Building a data team from the beginning (w/ Daniel Avancini)
Jan 26, 2025
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Daniel Avancini, Chief Data Officer and co-founder of Indicium, shares insights on building a data team from the ground up. He emphasizes the importance of investing in training over hiring experienced professionals, fostering a talent pipeline that has successfully prepared hundreds of new data professionals. Avancini also discusses the challenges of cultivating data talent in Brazil, innovative training programs, and the significance of strategic partnerships in consulting. His approach merges technology training with a positive company culture, paving the way for future growth in the analytics field.
Indicium's innovative HR model prioritizes intensive training for newcomers, creating a skilled talent pipeline that greatly enhances client satisfaction.
The company's agile approach to service offerings and relationship-building has facilitated significant growth and prominence in the international data consultancy market.
Deep dives
Innovative Hiring Strategies
Indicium has adopted a unique HR model that focuses heavily on training rather than hiring experienced professionals. They have created a talent pipeline by offering specialized courses that take new employees from inexperienced to proficient in just a few months. This approach not only addresses the challenge of breaking into the data field, which often lacks access to real data for newcomers, but also ensures that they build skills for a growing pool of brand-new data professionals. The emphasis on developing internal talent has led to significant client satisfaction and rapid growth for the consultancy.
Navigating Market Entry and Growth
Starting in a mid-sized city in Brazil, Indicium has expanded its footprint internationally, demonstrating significant growth despite limited initial experience and relationships in the data space. They originally focused on smaller, regional companies, allowing them to experiment with service offerings that added value to their clients. Their iterative approach to pivoting their business model has helped them navigate challenges effectively, ultimately positioning them as a key player in the data consultancy market. Today, they boast close to 400 employees and a robust presence in both Brazil and the international market.
Investment in Employee Development
Indicium's commitment to employee education has led them to establish a comprehensive training program that spans various data roles, including analytics engineering and data engineering. They have crafted courses that not only educate participants but also provide hands-on experience through real projects, fostering an environment of practical learning. This dual focus on training and practical application ensures that they can hire a wider range of candidates, including those without traditional data backgrounds, while ensuring that they develop the necessary skills to excel in their roles. This has resulted in a high retention rate, significantly lower attrition than industry standards, and a dedicated workforce.
Strategic Client Relationships and Adaptability
As Indicium looks to secure its place as a leading data consultancy, the importance of building strategic relationships with enterprise clients becomes clear. They have cultivated a reputation for delivering quality results, which has allowed them to leverage their experience with initial clients to gain access to larger organizations. This agility in adapting their service offerings and partnerships is critical, as they navigate the rapidly evolving landscape of data consultancy. The incorporation of forward-thinking technologies and practices positions them well to tackle industry challenges and seize future opportunities.
Daniel Avancini is the chief data officer and co-founder of Indicium—a fast-growing data consultancy started in Brazil.
There are a lot of data consultancies around the world, and a lot of them do great work. What has been so fascinating about Indicium’s journey is their HR model. Rather than primarily hiring experienced professionals, they decided to go hard on training. They built a talent pipeline with courses and an internal onboarding process that takes new employees from zero to 60 over a few months.
The result has been phenomenal and Indicium delivers great client outcomes, but most importantly, they're building skills for hundreds of brand new data professionals.
Data is a hard field to break into because fundamentally you can't do the real thing unless you have access to data. So any company that is investing in building scalable hiring and training processes for analytical talent is one to be excited about.
For full show notes and to read 6+ years of back issues of the podcast's companion newsletter, head to https://roundup.getdbt.com.
The Analytics Engineering Podcast is sponsored by dbt Labs.
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