Our Team
Meet the people at The Data Lab
Everyone at The Data Lab is passionate about helping Scotland’s businesses, academics and students get the most value from data.
In addition to our core teams, we have several advisory and governance boards.
Meet our people:
Leadership Team
Business Development Team
Data Science Team
Project Managers
Skills Team
Marketing Team
Operations and Finance Team
Business Advisors
Scottish AI Alliance
Governance Board
Innovation Advisory Board
Skills Advisory Board
Our Ambassadors
Leadership Team
Brian Hills
Chief Executive Officer of The Data Lab
Brian has 17 years’ experience in analytics and software engineering, across domains including Telecoms, IT and Digital. He joins the Data Lab from Skyscanner where he launched and grew the Business Intelligence team. Prior to Skyscanner, Brian held analytics and engineering roles with Sumerian and HP.
Manolo Perez
Head of Operations and Finance
Manolo is a qualified Chartered Accountant with over 20 years financial experience in the University Sector. He joined The Data Lab in January 2015 having previously worked at various departments within the University of Edinburgh.
Mark Wilkinson
Head of Business Development
Mark has more than 25 years’ experience in global data and analytics sector, he has managed business teams which include start-ups and established organisations; with an aim to support clients in achieving strategic business objectives by maximising value from data and analytics. Mark is focused on helping The Data Lab deliver their mission to maximise the value of data for Scotland. His role includes identifying future strategic funding opportunities from both public and private sector and spearheading collaborations with external partners across industry; public sector and academia.
Heather Thomson
Head of Skills
Heather has 12 years experience in project and programme management roles, in both the public and private sector with extensive experience in the development and delivery of training. Prior to joining The Data Lab, she managed a £5 million research programme at the University of Edinburgh with a strong focus on training and capacity building in data skills.
Business Development Team
Adam Turner
Business Development Executive
Adam is an experienced Commercial Development professional who joins The Data Lab from IBM where he was a specialist in the Watson Cognitive Platform, providing support to organisations embarking on their Artificial Intelligence transformation projects. Drawing on his experience, Adam’s focus will be assisting organisations through their data driven innovation projects.
Darran Gardner
Business Development Executive
Darran Gardner is an experienced business development manager and management consultant whose most recent role was with the Energy Technology Partnership, where he developed and managed a wide range of collaborative academia/industry projects focused on the energy sector.
Cameron Gordon
Business Development Executive
Cameron graduated in 2018, with my fourth year dissertation being focused on practical research into advanced composite materials. He joined IFB and got his first taste of the technology sector at Scotsoft 2018. He is now the Business Development lead for The Data Lab in Aberdeen. Responsible for supporting companies with their funding applications I hope to grow awareness of the Data Lab throughout Aberdeen and Aberdeenshire as a focus for Data Science across multiple industries.
Sandra Ripley
Business Development Executive
Sandra believes strongly in the power of a good data strategy and supporting skill set in driving business success. She is delighted to be part of the team at The Data Lab working with Scottish businesses to support growth of their data skills set. She has extensive cross-industry experience working in business development and marketing roles.
Max Baczynski
Business Development Officer
Max joined The Data Lab in November 2021 to oversee the MSc Industrial Placements Programme and help connect business with emerging Data Science and AI talent. With over 6 years’ experience in the tech education space, he previously worked for the coding bootcamp Makers and built partnerships with companies from Deloitte to Deliveroo. Max will build on this experience to help scope out suitable short data science projects for organisations across Scotland.
Data Science Team
Joanna McKenzie
Principal Data Scientist
Joanna is a data scientist with ten years’ experience as an analyst and team leader in the energy and renewables sector. She has considerable experience performing analytics projects in a large organisation, working with stakeholders and experts to identify and deliver value-add opportunities. She also has experience in analytics software development using mySQL, Matlab, python and R amongst other tools. A particle physicist and qualified secondary school teacher, she has a particular interest in knowledge sharing and building expertise.
Anselma Foxton
Data Scientist
Anselma has joined The Data Lab from Virgin Money, where she worked across the bank to provide valuable data insight, predictive analytics and data visualisation. Before this, Anselma worked in the Data Science team at Welsh Water focusing on Customer Strategy. Anselma has an academic background in Mathematics with an MSc in Operational Research and Applied Statistics. During her studies, she completed a placement year at the Office for National Statistics and an MSc dissertation with NHS Wales.
Vyron Christodoulou
Data Scientist
Vyron is a data scientist with both academic and industry experience. He is interested in Machine Learning, Open Source Software, automation and Machine Learning and Operations (MLOps). He has joined The Data Lab from the British Geological Survey (BGS), where he worked with multiple groups and types of data, applying software engineering practices and ML methods to make publicly accessible and reproducible research and science. He holds an MSc and a PhD in Artificial Intelligence where he worked with satellite data in anomaly detection and data drift.
Project Managers
Malcolm Price
Senior Project Manager
Malcolm started his career as a software engineer before moving into project management. He has over 20 years managing technology development projects in various sectors. Malcolm is a great believer in collaboration and the ‘power of together’ to bring success.
Skills Team
Anna Scott
Programme Manager- Professional Development
Anna has worked in the higher education sector for more than 15 years in external relations roles. Anna joins The Data Lab from the Scottish Graduate School of Social Science , where she led on programmes of activity designed to connect doctoral research with policy and practice, working with the Scottish Government, Skills Development Scotland and others on the delivery of national industry-focused skills training initiatives.
Marian Dunbar
Skills Coordinator
Marian has more than 20 years of experience as a University Administrator working with students and academics in a variety of roles. She joins The Data Lab from the Cyber Academy, Edinburgh Napier University, where she supported a range of training, education and dissemination activities on cyber security.
Cheryl Stewart
Skills Coordinator
Cheryl has worked for the University of Edinburgh for 10 years primarily in an HR capacity, she joined The Data Lab in 2016 where she now works as a Skills Coordinator supporting the work we do with the Industrial Doctorate and Online Learning programmes.
Michael Milne
Project Manager
Michael is a Project Manager with a diverse background working for a number of digital agencies and startups across the UK and Singapore. He has experience in a variety of roles: project management, business analysis, digital business transformation, and business development. Prior to joining The Data Lab, he was managing Operations for a digital game studio in Edinburgh. He is an alumnus of the University of Edinburgh (BSc) and the Asian Institute of Management (MBA) and considers himself a true geek.
Nuria Fraile-Diaz
Product Manager for the DDI Skills Gateway (Data Skills for Work)
Nuria has been working in the University of Edinburgh for the last 17 years and has a vast experience managing projects across different schools. Predominately related to Online Learning Environments and worked as coordinator for the University of Edinburgh MOOC team. In her last role, based in CSE, she interconnected learning technology tools to research projects, linking knowledge exchange among research and development teams.
Sonia Hadj Said
Programme Administrator for the DDI Skills Gateway (Data Skills for Work) – Maternity Cover
Sonia has joined The Data Lab from a private equity firm where she worked across FOH, Events and Finance departments. She graduated from City, University of London with MA in International Journalism specialising in print publishing with focus on Humanitarian Reporting. Sonia is a passionate writer and spends her free time working on (always unfinished) books and poems.
Katie Thomson
Programme Administrator for the DDI Skills Gateway (Data Skills for Work) – on maternity leave
Katie is an experienced administrator and joined us from the Clyde River Foundation where she carried out eco-education projects and river based fieldwork. She graduated from the University of Aberdeen with a first class MSci Biological Sciences, where her research focused on using models to explore cognition in a wild population of birds.
Sara Orr-Saiz
Placement Programme Coordinator
Sara joined The Data Lab in October 2021 to oversee the MSc Industrial Placements Programme and help students develop their knowledge and expertise and build their confidence. She joins us from Equate Scotland where for seven years she supported and promoted women in STEM in Scotland, through their Student Network and training and consultancy. Sara has a background in education and gender and has worked in the third sector in four countries for over 15 years.