Blog.

Five years of helping organisations to maximise their potential through the application of data.

Five years of building a brand and team that aims to create a better future for all through the open and positive use of data.

Five years of enabling organisations to create adaptable, pragmatic, scalable and forward thinking data strategies.

Five years of sharing with the world that data means business.

Five years of Cynozure!

The last year has been crazy (you don’t need me to tell you that of course). In fact it doesn’t really feel like a year at all. More like ten. It’s like ten years of change crammed into one small period of 12 months. So much has happened, so many changes have been made. From transformational, generational shifts to minor inconsequential changes that I’m sure we’ll all forget about.

With that backdrop, coming into and trading through our fifth year has been an absolute blast. So much has changed and shifted. The way organisations talk about their aspirations for data, the appetite to solve the data challenge, the interest from Board members to invest in the right data initiatives that create positive change.

It’s not been a year to stand still and I’m thrilled that our awesome team, our inspiring community and our amazing customers have allowed us to not only exist, but thrive and flourish. For that I am incredibly thankful.

So what did year five look like for Cynozure?

Incredible customers

We live for the customers we serve. The past year has been fantastic in terms of the type of interesting work, industries and challenges we’ve been able to support with our work. In Public, Private and Third sectors the appetite we see for organisations to get their hands at the wheel of their business, and steer it successfully through some challenging times, has really focussed the attention on the part data plays in that.

It’s been huge fun to shape multi-year data strategies. Sometimes setting direction, or leading the journey; sometimes building data platforms on AWS, Azure, Google, Snowflake and many others; sometimes helping to design organisations and operating models that can help rapid deployment of data products that solve business challenges.  Whilst we unfortunately can’t name all of them, we are grateful to every customer for putting their trust in us to help guide them and their organisations to success. 

It’s amazing to see that, from global banks to single country focused retailers, and from small charities to global complex organisations, the challenges have been real. But always solvable with the right brains working on them.

Supporting the education and learning in industry

We continue to focus on, and care about, levelling-up the standard for what being good at data means to the world. This year we’ve ramped this up with the launch of the (now bestselling!) book, Data Means Business, that I co-authored with Barry Green. We wrote a book that would provide a clear and pragmatic guide to business leaders wanting to better understand what data means to them, and with enough depth that data leaders and professionals would get huge value also. Humbled that it reached top spot in a number of data categories – and the top 10 in the ‘Business Management and Leadership’ category, along with some of the greats like Steven Covey, Malcolm Gladwell, Simon Sinek and Chris Voss.

We ran 20 webinars and masterclasses through the year to give better clarity and understanding around data strategy, building modern data platforms, data product management and DataOps. The aim has been to make these topics clear and consumable for everyone.

Data product management

This has been an important and growing theme. Earlier this year we beta launched a data product management community for product managers to come together. It’s been really well received, and we’re growing slowly as we learn what works – and what people are after, in order to add value to the data and business community.

A global presence

This year saw our reach expand across the world with our CDO Hub growing from a London focused group of members to an international audience. This has broadened the conversations members have, and opened up great discussions and networking opportunities. Our membership stands at around 200 and we always aim to ensure that every member is better off because of the time they spend with the group.

To further drive our international expansion (and move to .com!) we launched a regional CDO Hub and our consulting services in the US led by the fantastic Jennifer Agnes. It’s clear that the quality of the data leadership community is excellent, and that the aspirations of US companies are huge.

It’s also been amazing to see that our podcast, Hub & Spoken, has increased frequency to weekly episodes. It’s listened to in 120 countries around the World thanks to great guests, great discussion and content.

Wonderful, talented crew

We craft our team very carefully so that every interaction with us is valuable and positively impactful. This year we have grown in our numbers to meet growing demand. Our tight and close knit crew mean everything to me, and we all value the time we spend with our customers, community and partners.

In the last year we got to congratulate our lead solution architect consultant, Rebecca Noonan, on the birth of her second child, and more recently welcome her back from maternity leave.  Pavan Divve, one of lead data engineers, had his first child so we’ve had fun talking about sleepless nights and bottle feeding with him too.

Unfortunately we also had to deal with tragic loss, as our legal counsel died suddenly just last month. An incredible human being, Richard played a core part of our team and growth, and I dedicate the year to him and his family.

Award winning 

Awards are a fantastic way to be recognised for the work we do, and being selected as part of the DataIQs leading figures in data for a second year running was a real honour. There were so many great and inspiring people that have graced this list and I’m humbled to be amongst them.

Growth 

Sustainable growth is an important principle of how we run the Cynozure business; to make sure we can continue to serve the best way we can – and invest in continuous improvement to our proposition. Thanks to our amazing customers we have seen solid growth for the fifth year running. 

Five years of Cynozure

My heartfelt thanks to everyone that has engaged, supported and represented us this year – can’t wait to see what the next five years brings, and I hope you will be with us as we continue our journey.