009: Break Free of the Service Trap: The 4 Keys to Being a Valuable, Effective Data Team w/ Ollie Hughes
Release Date: 04/22/2025
012: Embedded, Centralized or Hybrid: Structuring Your Data Team to Be Incredibly Effective w/ Lydia Monnington
More than Numbers
As a data leader, one of your most crucial decisions is how to structure your team. Should you centralize for consistency, embed for domain expertise, or find a middle ground? In this episode of More than Numbers Live, Ollie Hughes sits down with Lydia Monnington, Data Science Lead at Google DeepMind, to explore this perennial challenge facing data organizations of all sizes. With experience leading data teams at Meta, Ocado, Stuart, and now Google DeepMind, Lydia brings practical insights on what works (and what doesn't) when organizing data professionals. She breaks down the evolution of...
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011: The Power of Metric Trees: How Omaze Mapped its Way to Business Clarity w/ Callum Ballard
More than Numbers
Is your business drowning in dashboards but still lacking clear insight? The solution might not be more reports, but a better way to organize what you already know. In this episode of More than Numbers Live, Ollie Hughes sits down with Callum Ballard, Analytics Director at Omaze, to discuss how metric trees can transform business clarity and decision-making. Omaze, the UK-based charity prize draw platform that offers multimillion-pound houses as prizes while raising millions for charity, has mastered operational clarity through a mathematical approach to metrics. Callum shares how his team...
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010: Insights with Impact: How Podimo's Analytics Team Solve Big Business Problems w/ Jimmy Mogrip of Podimo
More than Numbers
The best data teams don't just provide reports—they uncover insights that drive real business value. But how do you transition from being a dashboard factory to becoming a strategic problem-solving engine? In this episode of More than Numbers Live, we dig into the answer. Ollie Hughes sits down with Jimmy Mogrip, Global Director of Insights and Analytics at Podimo, to discuss how his team focuses exclusively on generating actionable insights that move the business forward. In our conversation, Jimmy breaks down: Why Podimo separated its data functions into three specialized teams: AI,...
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009: Break Free of the Service Trap: The 4 Keys to Being a Valuable, Effective Data Team w/ Ollie Hughes
More than Numbers
Data teams are at a pivotal moment. With zero-interest rates gone and AI transforming the landscape, there's mounting pressure to prove ROI and deliver real business value. Yet many teams remain stuck in the "service trap"—churning out dashboards rather than driving strategic impact. In this special episode of More than Numbers Live, the tables are turned as Analytics on Fire podcast host Mico Yuk interviews our regular host, Ollie Hughes, about the four critical tenets that transform data teams from support functions into engines of growth. Ollie breaks down his four tenets framework for...
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008: What Most Data Leaders Get Wrong: Lessons from a Top Data Coach w/ Tristan Burns
More than Numbers
What causes most data leaders to fail? And how would one of the top coaches around go about putting these things right? That’s exactly what we address in this episode of More than Numbers Live as Ollie Hughes sits down with top data leadership coach, Tristan Burns. They’ll discuss the most common data leader challenges Tristan sees among his clients—and how to go about solving them. Drawing on his years in banking, startups, and scale-ups, Tristan unpacks the structural challenges facing modern data teams, from unclear roles to a lack of strategic visibility, and why business acumen, not...
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007: Metrics Not Dashboards: How Voi Mastered Self-Serve Analytics w/ Magnus Dahlbäck
More than Numbers
How do you get your stakeholders involved in data without endless tasks and dashboard overload? Answer: A well-governed, easily accessible metric catalog. In this episode of More than Numbers Live, Ollie Hughes sits down with Magnus Dahlbäck, Senior Director of Data and Platform at Voi, to discuss why his team prioritizes metrics over dashboard building—and how this has transformed the way data is used across the organization. Voi is one of Europe’s leading micro-mobility companies and has already removed over 40 million car trips from the road. Magnus brings a background in IT consulting...
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006: Know Your ROI: A Proven Process to Measure the Impact of Your Data Team w/ Lina Mikolajczyk of Bumble
More than Numbers
The age-old question among data leaders: How do you prove to the rest of the company that your team is driving real business value? In this episode of More than Numbers Live, Ollie Hughes sits down with Lina Mikolajczyk, Director of Data and Advanced Analytics at Bumble, to tackle this biggest of challenges head-on. Lina shares her proven strategies for transforming data teams into business-critical growth drivers. From navigating tech stack upgrades to embedding a culture of data-driven decision-making, she provides listeners with a blueprint for success. With experience leading data teams...
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005: Decisions Over Dashboards: How Deezer Turns Analysts into the Ultimate Problem Solvers w/ Thibaud Arbes Dupuy of Deezer
More than Numbers
The best data teams aren't dashboard factories, they're problem solvers. Key value drivers for the organization as a whole. But how do you get there among the sea of stakeholder questions and requests? In this episode of More than Numbers Live, host Ollie Hughes sits down with Thibaud Arbes Dupuy, VP of Business Performance at Deezer, to discuss how data teams can shift from being passive report generators to proactive problem solvers. Thibaud shares his journey from banking and M&A into data leadership and breaks down the mindset and strategies his team uses to drive business performance....
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004: What Data Teams Can Learn from Finance: Monzo’s Secrets to Data Accuracy w/ Phillip van Blerk of Monzo
More than Numbers
Monzo is a powerhouse in the UK "modern banking" space, taking on the High Street incumbents to grow to 11 million customers. But what can data teams learn from a leader in the FinTech arena? Turns out, a lot. In this episode of More than Numbers Live, we sit down with Phillip van Blerk, Director of Finance Data at Monzo, the UK’s largest digital bank. Phillip reveals how he’s taken learnings from the finance world to help his team at Monzo maintain top-tier data accuracy and make faster decisions. He discusses: Monzo's internal data operations, including the development of in-house tools...
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003: She Trained 20,000 Data Analysts: Here's What They Got Wrong w/ Mico Yuk of Analytics on Fire
More than Numbers
Have you ever wondered why so many data analysts struggle to make an impact despite their technical skills? If you’ve ever felt like your dashboards are more noise than insight or questioned how to elevate your career in data, this episode is for you. In this episode of More than Numbers Live, Ollie Hughes sits down with data storytelling expert and co-founder of the Analytics on Fire Podcast and Data Storytelling Academy, Mico Yuk, who has trained over 20,000 data analysts. Mico breaks down: The three biggest mistakes data analysts make Why data storytelling and empathy are the real...
info_outlineData teams are at a pivotal moment. With zero-interest rates gone and AI transforming the landscape, there's mounting pressure to prove ROI and deliver real business value.
Yet many teams remain stuck in the "service trap"—churning out dashboards rather than driving strategic impact.
In this special episode of More than Numbers Live, the tables are turned as Analytics on Fire podcast host Mico Yuk interviews our regular host, Ollie Hughes, about the four critical tenets that transform data teams from support functions into engines of growth.
Ollie breaks down his four tenets framework for high-impact data teams, developed from hundreds of conversations with leading data practitioners. He reveals the four service traps that keep teams stuck in low-value work and the corresponding tenets that can transform them into business-critical partners.
This episode is a masterclass for data leaders looking to elevate their teams beyond the dashboard factory and become true drivers of business improvement.
What you'll learn
- [02:07] Ollie's first BI tools and how his experience with Power BI's limitations sparked the idea for Count.
- [05:28] Why data teams face a critical moment: proving ROI while avoiding replacement by AI.
- [10:25] The four service traps that keep data teams stuck in low-value work.
- [17:16] How to diagnose if you're caught in a service trap - Ollie's "asset test" for data teams.
- [22:38] The four tenets of high-impact data teams and how they address each service trap.
- [31:05] How operational clarity creates a virtuous cycle that transforms the quality of requests data teams receive.
- [39:20] Resources for implementing these tenets in your organization and joining the movement.
Downloads & links
🔗 Access the 4-tenets report
😍 See Count’s metric tree example
🔥 Build your own with a free Count account
🚀 Connect with Ollie Hughes
🎙️ Subscribe to More than Numbers