When most data scientists think about their competitive edge, they focus solely on what goes on their resume - education, work experience, and technical skills. But what if the things that truly make you irreplaceable go far deeper than your LinkedIn profile?
Your family background, cultural influences, communication quirks, and even the hobbies that make you nerd out all contribute to what makes you uniquely valuable.
In this Value Boost episode, Danny Ruspandini joins Dr. Genevieve Hayes to explore the concept of your "untouchable advantage" - the unique combination of experiences and qualities that make you impossible to replace as a data scientist.
You'll discover:
Guest Bio
Danny Ruspandini is a brand strategist, business coach and director of Impact Labs Australia. He is also the creator of One Shiny Object, a program for helping solo creatives package what they do into sellable, fixed-price services.
Links
Every data scientist is running their own business - it's just that most of those businesses are solo operations with one client: their employer. Unfortunately, most data scientists don't realise this and too many fall into the trap of believing their employer will magically take care of their career development, putting them on the right projects and ensuring they get proper training. The reality is that while bosses usually mean well, they have their own careers to worry about.
In this episode, Danny Ruspandini joins Dr. Genevieve Hayes to explore how applying a solo business mindset to your data science career can help you take control of your professional destiny, increase your value within organisations, and create opportunities that others miss.
You'll learn:
Guest Bio
Danny Ruspandini is a brand strategist, business coach and director of Impact Labs Australia. He is also the creator of One Shiny Object, a program for helping solo creatives package what they do into sellable, fixed-price services.
Links
Here's something that data science courses don't prepare you for: even your most brilliant analysis can fail if you can't navigate the human side of your organisation. And office politics becomes especially tricky when you're running experiments. You're essentially asking people to place bets on their ideas - and then potentially delivering the news that their bet didn't "win".
In this Value Boost episode, Miguel Curiel joins Dr. Genevieve Hayes to share practical strategies for handling the political challenges that come with experimentation and data science work, so you can drive real change without creating enemies.
You'll learn:
Guest Bio
Miguel Curiel is the Product Analytics Manager at Bloomberg, where he works at the intersection of technology, data and human behaviour. He has a background in neuroscience and psychology and is currently writing a book on product analytics.
Links
When working with data, it can be easy to fall into the trap of believing that your dataset represents nothing more than numbers on a page. However, behind every data point is a human story - people clicking through websites, abandoning shopping carts, or binge-watching Netflix shows.
And in our app-driven world, understanding these human behaviours has become absolutely critical - for businesses to flourish and for data scientists to have a meaningful impact in the work they do. This is where product analytics comes in.
In this episode, Miguel Curiel joins Dr. Genevieve Hayes to share his practical checklist for maximising business impact through product analytics, drawing from his own experiences analysing how people actually interact with digital products and his upcoming book on the topic.
This episode explores:
Guest Bio
Miguel Curiel is the Product Analytics Manager at Bloomberg, where he works at the intersection of technology, data and human behaviour. He has a background in neuroscience and psychology and is currently writing a book on product analytics.
Links
Stakeholder requirement gathering is often one of the most dreaded parts of data science projects - dry, tedious sessions where conflicting voices talk past each other and senior executives dominate the conversation. Yet without proper requirements, data science projects are doomed to fail due to solving the wrong problems or missing critical business needs.
In this Value Boost episode, David Cohen joins Dr. Genevieve Hayes to reveal how gamification can transform stakeholder meetings from painful obligation into collaborative problem-solving sessions that actually produce useful requirements.
You'll learn:
Guest Bio
David Cohen is a data and AI strategy consultant, with a background in supporting the F500 clients of both Big 4 and boutique consulting firms. He is the founder of Superposition, a consulting firm that builds collaborative workshops focused on data & AI-related use cases.
Links
Most data scientists follow the same predictable process: gather requirements, collect data, build models, and only at the very end create visualisations to communicate results. This traditional approach seems logical, but what if it's actually working against us?
In this episode, David Cohen joins Dr. Genevieve Hayes to reveal how flipping the script on data visualisation - moving it to the beginning of projects rather than the end - can dramatically improve stakeholder buy-in and project success rates.
This episode reveals:
Guest Bio
David Cohen is a data and AI strategy consultant, with a background in supporting the F500 clients of both Big 4 and boutique consulting firms. He is the founder of Superposition, a consulting firm that builds collaborative workshops focused on data & AI-related use cases.
Links
Data science training programs often jump straight into technical methods without teaching one of the most critical skills for project success - problem framing. Without proper framing, data science projects are doomed to fail, right from the start, as data scientists find themselves solving the wrong problems or building models that don't address real business decisions.
In this Value Boost episode, Professor Jeff Camm joins Dr. Genevieve Hayes to reveal the specific problem framing framework that decision scientists use to ensure they're solving the right problems from the start, dramatically improving their success rates compared to traditional data science approaches.
You'll discover:
Guest Bio
Prof Jeff Camm is a decision scientist and the Inmar Presidential Chair in Analytics at the Wake Forest University School of Business. His research has been featured in top-ranking academic journals and he is the co-author of ten books on business statistics, management science, data visualisation and business analytics.
Links
Most data scientists have never heard of decision science, yet this discipline - which dates back to WWII - may hold the key to solving one of data science's biggest problems: the 87% project failure rate. While data scientists excel at building models that predict outcomes, decision scientists focus on modelling the actual business decisions that need to be made - a subtle but crucial difference that dramatically improves success rates.
In this episode, Prof Jeff Camm joins Dr. Genevieve Hayes to explore how decision science approaches problems differently from data science, why decision science approaches lead to higher success rates, and how data scientists can integrate these techniques into their own work.
This episode reveals:
Guest Bio
Prof Jeff Camm is a decision scientist and the Inmar Presidential Chair in Analytics at the Wake Forest University School of Business. His research has been featured in top-ranking academic journals and he is the co-author of ten books on business statistics, management science, data visualisation and business analytics.
Links
One of the biggest risks for independent data professionals is spending months or years developing a product or service that nobody wants to buy. The graveyard of failed data science projects is filled with technically brilliant solutions that solved problems no one actually had, leaving their creators with empty bank accounts and bruised egos.
In this Value Boost episode, Daniel Bourke joins Dr. Genevieve Hayes to reveal practical strategies for validating data product ideas before investing significant development time, drawing from his experience creating machine learning courses with over 250,000 students and building the Nutrify food education app.
This episode uncovers:
Guest Bio
Daniel Bourke is the co-creator of Nutrify, an app described as “Shazam for food”, and teaches machine learning and deep learning at the Zero to Mastery Academy.
Links
The traditional career path of climbing the corporate ladder no longer appeals to many data scientists - who crave freedom and ownership of their work. Yet the leap from employment to independence can feel risky and uncertain, especially without a clear roadmap for success.
In this episode, Daniel Bourke joins Dr. Genevieve Hayes to share his journey from machine learning engineer to successful independent data professional before age 30, revealing the practical steps and mindset shifts needed to transform technical skills into sustainable freedom.
In this episode, you'll discover:
Guest Bio
Daniel Bourke is the co-creator of Nutrify, an app described as “Shazam for food”, and teaches machine learning and deep learning at the Zero to Mastery Academy.
Links
The right book at the right time can completely transform your career trajectory, but many data professionals struggle to find resources that directly address their unique challenges of bridging technical expertise with business impact. While technical skills courses are abundant, guidance on becoming a strategic data leader remains scarce.
In this Value Boost episode, Kashif Zahoor joins Dr. Genevieve Hayes to reveal how he transformed his entire data team's performance and culture through a simple but powerful approach: starting a BI book club that costs almost nothing but delivers enormous ROI.
This episode reveals:
Guest Bio
Kashif Zahoor is the Vice President of Business Intelligence at Influence Mobile and has extensive experience in data leadership.
Links
Many data scientists begin their careers expecting to influence strategic decisions, only to find themselves trapped as "data order takers" - endlessly running reports and responding to requests without understanding their business impact. This reactive approach limits career growth and earning potential, keeping even experienced professionals from reaching their strategic potential.
In this episode, Kashif Zahoor joins Dr. Genevieve Hayes to share his journey from data order taker to strategic business partner, revealing a practical framework that any data professional can use to transform their role and accelerate their career growth.
You'll learn:
Guest Bio
Kashif Zahoor is the Vice President of Business Intelligence at Influence Mobile and has extensive experience in data leadership.
Links
Even the most compelling data presentation can fail if it runs headfirst into your stakeholders' cognitive blind spots. Decision makers who claim to be "data-driven" often unconsciously filter information through their existing beliefs, leaving brilliant insights ignored or dismissed.
In this Value Boost episode, Dr. Russell Walker joins Dr. Genevieve Hayes to reveal practical techniques for identifying and overcoming the cognitive biases that sabotage data-driven decision making.
This episode reveals:
Guest Bio
Dr Russell Walker is the principal consultant at Walker Associates, which specialises in data science education and healthcare analytics, and previously served as a professor at DeVry University, where he co-founded the university’s business intelligence and analytics program. He holds a PhD in business administration with a specialty in computer science.
Links
Data storytelling might make your findings memorable, but persuasion is what gets your recommendations implemented.
Many data scientists have mastered communication and storytelling, yet still watch their brilliant insights gather dust because they haven't learned the crucial difference between informing stakeholders and persuading them to act.
In this episode, Dr. Russell Walker joins Dr. Genevieve Hayes to reveal how battle-tested frameworks from competitive debating can bridge this gap, transforming data scientists from skilled communicators into persuasive advocates who drive real organizational change.
This conversation reveals:
Guest Bio
Dr Russell Walker is the principal consultant at Walker Associates, which specialises in data science education and healthcare analytics, and previously served as a professor at DeVry University, where he co-founded the university’s business intelligence and analytics program. He holds a PhD in business administration with a specialty in computer science.
Links
Social media data drives countless business decisions, but up to 40% of social media engagement may be artificial or manipulated by bots. For data scientists accustomed to cleaning messy data, deliberately manipulated data presents an entirely different challenge that requires specialized detection techniques.
In this Value Boost episode, Tim O'Hearn joins Dr. Genevieve Hayes to reveal practical strategies for identifying and filtering out bot activity from social media datasets to extract trustworthy business insights.
This episode uncovers:
Guest Bio
Tim O’Hearn is a software engineer who spent years gaining millions of followers for clients by circumventing anti-botting measures on social networks. He is also the author of the new book, Framed: A Villain’s Perspective on Social Media.
Links
Social media algorithms silently shape what billions of people see and how they interact online. While most data scientists work to optimize business value within platform rules, there's valuable knowledge to be gained from understanding how these systems can be exploited - knowledge that can make ethical data scientists better at their jobs.
In this episode, Tim O'Hearn joins Dr. Genevieve Hayes to share insights from his experience manipulating social media platforms, revealing what ethical data scientists can learn from understanding the dark side of algorithmic systems.
This conversation reveals:
Guest Bio
Tim O’Hearn is a software engineer who spent years gaining millions of followers for clients by circumventing anti-botting measures on social networks. He is also the author of the new book, Framed: A Villain’s Perspective on Social Media.
Links
Most dashboards and reports get ignored despite all the technical expertise that goes into creating them. The reason isn't technical limitations or poor data quality - it's that they fail to deliver value to the people who are supposed to use them.
In this Value Boost episode, Nicholas Kelly joins Dr. Genevieve Hayes to reveal proven strategies for increasing dashboard adoption and showcasing your value as a data professional.
In this episode, you'll discover:
Guest Bio
Nicholas Kelly is the founder of Delivering Data Analytics, a consultancy focused on helping organisations enable their teams to make smarter, faster, and more confident decisions through data and AI. He is also the author of Delivering Data Analytics and the recently released How to Interpret Data.
Links
Despite unprecedented data abundance and widespread data science education, even experienced data professionals still struggle to interpret data effectively. They draw wrong conclusions, miss critical insights, or fail to communicate findings in actionable ways.
In this episode, Nicholas Kelly joins Dr. Genevieve Hayes to tackle the critical challenge of data interpretation - revealing why technical expertise alone isn't enough and sharing practical frameworks for transforming raw data into actionable business insights that drive real organisational change.
This conversation reveals:
Guest Bio
Nicholas Kelly is the founder of Delivering Data Analytics, a consultancy focused on helping organisations enable their teams to make smarter, faster, and more confident decisions through data and AI. He is also the author of Delivering Data Analytics and the recently released How to Interpret Data.
Links
Can you clearly articulate what makes your data science work valuable - both to yourself and to your key stakeholders? Without this clarity, you'll struggle to stay focused and convince others of your worth.
In this Value Boost episode, Dr. Peter Prevos joins Dr. Genevieve Hayes to share how creating a compelling value proposition transformed his data team from report writers to strategic partners by providing both external credibility and internal direction.
This episode reveals:
Guest Bio
Dr Peter Prevos is a water engineer and manages the data science function at a water utility in regional Victoria. He runs leading courses in data science for water professionals, holds an MBA and a PhD in business, and is the author of numerous books about data science and magic.
Links
Internal data science teams face a unique challenge - they're providing an invisible service that only gets noticed when something goes wrong. This puts data scientists in the awkward position of having to market themselves within their own organization, without any marketing training.
In this episode, Dr. Peter Prevos joins Dr. Genevieve Hayes to share how he applied his PhD research in services marketing to transform his water utility's data team from "report writers" to strategic partners by positioning data science as "Insights-as-a-Service."
This episode explains:
Guest Bio
Dr Peter Prevos is a water engineer and manages the data science function at a water utility in regional Victoria. He runs leading courses in data science for water professionals, holds an MBA and a PhD in business, and is the author of numerous books about data science and magic.
Links