Scale Your Business With Data with Crawford McMillan
Scale Your Business With Data with Crawford McMillan
Podcast Description
The Scale Your Business with Data podcast is the no-fluff guide for leaders who know there’s money buried in their data but need a proven map to dig it up—fast.
Hosted by Graham Crawford (co-founder of Crawford MacMillan and longtime “data whisperer” for high-growth teams), each weekly episode distills decades of front-line experience into conversations you can act on immediately. Forget buzzwords and theoretical frameworks; this show zeroes in on the real-world moves that turn:
- Chaotic spreadsheets into clear signals, so you see which levers actually drive revenue, margin, and customer loyalty.
-Everyday metrics into decision intelligence, so you stop debating dashboards and start reallocating budgets, products, and people with confidence.
-Expensive AI hype into practical advantage, learn how to define and govern data first, then layer automation without sacrificing explainability or control.
-“Hope” strategies into repeatable playbooks—so multi-million-dollar calls happen in minutes, not months.
Whether you’re scaling a startup, steering a Fortune-500 unit, or simply tired of dashboards that look good but do nothing, you’ll walk away each week with:
-Actionable insights you can deploy before the next meeting.
-Battle-tested stories that de-risk your own transformation.
-A clearer mental model for leading people, processes, and technology around data—not the other way around.
-No jargon, no ivory-tower theory—just candid talk, unexpected analogies, and an unwavering focus on value creation.
Subscribe today and join a community that turns hidden numbers into breakout growth.
Podcast Insights
Content Themes
The podcast explores a range of topics focused on data strategy, decision intelligence, and AI implementation. Episodes cover practical aspects such as transforming chaotic spreadsheets into clear signals for revenue growth, optimizing corporate KPIs, and utilizing data for effective decision-making. For instance, one episode features Nick White discussing how data strategy can bridge the gap between data collection and actionable insights, enhancing business performance.
Private equity meets data. Conversations with deal teams, operating partners, and portfolio company leaders about the data problems that kill deals, slow exits, and destroy value.
Hosted by Graeme Crawford, founder of Crawford McMillan. 20 years leading data programs at Fortune 100 companies. Now helping PE-backed companies fix data before exits so the numbers hold up under scrutiny.
New episodes cover diligence red flags, value creation playbooks, and the real stories behind successful (and failed) transactions.
Shota Ishii joined me on The PE Data Guy to talk about what happens when PE-backed manufacturers cannot answer a basic question: which products are actually making money? He has spent two decades building systems that give companies a clear picture of where their cash goes, and we got into why that gap exists and what it takes to close it.
We covered working capital, data architecture, and what mid-market companies need to do right now to get their data in order before AI can do anything useful for them. Shota shared an example of a $400 million metal company that found $80 million in working capital improvements once they had the right transaction-level visibility.
Chapters:
- 00:00 – Understanding Capital Efficiency
- 06:42 – The Journey to Becoming a Robo CFO
- 20:55 – Amazonifying Legacy Industries: The Need for Real-Time Data
- 31:51 – The Importance of Data Strategy in Mid-Market Companies
- 35:18 – The Future of AI in Mid-Market Companies
Guest Information
Shota Ishii is the founder of Proximo Tech, where he works with PE-backed manufacturers on capital efficiency and working capital. He studied applied physics and AI and has a background in quantitative finance, hedge funds, and corporate innovation. He is based in Japan and can be found on LinkedIn.
Companies Mentioned
- Proximo Tech
- Moody’s
- Blackstone Credit
- Amazon
- Snowflake
- Databricks
- AWS
- Google Cloud
- Salesforce
- OpenAI
Websites Mentioned
Key Takeaways
- Clean, granular data at the transaction level is the foundation for improving working capital.
- The cost of not building a data platform grows over time as competitors who do build one move faster.
- Data is a company asset. Without structure and governance around it, AI cannot make use of it.
- Mid-market companies often underestimate how affordable modern data tools actually are.
Disclaimer
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