About

What does it really take to transform a legacy retailer into a data-driven organization? Join Dobo Radichkov, CDO at Holland & Barrett, and Irina Iozefson-Schneider, Non-Executive Director and Data Advocate, for an unusually honest conversation about their five-year journey building data culture from two critical perspectives.

Dobo led from the operational frontlines, building platforms and capabilities while navigating daily organizational realities. Irina championed the vision from the boardroom, aligning investors, the CEO, and executives around long-term data strategy. Both veterans of digital-native companies, they’ll share the unvarnished truth about what it takes to put data at the heart of a traditional business – from managing conflicting appetites for speed versus strong foundations, to turning dashboard fatigue into tangible ROI, to moving beyond AI presentations into actual value delivery.

No corporate fairytales. Just real talk about what works, what doesn’t, and why the hard parts matter most.

Takeaways

• Speed vs. Foundations: Pick Both – Why “move fast” and “build right” aren’t opposites – and how to satisfy impatient boards while building infrastructure that won’t crumble in six months
• Turn Skeptics Into Champions – The actual playbook for flipping data resistance into advocacy – from the C-suite to the shop floor. Data literacy isn’t training. It’s culture change
• Kill Dashboard Theater – Stop building pretty charts no one uses. What we learned after years of dashboard graveyards: the framework for converting data into real decisions, tangible ROI, and competitive advantage that sticks
• AI That Ships, Not Slides – Cut through the hype. How to move from “we should do AI” to deployed solutions that customers actually see and the business actually values