's stated priorities from earnings calls and board updates.
Plus, a few community shout-outs: registration is open for Driven by Data Live in October, the magazine is in production ahead of launch at the event, and the team is still on the hunt for book club nominations — reach out via [email protected].
This episode explores why the technical work is only ever half the job — the ability to build trust, ask better questions, and translate output into outcome is what actually earns data leaders a seat at the table, and keeps them there.
In Episode 13 of Season 7 of Driven by Data: The Podcast, Kyle Winterbottom was joined by Diana Comsa, Global Director of Customer Data Products at Conde Nast, where they discuss why customer data should be treated as a commercial growth engine rather than simply a marketing asset, and how solving the right customer problems unlocks long-term business value, which includes;
Thanks to our sponsor, Data & AI Literacy Academy.
Data & AI Literacy Academy is leading the way in transforming enterprise workforces with data literacy across the organisation, through a combination of change management and education. In today's data-centric world, being data literate is no longer a luxury, it's a necessity.
If you want successful data product adoption, and to keep driving innovation within your business, you need to start with data & AI literacy first.
At Data & AI Literacy Academy, they don't just teach data skills. They empower individuals and teams to think critically, analyse effectively, and make decisions confidently based on data. They're bridging the gap between business and data teams, so they can all work towards aligned outcomes.
From those taking their first steps in data & AI literacy to seasoned experts looking to fine-tune their skills, our data experts provide tailored classes for every stage. But it's not just learning tracks that they offer. They embed a deep data culture shift through a transformative change management programme.
They take a people-first approach, working closely with your executive team to win the hearts and minds. We know this will drive the company-wide impact that data teams want to achieve.
Get in touch and find out how you can unlock the full potential of data in your organisation. Learn more at www.dl-academy.com.
Welcome to another episode of the Data Debrief, the companion show to Driven by Data: The Podcast, where hosts Catherine Dowden-King and Kyle Winterbottom unpack Tuesday's episode, share what's been on their minds, and explore the realities of leadership, culture, and capability across the data and AI landscape.
This week, Catherine and Kyle reflect on the conversation with Justin Borgman, co-founder, CEO, and chairman of Starburst, diving deeper into why AI adoption keeps stalling at scale, the real cost of pointing powerful tools at the wrong problems, and what it means to build differentiated business capability rather than just better infrastructure.
They cover:
Kyle's thought of the week: prompted by a pattern he's been tracking across executive search processes throughout 2026, Kyle reflects on a frustrating gap between capability and communication at the senior leadership level. The people not getting the roles aren't failing on technical grounds — they're losing out on energy and enthusiasm, inability to be concise, talking around questions rather than answering them, and failure to give specific examples. Kyle's concern is that these aren't just interview problems: they're signals of how someone will perform in front of a board or a CEO, and the skills that fix them can be self-taught and improved quickly. Catherine adds a practical tip for building confidence in high-pressure communication situations using AI tools like ChatGPT or Claude as a low-stakes rehearsal partner — and shares a striking example from a full studio broadcast that shows how dramatically even experienced communicators can disappear under pressure.
This episode explores why the data and AI industry's biggest bottleneck isn't the models — it's the foundations, the focus, and the people trusted to lead the work and make the case for it.
In Episode 12 of Season 7 of Driven by Data: The Podcast, Kyle Winterbottom was joined by Justin Borgman, Co-Founder and CEO of Starburst, where they discuss why the biggest barrier to AI success is no longer about models.
The conversation explores why traditional approaches to data architecture are struggling in the AI era, how enterprises can overcome fragmented data estates, the importance of context and semantics, why many organisations remain stuck in pilot mode, rising AI costs, build versus buy decisions, agentic AI, and what the next three to five years of enterprise AI adoption are likely to look like, which includes;
Thanks to our sponsor, Data & AI Literacy Academy.
Data & AI Literacy Academy is leading the way in transforming enterprise workforces with data literacy across the organisation, through a combination of change management and education. In today's data-centric world, being data literate is no longer a luxury, it's a necessity.
If you want successful data product adoption, and to keep driving innovation within your business, you need to start with data & AI literacy first.
At Data & AI Literacy Academy, they don't just teach data skills. They empower individuals and teams to think critically, analyse effectively, and make decisions confidently based on data. They're bridging the gap between business and data teams, so they can all work towards aligned outcomes.
From those taking their first steps in data & AI literacy to seasoned experts looking to fine-tune their skills, our data experts provide tailored classes for every stage. But it's not just learning tracks that they offer. They embed a deep data culture shift through a transformative change management programme.
They take a people-first approach, working closely with your executive team to win the hearts and minds. We know this will drive the company-wide impact that data teams want to achieve.
Get in touch and find out how you can unlock the full potential of data in your organisation. Learn more at www.dl-academy.com.
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