Our Team

I head up the technical department at Katalyze Data, though I have worked in various roles in my 20+ years with the organisation. I support my team day to day as well as being involved directly with customers to ensure that we are delivering the highest quality technical services to them. As part of our determination to find the best possible solutions in data analysis I keep on top of emerging trends and feed that into our company technical strategy. I lead the delivery of new service propositions and regularly speak and contribute at industry events.

I started my career in the pharmaceutical industry and still to this day enjoy working with organisations in this sector. I am fortunate to be able to work with a variety of other industry sectors including financial services, public sector, retail, academic, charities, utilities and media.

In my downtime, I like walking and playing badminton. I also enjoy board gaming. I’m also an avid American football fan (come on 49ers!)

I’m responsible for driving the company’s growth strategy and expanding its offerings in the analytics marketplace, working closely with key strategic partners such as SAS Institute and Microsoft.

With over 37 years of experience in digital transformation, I’m a business leader specialising in cloud-based advanced analytics and AI solutions for complex client requirements.

Having started my career in the development of high-tech professional audio products, I’ve held a series of technical leadership roles before moving into business development as a services account director & alliance director for several global systems integrators.

In my spare time, I like to run, cycle, swim, or sail whenever I can. Through the love of spending time outdoors with my family, I’ve become a green activist trying to play a small part in saving us all from the climate and ecological emergency. In quieter moments, I like to read, watch quality TV, or play one of my small collection of electric guitars that I still hope one day to master in the manner of Malcolm Young of AC/DC.

As the Sales Director for Katalyze Data I am responsible for the commercial relationships with our customers and heading up our partner programme. My focus is on ensuring the sales team are offering solutions that drive the most value to our customers and that our customers continue to re-engage with us. I am passionate about maintaining the long term relationships that we have with many of our customers, and building new partnerships that continue to achieve and exceed business goals.

I have the advantage of working with varied industries, from pharma, CRO and life sciences organisations to realise value in addition to their analytical and regulatory reporting requirements. As well as insurance and finserv organisations addressing regulatory requirements around credit and operational risk, enabling employees to optimise analytics and business intelligence. I also thoroughly enjoyed working with 10 of the top 20 legal firms in the UK, which gave me great insight into the challenges around moving to the cloud when your client base in primarily in the regulated sectors.

I enjoy watching sports both on telly and when my 3 children compete. I can be found competing myself as I play league netball with the Chiltern Emeralds Netball Club. I love reading and theatre, including the dance performances of my eldest.

I’ve being working in the data analytics world for 32 years, primarily using SAS software. I’ve always had a passion for training; passing on my experience and knowledge to anyone who’s willing to listen to me!

My SAS journey started at the UK Meteorological Office, using SAS to analyse mainframe SMF/RMF records. I then moved onto working for SAS Institute Technical Support (for 15 years), having a wide-ranging role including delivering SAS training courses and consultancy.

Leaving SAS in 2009, a family decision to move to the beautiful Cotswolds, gave me an opportunity to work for Nationwide Building Society as a Credit Risk Analyst, primarily building the data marts the analysts would exploit.
My last move saw me join Katalyze Data allowing me to pursue my training passion, delivering (and developing) their extensive suite of training courses.

The last 5-8 years have seen a shift in the data analytics world, with a many enterprises introducing a blend of analysis software, including open source. With that in mind, I feel proud that I have overseen a new era in the training function, introducing a new suite of R and Python courses to complement our existing SAS courses.

I am the proud husband of Sam, and father to three children (all in their 20’s), plus two dogs. When I’m not in the training room, I have been known to frequent the badminton courts of Gloucestershire, playing for the county (over-45) team.

I support customers to get the full potential out of their analytics platform. I love seeing customers in all aspects of their journeys with analytics, from new customers adopting new products to those who have been using a particular platform for multiple years unlocking new information or processes. One of my goals is to build up customer confidence over time and facilitate them becoming more self-sufficient for some of the simpler tasks.

My biggest personal achievement to date would be presenting to over 150 people at my first SAS Global Forum. It was terrifying, but really boosted my confidence and I have been back since. I have been impressed by a agility and progressiveness of some of my customers who have worked hard to implement solutions that truly change their operational capabilities. We migrated one from desktop to an install for them 5 years ago and in the time that has been installed, they have increased the coding teams, taken on basic responsibilities themselves and are moving to SAS Viya.

Time outside of work (and sometimes when working from home) is taken up mostly by my 8 year old rescue Saluki who requires a lot of attention. I also enjoy baking, drawing and painting when I have the time!

I work with existing and new customers to sponsor and advocate for the use of data analytics to address business needs. I enjoy getting to know an organisation and their people; by understanding how a company or department functions I can spot the opportunities for improvement and change. I’m passionate about solving complex problems and collaborating with smart people to make a tangible difference with the services offered by Katalyze Data.

I’ve worked across a variety of industry sectors including Financial Services, Public Sector and Commercial Organisations. I particularly enjoyed helping banks to change their relationship with technology, with the end to end process at the forefront, considering how people at different stages work optimally together, facilitated by good tech, efficient processes and skilled staff.

In my spare time I work as a coach/counsellor which helps me when digging into the why of business changes and challenges. I can also be found on long walks with my two dogs, who ensure I am regularly getting out in nature.

I started with Katalyze Data as a graduate consultant and now I am the head of the platform engineering team. I love being able to lead a project that will really make a difference to an organisations use of data. Along with my team I work with our customers to first understand their goals and design a solution to suit them. We look at the data they have and what they want to be able to do and how to present it, taking on the platform design, technology and tool selection, and data architecture requirements for them. We then go on to build the platform, migrate any existing infrastructure, thoroughly testing at every stage, so everyone is 100% happy when we go live.

I work a lot with SAS and open-source programming languages such as R and Python. My team thrive when problem solving, nothing better than when we overcome a tricky technical challenge. I am always looking to find the best solution and I enjoy learning new technologies so I can stay on top of all the possible options.

When not at work I enjoy getting out on the slopes on my holidays. Closer to home I can be found anywhere there are cars or motorbikes!

My journey in data and analytics began over 20 years ago, when I started my career in the financial services industry. I quickly found that my analytical mindset and attention to detail were well-suited to the field.

During my time in financial services, I was fortunate to work with, and lead teams, responsible for analysing complex data sets, testing models, and identifying trends that help make smarter, data-driven decisions. I gained domain expertise in risk, financial forecasting and reporting, among other areas.

For several years, I focused on enhancing the explainability, oversight, and management of both the models deployed in production and those under testing.

By working closely with the C-suite, I honed my skills in data storytelling. Together, we crafted compelling narratives and visuals that effectively conveyed our business performance to the Board and external investors, using disparate data sources.

As the Executive Chairman of Katalyze Data, I am committed to bringing this same level of expertise and dedication to our clients. We are a team of highly skilled data analysts, engineers, and scientists, who are passionate about helping organizations unlock the full potential of their data. Whether it’s building predictive models, developing custom dashboards, deploying platforms, or conducting in-depth data analysis, we have the skills and experience needed to help clients achieve their goals.

Our emphasis on collaboration and communication is a core strength. We work closely with clients to understand their unique needs and develop tailored solutions that meet their specific requirements. We believe that data is the key to unlocking success in today’s fast-paced, data-driven business environment, and we’re here to help our clients thrive in this environment.

I’m the guy behind the scenes that makes everything tick and work seamlessly (most of the time). Supported by my fantastic team, I’m responsible for finance, compliance, legal, operations and HR. We aim to reduce the day-to-day operational burden on our technically gifted teammates.

I’m constantly looking for the next bit of software or way to automate a process and make our lives easier. I love to tinker and I give everything a go at least once all in the name of getting stuff done and finding a better way. Nothing more satisfying than checking those tasks off the to do list.

I’m a bit of foodie with a passion for trying the latest and greatest in new restaurants. Also, a big sports fan, nothing better than watching Wales at the Principality!

As a Principal Consultant I work with customers to define, design, implement, test and exploit analytical, data science and business solutions. My objective is to deliver optimal business value, a great user experience and actionable insights. The technologies I work with include SAS, Python, R, Databricks, SQL, Microsoft (Azure) and many others. I am passionate about finding the best business solutions for my customers, I love seeing the insights we have helped uncover make a real difference to an organisations’ day to day operations.

During my career I have worked across many industries including banking, insurance, telecommunications, public sector, utilities, retail, transport and healthcare; finding solutions in the areas of risk, finance, marketing, customer intelligence, sales and fraud. I love how varied the work we do is and being able to apply my data analytics and technical knowledge to such a variety of companies. The rising power of data and data-driven decisions is clearly a trend through that is set to keep gaining importance in the business world.

In my free time I keep healthy by hiking and swimming, when I home I enjoy cooking meals and baking for family and friends. I am also an enthusiastic spotter of all forms of public transport.

I have worked in the world of data for many years initially working with a SAS team and optimising time-consuming manual data coding tasks to make use of Excel and automated data upload, for which I received several awards. I then moved to the modelling and analytics department where I worked on a variety of projects and developed similar data extractions tools using SAS, RPF and VBA.  

I started at Katalyze Data delivering SAS training courses across the full core curriculum, something that I greatly enjoyed.  I currently focus on platform engineering, working with the team to deploy numerous platforms including various SAS products and some open-source platforms. I particularly enjoy helping businesses optimise their processes identifying and mitigating process bottlenecks. 

I find it tremendously fulfilling to mentor more junior members of the team to develop their skills and confidence. On the customer side, I enjoy collaborating closely to help our customers maximise the value they get from their data and have been lucky to work with many fantastic people over the years. 

Outside of work I like spending time with friends and family. Aside from that I taught myself to play bass guitar during my school days and have carried on playing in a variety of amateur bands since then. 

I have the pleasure of managing the recruitment and placement processes for our Graduate data talent. I find high achieving STEM graduates to join our graduate programme, which runs on a quarterly basis. I support the graduates during their 3-month training period and ensure that they are well prepared for the interviews which I arrange with the organisations who are interested in offering them a 9-month placement. Often the organisations that they work for love them so much they take them on in permanent positions once their placement is complete. I am always delighted to see the graduates, succeed, and take their first steps into their new careers, knowing that I have had a small part in supporting them towards their success is extremely gratifying.

I enjoy forging relationships with our customers and discovering other ways that we can support them in their data journey. So when a graduate placement is not the right solution for them I can help them with our training and support services.

When I’m not working, I can usually be found in my “shoffice” crafting away on my latest project or walking through the fields and woods with my two dogs. I love travelling, wildlife and all things magical.

I deliver data science and data analysis projects for customers, using SAS, R and Python. I am passionate about developing our open-source capabilities which includes training programs for graduates. I enjoy supporting businesses to use data to their advantage, showing them how they can use data science techniques to uncover knowledge from the information they already have and ultimately drive business decisions is a huge part of my job.

I have worked extensively with retail and banking customers where we have used machine learning to assist them in understanding their customer base. This enables them to provide a smoother service, offer produces and services when they are needed and help drive increased revenue. In recent years it has been great to see the leaps that have been made in adopting analytics to improve customer experience and drive proactive business decisions.

When not in the office I am happiest on a mountain climbing. I love climbing mountains and mountain biking!

I am part of the Managed Services team, with co-responsibility as a team leader and a technology advocate. I have previous experience as a software developer which drives my passion for encouraging modernisation of working practices one in particular is the adoption of Git version control in SAS. I know what a difference it makes! I am involved in the continued development of our unique support utilities which have proven invaluable in resolving problems and providing improvements to many customer’s platforms.

I started my career with placement year at the Novartis research centre in West and went on to spend 13 years in the pharmaceutical research sector, working on Clinical Trial analysis, epidemiology, health economics and observational studies. Now I get to use my data knowledge to support organisations from different industries, including pharmaceutical, finance and public sector.

I regularly run and participate in races around the country, mainly at half-marathon distance, and regularly volunteer at the local Parkrun event. I love watching races in motorsport form, visiting many of the F1 events around Europe and I have been an eye-witness to some of the most memorable championship-leading incidents in recent years.