Rich leads the data practice at AND Digital, and he's not buying into the "AI's coming for your job" panic. If anything, he believes everyone else in the business is about to need the exact skills data leaders already have. His argument is that data's moved through three distinct eras: warehousing, then impact and value, and now the agentic era, where the gap between having an insight and acting on it has basically closed. And this, he says, is the time for data leaders to step up and own that space.

We cover:

 * Why Rich thinks data leaders are best placed to own the agentic era
 * His three-eras model of data, and what's actually different this time round
 * The paradox of modern data teams: everything's changed, but also nothing has
 * Why AI's real bottleneck is context, not intelligence, and what that means for semantic data layers
 * His framework for building a business case a CFO will sign off on, including why joint sponsorship matters

049 - The Agentic Era: Why Data Leaders Are the Best-Equipped People to Own It

Phil Goddard leads a 70-person data team on FDJ United's Sportsbook platform — one of the most technically demanding platforms out there, processing prices, bets and risk across thousands of markets in sub-second timeframes. Rather than buying a vendor platform, Phil built FDJ's in-house, and we dig into why: what actually makes something a "data product," where data mesh goes wrong, and how hub-and-spoke fits as the transition stage most teams are really in.

We cover:

 * Why a real-time sportsbook platform is one of the most technically demanding things you can build
 * Why Phil built FDJ's data platform in-house instead of buying one
 * Phil's four-part test for what actually makes something a "data product"
 * The three failure modes he's seen most often in data mesh adoptions
 * Why AI is "fundamentally an amplifier," and what "governance debt" means for teams trying to get ahead of it

 048- Building for Betting: Why FDJ United Built Their Own Data Platform Instead of Buying One

Jose Garcia didn't just grow Skyscanner's data organisation from 13 to around 60 people — he made sure impact grew with it, across the data science, marketing and ad tech teams he leads. We unpack the challenges of prioritising the right problems instead of the most interesting ones, building leadership layers that don't bottleneck through him, and why he thinks great data science has never really been about the models.

We also get into how AI tools like Claude are beginning to change the skills, hiring decisions and day-to-day ways of working inside modern data teams.

We cover:

 * How Skyscanner's data org grew from 13 to 60 without losing focus
 * Why business impact is harder to prove than most data teams expect
 * Jose's method for prioritising the right problems, not the interesting ones
 * What actually changes about leadership once a team crosses a certain size
 * How AI is reshaping who data teams hire and what they're hired for

A practical conversation about data science, leadership, scaling teams and the impact of AI.

047 - From 13 to 60: Scaling Data Science at Skyscanner

Monzo went from zero rules to one of the most opinionated data architectures in fintech — and cut warehouse costs by 40%+ doing it.

Bruno Campos, Analytics Engineer at Monzo, joins Harry to unpack the rebuild of Monzo's entire data platform — tens of thousands of dbt models, hundreds of teams, one BigQuery warehouse, and a migration that's still only 30-40% done.

Bruno breaks down Monzo's new "OOM" architecture: four fixed layers, data contracts between teams, and an internally-built tool (ModelGen) that turns a YAML file into standardised SQL. The result — faster builds, easier onboarding, and serious cost savings that show up on the GCP bill.

They also get into why "data" as a discipline is still, in Bruno's words, "incredibly immature" — and what it'll take to fix that.

In this episode:

 * Why Monzo moved from a free-form warehouse to a heavily opinionated one
 * The four-layer OOM model: landing, normalized, logical, presentation
 * Interface models — Monzo's version of data contracts between teams
 * How ModelGen automates standardisation across 100+ teams
 * The real cost and time savings from re-architecting at scale
 * Bruno's take on AI's role in analytics engineering — and why the job isn't going anywhere

046 - Rebuilding Monzo's Data Warehouse from the Ground Up

Most data orgs scale their AE team as they grow. Wise didn't. Moritz Kerstan runs a lean team of 17 supporting over 300 data practitioners — and he's got a clear thesis on why that's the right call. In this episode, we dig into how Wise structures their analytics engineering function, how the team operates without hierarchical authority, what good prioritisation actually looks like, and the honest truth about building with LLMs inside a large regulated fintech.

045 - Wise: How a lean team of Analytics Engineers supports 300+ Analyst 

Ed Mancey has a take that a lot of data leaders won't like — and he's got two years of results to back it up.

As the data team lead at Synthesia, Ed has built his function around a single idea: the data team's job is to be a multiplier for the business, not a bottleneck. That means owning platforms and tools, not seats in strategy meetings. It means drawing hard lines on responsibility. And it means trusting your business users to actually use what you've built.

In this episode, Ed breaks down how he's applied that philosophy at one of the UK's fastest-growing AI companies — from a two-year Omni implementation to enabling a sales manager to hit 150% of quota using tools his team built, without a single BI dashboard in sight.

We get into:

 * Why being the C-suite's personal analyst is a career ceiling, not a launchpad
 * What a truly self-service data function looks like in practice
 * How Ed thinks about drawing the line between what the data team owns and what it doesn't
 * The no-blame culture that makes delegation actually work
 * What AI tools like Cursor and Claude are doing to the day-to-day reality of data work — and what that means for the teams building around them

If you lead a data team, or you're trying to figure out where to focus your energy to have more impact, this one's for you.

044 - Synthesia: Data Director - Why Data Teams Should Stop Trying to Be in Every Room

Most AI projects in financial services stay in a pilot. Moneybox actually shipped one.

In this episode, we sit down with Marko Katavic, Director of AI and Decision Intelligence at Moneybox, to get the real story behind Aurora — the in-house AI guidance engine Moneybox built to help their 1.5 million customers better understand and act on their finances.

We go deep on what it actually takes to build an AI product inside a regulated environment: the architectural decisions, the trade-offs they made, the things that didn't work, and what the team is focused on next.

If you work in data, AI, or fintech — or you're trying to ship an AI product in a high-stakes environment — this is the episode for you.

We cover:

 * What Aurora is, what problem it solves, and why Moneybox built it in-house
 * The technical architecture behind a production AI product in a regulated context
 * How they approached FCA compliance, safety, and human oversight
 * The trade-offs they made — what they prioritised and what they deferred
 * What good looks like when you're measuring an AI financial assistant
 * What's next as the product and team continue to evolve

043 - Building Aurora: How Moneybox shipped an AI financial assistant inside a regulated fintech

Stuart Fenton holds arguably the most unique job in UK data and AI — Head of AI at Reading FC, and the first person to hold that title in English football.

His path here wasn't exactly conventional. Telecoms. Applied research at the University of Surrey's 5G Innovation Centre. Government AI advisory. And then — a completely faceless tweet to the club's owner.

In this episode, we get into:

• Why most AI vendors in sport are selling buzzwords, not results

• How to build genuine AI capability on a League One/Two budget

• The blueprint Stuart is creating that smaller clubs could actually replicate

• Computer vision, recruitment AI, and injury prevention — what's real, what's hype

• Why commercial acumen is harder to teach than any technical skill

• How to build trust and culture in an environment that's wary of change

This isn't a conversation about futurism. It's about doing things properly — with limited resources, in a traditional industry — and making it actually work.

042 - The First Head of AI in English Football | Reading FC

In this episode of the Stacked Data Podcast, we explore how modern data teams can drive real business impact by combining commercial thinking with a product mindset.

I’m joined by Ryan, a data leader at Viasat, who has built the company’s only commercially-driven data roadmap across six data teams. With experience spanning analytics engineering, data product management, and team leadership, Ryan brings a practical perspective on how to bridge the gap between technical excellence and business value.

We discuss what it really means to build a commercially-driven roadmap, why many data teams struggle to connect their work to outcomes, and the mindset shift required to become a truly commercial data professional.

We also dive into the concept of “data as a product” — what it looks like in practice, how to prioritise effectively, and how to measure success through adoption, satisfaction, and ROI. Ryan shares a real example of consolidating 200 dashboards into 40, and what that taught him about product thinking, stakeholder alignment, and delivering meaningful impact.

If you’re looking to move beyond reactive reporting and towards proactive, product-led data work, this episode is packed with practical insights.

041 - Data as a Product: How to Drive Real Business Value

In this episode of the Stacked Data Podcast, Harry sits down with Adam Sorka  from Hyper Cubed to tackle one of the biggest gaps in the industry right now:

Why so many AI projects never make it past experimentation — and what it actually takes to deliver real value.

Adam has built a reputation as a pragmatic (and often sceptical) voice in the AI space. In this conversation, he breaks down what’s really driving the current wave of AI adoption — and why much of it is still fuelled by hype, not outcomes.

They explore how to properly identify and validate high-value AI use cases before writing a single line of code, what “AI readiness” actually means beyond buzzwords, and how to think about testing, governance, and risk in production systems.

A big theme throughout is the role of humans in the loop — why removing them too early creates more problems than it solves, and how the best teams design AI systems that augment, rather than replace, decision-making.

Finally, Adam shares how to measure real impact and what it takes to scale beyond a single successful use case — turning AI from a side experiment into a meaningful business capability.

If you’re a data leader or practitioner trying to cut through the noise and build AI that actually delivers, this episode is packed with practical frameworks and hard-earned lessons.

040 - Why Most AI Projects Fail (And How to Get Them Right)

Harry Gollop (@hgollop) · Zencastr

Harry Gollop (@hgollop)

The Stacked Data Podcast is a community for data professionals working with the modern data stack, machine learning, and AI.

In each episode, we speak with data leaders who are building and scaling analytics, data platforms, and AI capabilities inside forward-thinking organisations. We explore how modern data teams operate, the technologies they use, and the lessons learned from building impactful data and AI products.

The podcast is designed for Data Leaders, Data Engineers, Analytics Engineers, Analysts, and professionals working in Data Science, Machine Learning, or AI who want to stay close to the evolving world of modern data.

The Stacked Data Podcast is organised by Cognify, the recruitment partner for modern data and AI teams.

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