MIKE FERGUSON

Mike Ferguson is CEO of Intelligent Business Strategies Limited and Europe’s leading IT industry analyst in Data Management and Analytics. As an analyst and consultant, he specialises in all aspects of data management as well as BI / ML / AI. With over 40 years of IT experience, Mike has consulted for dozens of companies on data strategy, technology selection, data architecture, data governance, data warehouse design and implementation, self-service Analytics, machine learning and AI automation. Mike is also conference chairman of Big Data LDN, the largest data and analytics conference in Europe and a member of the EDM Council CDMC Executive Advisory Board.  He has spoken at events all over the world and written numerous articles. Formerly he was a co-founder of Codd and Date with Turing Award Winner Dr Edgar F. Codd, the inventor of the Relational Model that caused the birth of relational databases and the SQL language and world-renowned author Chris Date. He was also formerly Chief Architect at Teradata on the Teradata DBMS.  He teaches popular master classes in 9 countries on Data Strategy, Data Catalogs, How to Govern Data Across a Distributed Data Landscape, Practical Guidelines for Implementing a Data Mesh, Data Warehouse Modernisation, Big Data Fundamentals and Embedded Analytics, Intelligent Apps and AI Automation.

Reach into the US

I am very familiar with the US and have travelled there about 6 times a year for over 30 years. I also worked in Los Angeles and San Diego when at Teradata. Since setting up my own business in 1993,  I have been a regular speaker on US vendor webinars and at US conferences on data and analytics and have written white papers for many US vendors that have been downloaded across the US by people in many US enterprises. I have also appeared on DM Radio that goes coast-to-coast in the US. I am happy to provide an example list of vendors if required but the list is not for publication. I also attend US vendor industry analyst briefings on a regular basis and have been classified by IBM as an elitist ‘Gold Consultant’ and have attended their Gold Consultant programme since the late 1990s.

My role at Big Data LDN

I was invited to be conference chair and leader of the advisory board of Big Data LDN in January 2017. As an independent IT industry analyst and consultant, my job is to track the data management and analytics industry and advise / guide the Big Data LDN event team on key trends in data, analytics and AI, new technologies, new vendors, recommend themes for theatres and on presentation topics, and to contribute feedback as the leader and member of the advisory board. My objective is to contribute to the success of Big Data LDN, keep it growing, keep it fresh, keep it on point in terms of addressing key issues in business, and keep it at the leading edge of the industry in data and AI. It is already the largest data and analytics show in Europe. I am proud to have contributed to that.

I open the show every year to set the scene and let people know key trends, where venture capital money is being invested and where they can find out more in the different theatres at the show. I also work as an ambassador to continuously promote Big Data LDN around the world throughout the year.

In addition, I present the Chairmans Keynote on industry direction and topics dominating the data and analytics industry to help people make sense of how everything comes together and how to use it to drive value. I also created and moderate the show's flagship keynote panel called the "Great Data Debate" which has been running every year since 2017. This panel has attracted Turing Award winners, CEOs and CTOs of leading edge vendors in the industry. It attracts a global audience as well as the technology press and debates key issues that businesses are struggling with, while probing vendors on the panel to understand what they are doing to address these problems. It also seeks to help attendees understand what direction the industry is headed in and how they can use new technologies to drive business value.

I also host vendor and customer 1-to-1 advisory sessions at the show, introduce other keynote speakers and speak with press.