Data Innovators

definity

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TECHNOLOGY
UPDATED WEEKLY

Data Innovators brings you candid conversations with technical data leaders tackling today’s toughest challenges. We'll dive into fresh approaches to data engineering, practical strategies for scaling modern data platforms, and the trends shaping the data ecosystem. Hosted by Roy Daniel – CEO of definity – each episode shares hard-won lessons and actionable insights from those building data systems at scale.

4D AGO

Ep 6: Ime Akpan - Data foundation for AI readiness

AI readiness is a common priority. Ime Akpan, Head of Data Engineering and Chief Data and Analytics Officer at Vanguard Europe, is executing on it at scale. By leveraging Apache Spark, AWS Glue, and a serverless stack, his team laid a data lakehouse foundation that made the business more AI-ready than they realized, without a major platform overhaul. In this episode, we hear more about Vanguard's AI-readiness journey: The foundations they needed, the data quality challenges they faced, and why "Context is King" as teams shift to intent-driven "context engineering" to ensure AI agents understand the why behind the data. Chapters: 00:00 Introduction 03:10 Vanguard 2026 priorities 10:00 Why lakehouse architecture 21:05 Data validation and quality challenges 30:00 Scaling AI readiness Ime Akpan is Head of Data Engineering and Chief Data and Analytics Officer at Vanguard Europe. He leads the technical execution of Vanguard's data pipelines, managing the complex ingestion, transformation, and rigorous validation of data for downstream analysts, data scientists, and business teams. Roy Daniel is the Co-Founder & CEO of definity, the agentic data engineering platform for the Lakehouse and Spark ecosystem. Subscribe to Data Innovators for more conversations with technical data leaders solving complex challenges across the data ecosystem. #DataInnovators #DataEngineering #Lakehouse #AIReadiness #DataPlatforms #Podcast #definity

38 min
MAR 4

Ep 5: Rohit Sivaprasad – Is your data warehouse ready for AI?

Legacy Data warehouses are becoming too heavy to support AI initiatives, Rohit Sivaprasad, Head of Data Science and Engineering at Adobe Stock, explains how his team is systematically decluttering years of accumulated technical debt while building the semantic foundation that AI agents will need to access organizational data. The conversation covers the specific challenges and use cases of Adobe Stock's hybrid business model (B2B and B2C, subscription and ecommerce. Rohit shares his approach to agentic data engineering and the changes data platforms need to go through in the AI era. Chapters: 00:48 Introduction: Adobe’s use cases and challenges 07:32 Decluttering data warehouses 12:42 Priorities for 2026 14:15 Challenges of agentic data engineering 19:30 Data platform changes required to support the scale of AI 21:55 The value in AI initiatives - envisioning the future Rohit Sivaprasad leads data science and engineering at Adobe Stock, the creative marketplace platform. Rohit has data science and analytics work at Walmart, Meta, and AWS. Roy Daniel is the Co-Founder & CEO of definity, the optimization and observability platform for the Lakehouse and Spark ecosystem. Subscribe to Data Innovators for more conversations with technical data leaders solving complex challenges across the data ecosystem. #DataInnovators #DataEngineering #DataWarehouseOptimization #AgenticAI #Adobe #Podcast #definity

32 min
JAN 21

Ep 4 : Paras Doshi – wide data & AI platform foundations at Opendoor

Real estate data is a classic example of “wide data” at scale. In this episode, Paras Doshi, Sr Director of Data & Insights at Opendoor, explains how his team rebuilt their data platform to support pricing homes using 500+ features per transaction across MLS data, third-party sources, and millions of proprietary photos. The conversation dives into Opendoor’s four intelligence layers for home valuation, the move from fragmented team-owned stacks to a centralized platform, and how deep lineage, monitoring, and data quality became critical as AI turned the default strategy. The episode also explores what enabled this transformation beyond technology alone: investing in strong data foundations and having leadership that meets teams in the middle, creating the conditions to deliver real business value with AI. Chapters: 00:00 - Introduction 06:02 - Opendoor’s four layers of intelligence for home valuation 08:59 - Wide data vs. big data: 500+ data points to power home valuation 11:30 - Infrastructure upgrade: consolidating fragmented stacks 26:10 - Default-to-AI strategy using a POC-first approach 34:21 - Top-quartile hiring: talent strategy for 100x engineers Paras Doshi leads Decision Science and Data Engineering at OpenDoor. His background spans hands-on and leadership data science, analysis, and engineering roles across industries. Paras is a Fellow of the Institute of Analytics, a data science and AI researcher, and an active blogger with 600+ posts and over 2M reads. Roy Daniel is the Co-Founder & CEO of definity, the optimization and observability platform for the Lakehouse and Spark ecosystem. Subscribe to Data Innovators for more conversations with technical data leaders solving complex challenges across the data ecosystem. #DataInnovators #DataEngineering #DataPlatforms #PropTech#AIStrategy #Opendoor #Podcast #definity

38 min
11/13/2025

Ep 3: Alla Piltser – how big banks tackle data cloud migration and exploding platform costs

Alla Piltser, Bank of America's former Managing Director of Tech Infra, shares insights from her 35 year career in financial services technology and the critical shifts happening today in big banks’ data platforms. Alla and Roy dive into how financial institutions are navigating data platform priorities for 2026. They discuss proven techniques for avoiding costly migration failures, the foundational capabilities to unlock proactive finops and cost optimizations, the essential role of quality data in GenAI success, and why "shifting left" on data governance is becoming non-negotiable for banks. Chapters: 00:00 - Introduction 08:13 - The cost optimization crisis and proactive FinOps 13:17 - The cloud migration challenges and misconceptions 17:51 - Data governance, compliance, and regulatory requirements at scale 24:11 - Driving innovation in financial services 29:23 - Biggest career mistake and top advice Alla Piltser is a former Managing Director of Global Tech Infra at Bank of America. She has a 35 year career in financial services technology and data, and is currently a senior advisor to FInServ technology leaders around cloud migrations, stack optimization and transformation, and cybersecurity. Roy Daniel is the Co-Founder & CEO of definity – the optimization and observability platform for the Lakehouse and Spark ecosystem. Subscribe to Data Innovators for more conversations with technical data leaders solving complex challenges across the data ecosystem. #DataInnovators #DataPlatforms #CloudMigration #CostOptimization #DataGovernance #FinancialServices #Podcast #definity

33 min
09/17/2025

Ep 2: Renu Tewari – will Agentic AI unlock 100x data engineering value?

Renu Tewari, former LinkedIn data platform leader, shares about her experience scaling the platform from 1 trillion to 35 trillion messages per day, and how Agentic AI is now reshaping the future of data engineering – and every infrastructure assumption we have. Renu and Roy explore how hyperscaling teams address increasing platform bottlenecks, constant failures, and ongoing need for deep root-cause analysis; the explosion of open formats and Lakehouse architecture; and how active metadata is the foundation for AI agents to make autonomous in-flight decisions. Chapters: 01:09 - Introduction and Renu's journey 03:16 - LinkedIn's data infrastructure 07:17 - Lakehouse evolution and open table formats 09:26 - Challenges of hyperscaling data platforms 12:36 - The 5-Whys approach to robust root-cause analysis 24:11 - AI agents and the future of data engineering 33:26 - Final thoughts on platform scaling strategy Renu Tewari is former Senior Director of Data Platform at LinkedIn and currently an Entrepreneur in Residence at Bain Capital. At Linkedin, her team scaled infrastructure to 35 trillion daily messages and pioneered a lakehouse architecture combining streaming and batch analytics and robust governance. Roy Daniel is the Co-Founder & CEO of definity – the optimization and observability platform for the Lakehouse and Spark ecosystem. Subscribe to Data Innovators for more conversations with technical data leaders solving complex challenges across the data ecosystem. #DataInnovators #Podcast #DataPlatforms #AI #DataGovernance #CostOptimization #definity #Linkedin

36 min
09/02/2025

Ep 1: Romit Mehta – how Disney democratizes data while curbing chaos

Disney’s Head of Data Platform Product shares how his team built platform-level guardrails, cost attribution, and lineage systems to scale data democratization without losing control. This episode explores enterprise data platforms, AI use cases, and governance strategies that keep efficiency high and costs in check. Romit Mehta and Roy Daniel dive into Disney’s enterprise data platform team’s approach to navigating its top priorities – from supporting new AI use cases, to standardizing semantics, simplifying complexity, and driving efficiency. They also discuss the robust techniques the team is using – such as automated watermarking, data-agnostic attribution, and endpoint lineage tagging – to increase developer velocity and avoid the quarterly "executive blame game." Chapters: 00:00 - Introduction 02:09 - Disney's foundational data products and infrastructure platforms 06:47 - Enterprise data complexity: when teams measure differently 10:16 - Biggest challenges data product teams are facing in 2025 18:11 - Data democratization creating cost explosions and inconsistency 21:15 - Platform-level guardrails and cost optimization 27:09 - AI's role in data platforms and productivity gains 32:35 - Final thoughts on platform strategy Romit Mehta is Head of Data Platform Product at The Walt Disney Company and formerly a Data Product leader at PayPal. His team builds foundational data products, core infrastructure, and clickstream analytics that support Disney’s global operations. Roy Daniel is the Co-Founder & CEO of definity – the optimization and observability platform for the Lakehouse and Spark ecosystem. Subscribe to Data Innovators for more conversations with technical data leaders solving complex challenges across the data ecosystem. #DataInnovators #DataPlatforms #AI #DataGovernance #CostOptimization #Podcast #definity #Disney

40 min

6 Episodes

Data Innovators brings you candid conversations with technical data leaders tackling today’s toughest challenges. We'll dive into fresh approaches to data engineering, practical strategies for scaling modern data platforms, and the trends shaping the data ecosystem. Hosted by Roy Daniel – CEO of definity – each episode shares hard-won lessons and actionable insights from those building data systems at scale.

Creator

definity
Years Active

2025 - 2026
Episodes

6
Rating

Clean
Copyright

© definity
Show Website

Data Innovators