Data Breakthroughs: Solving Real-World Data Challenges

Episode Summary I’m incredibly excited to have Ilya back for the Season 1 finale. He was my very first guest in the pilot episode , and honestly, he helped me figure out this format - what works, what doesn’t, how to make the collaborative problem-solving feel authentic. So it felt only right to close this season by bringing him back full circle. In this finale, we tackle a frustratingly common sc...

Data Breakthroughs - Episode 10: When Data Meets Decades of Experience Real-world data problem solving in action! Tiankai Feng (Director of Data & AI Strategy at ThoughtWorks, author of "Humanizing Data Strategy" and "Humanizing AI Strategy") and host Lior Barak tackle a manufacturing company where plant managers with 20+ years of experience resist a modern data platform. Problem Category : Organi...

Data Breakthroughs - Episode 09: When Analytics Becomes a Dashboard Factory Real-world data problem solving in action! Eva Schreyer (Head of Data & Analytics at Neugelb/Commerzbank) and host Lior Barak tackle a community-submitted challenge about analytics overload for the first time during recording. Problem Category : Business Intelligence & Dashboarding / Organizational Data Strategy Runtime :...

Data Breakthroughs - Episode 8: The Office Kitchen Paradox Real-world data problem solving in action! Irena Bojarovska and host Lior Barak tackle a community-submitted challenge for the first time during the recording. Problem Category : Machine Learning & AI Implementation  Runtime : 50 minutes The Challenge : A hackathon team built a smart kitchen demand forecasting model with 91% accuracy, but...

Data Breakthroughs - Episode 7: Small Company vs AI Giants Real-world data problem solving in action! Jon Cooke (Founder of Dataception) and host Lior Barak tackle a classic David vs. Goliath scenario for the first time during the recording. Problem Category : Data Strategy & Customer Analytics Runtime : 36 minutes The Challenge : Small German seed company (7 people) with 600+ product varieties, 4...

Data Breakthroughs - Episode 6: AI Bias & Explainability Crisis Real-world data problem solving in action! Elizabeth Press (Founder of D3M Labs, Deputy Chief Digital Officer at CHESCO) and host Lior Barak tackle one of AI’s most critical challenges for the first time during the recording. Problem Category : Machine Learning & AI Implementation / AI Ethics Runtime : 36 minutes The Challenge : A dee...

Episode Summary Every department in your company defines “most valuable customer” differently. Sales prioritizes deal size, Support focuses on customer success scores, and Product values feature adoption rates. The result? The same customer gets treated as both VIP and basic-tier depending on which team they interact with—creating confusion, frustration, and missed revenue opportunities. In this e...

Data Breakthroughs - Episode 3: From Notebooks to Action Real-world data problem solving in action! Nick Zervoudis (Data Product Management Consultant & Coach) and host Lior Barak tackle a community-submitted ML deployment challenge for the first time during the recording. Problem Category : Machine Learning & AI Implementation  Runtime : 45 minutes The Challenge : A high-accuracy churn prediction...

Episode Summary Your organization empowered teams with self-service BI tools to democratize data access. But now you’re facing dashboard chaos: 300+ dashboards created in 6 months, nobody knows which numbers to trust, and teams are paralyzed choosing between conflicting metrics. What started as democratizing data became a governance nightmare. In this episode, Christian Klug and host Lior Barak ta...

Data Breakthroughs - Episode 0: Why This Podcast Exists Season opener explaining the unique collaborative problem-solving format. Host Lior Barak shares why he created a podcast focused on real-time thinking processes rather than post-success stories. Runtime : 8 minutes Key Points : • Real problems solved live by practitioners encountering them for first time • Focus on strategic thinking process...

Data Breakthroughs - Episode 2: When Teams Can't Agree on Customer Numbers Real-world data problem solving in action! Philipp Loringhoven and host Lior Barak tackle a community-submitted challenge about conflicting metrics between marketing and sales teams. Problem Category : Data Governance Runtime : 43 minutes The Challenge : Marketing and sales teams report significantly different customer acqu...

Data Breakthroughs - Episode 1: Breaking Technical Stalemates Real-world data problem solving in action! Artur Yatsenko and host Lior Barak tackle a community-submitted challenge for the first time during the recording. Problem Category : Data Engineering & Infrastructure Runtime : 43 minutes The Challenge : Product owner with full CEO backing can't deliver analytics capabilities because two lead...

Data Breakthroughs Podcast - Episode 1 Show Notes Episode Title: Preventing Data Pipeline Breaks That Impact Business Decisions Guest: Ilya Vladimirskiy, data engineering leader with 20+ years of experience Episode Overview In our pilot episode, we tackle a critical challenge facing data teams: how to prevent data pipeline breaks that damage trust in data and impact decision-making. Ilya shares in...

A podcast where data experts solve real-world operational challenges submitted by listeners. Each episode tackles a fresh problem, delivering actionable solutions, key insights, and implementation steps to help data professionals overcome barriers and create business value. Welcome to Data Breakthroughs The Podcast That Solves Real Data Problems in Real Time Are you struggling with data challenges...