A Class Act: Conversations in Data and Leadership
A Class Act: Conversations in Data and Leadership
Podcast Description
Welcome to A Class Act: Conversations in Data and Leadership. Hosted by Michael Young of MBN Solutions, a data talent expert with nearly two decades of experience at the forefront of tech recruitment, this show dives deep into what it really takes to build high-performing teams. Each episode features candid conversations with the leaders behind the progress - those hiring top tech talent, scaling data science teams, driving digital transformation, and leading with purpose (not just a job title).Whether you're a data leader, people manager, recruiter, or simply passionate about building great teams, you'll walk away with insights, lessons learned, and fresh perspectives on talent, strategy, and leadership in today’s tech economy.Follow A Class Act for honest, human-first leadership conversations in the data and tech space.
Podcast Insights
Content Themes
The podcast covers themes such as data leadership, team dynamics, and personal growth, with episodes featuring topics like leading with trust, building diversity in teams, and navigating complexity in tech environments. For example, episodes have explored how cognitive diversity improves decision-making and the importance of vulnerability in leadership.
What does it really take to build and lead a world-class AI or data team?
I’m Michael Young, founder and CEO of MBN Solutions in Scotland. After two decades placing top talent across data, AI, and tech, I’ve seen what actually separates high-performing teams from the rest, and it’s rarely what the headlines tell you.
A Class Act is where I bring you those stories.
Honest, experience-led conversations with the data and AI leaders making the hard calls right now: who they hire, how they build data science capability, and what real leadership looks like when the technology never stops moving.
No hype. No jargon. Just practical insight from people who’ve actually done it.Whether you’re a data leader, a people manager, or hiring in tech, you’ll walk away from every episode with something you can use.
New episodes twice a month. Follow A Class Act so you never miss one.
Stuart is Chief AI Officer at Sabio Group, a CX consulting and technology firm that has spent two decades helping large organisations run their contact centres. He was working on speech recognition and natural language when it was still called speech technology, long before ChatGPT made any of it mainstream, so he has watched several waves of this arrive and seen which ones actually changed anything.
In the second episode of season 3, Michael Young asks him what genuinely changed after ChatGPT, why the predicted wave of job losses has not materialised, and what separates the organisations getting real value from AI from the ones putting staff through a morning of Copilot training and calling it transformation.
If you run a contact centre, own CX, or are trying to work out what AI is genuinely worth in a service organisation, this one is for you.
What you’ll discover:
- What Sabio was doing with speech recognition and natural language back in 2004, and whether today feels revolutionary or like the technology finally caught up
- The moment AI stopped being something Sabio sold to clients and started changing Sabio itself
- Why the Silicon Valley prediction that customer service would be first for job disruption has not played out the way it was sold
- Why he sees AI as an expansive rather than a reductive technology
- The argument that the organisations who win are not the ones handling the most interactions, but the ones serving far more customers
- What he would do differently if he were building Sabio from scratch today as an AI-native company
- Why the barrier is no longer access to the technology but whether your organisation is culturally set up to use it
- Why testing, tuning and optimising an AI deployment is now often a bigger job than building it
- Where agentic AI is genuinely useful today in customer service, and where explainability and regulation start to bite
Guest Information
Stuart Dorman is Chief AI Officer at Sabio Group, where he leads the company’s AI strategy and its advanced technology portfolio across contact centre, AI, data and data analytics. He has spent close to three decades working where technology meets customer experience, starting with speech applications and natural language long before generative AI made the field mainstream.
Sabio is a CX consulting and technology firm specialising in AI-powered customer experience, working with technology partners including Amazon Connect, Salesforce, Genesys and Google Cloud, and with clients including British Airways, Vodafone, Marks & Spencer and DHL Express. Stuart is responsible for developing those strategic partner relationships, and is a regular speaker across the global CX circuit.
He is a strong advocate for treating AI as an expansive technology rather than a cost-reduction exercise, for experimentation over long roadmaps, and for the view that the constraint on most organisations is cultural rather than technical.
Connect with Stuart Dorman on LinkedIn:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/stuartdorman/
Please note: The views expressed by the guest in this episode are their own and do not reflect those of their current or former employers.
About Your Host
Michael Young is the Founder & CEO of MBN Solutions and host of A Class Act. With nearly two decades of experience helping organisations build high-performing data, analytics and AI teams, he brings frontline insight into what makes exceptional talent and leadership.
Connect with MBN Solutions
If you are building the AI capability inside a service organisation, or working out what skills your teams actually need to make it pay, MBN partners with organisations to build data and AI teams that deliver.
MBN Solutions on LinkedIn — industry updates, projects, and the latest in data, AI and analytics talent. Visit the company page here: linkedin.com/company/mbn-recruitment-solutions
For questions, guest recommendations, or to connect:
Email: [email protected]
Visit MBN Solutions at www.mbnsolutions.com
Subscribe & Follow
Season 3 is under way. Follow A Class Act wherever you get your podcasts and leave a review to help more listeners find these conversations.
Disclaimer
This podcast’s information is provided for general reference and was obtained from publicly accessible sources. The Podcast Collaborative neither produces nor verifies the content, accuracy, or suitability of this podcast. Views and opinions belong solely to the podcast creators and guests.
For a complete disclaimer, please see our Full Disclaimer on the archive page. The Podcast Collaborative bears no responsibility for the podcast’s themes, language, or overall content. Listener discretion is advised. Read our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy for more details.