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Danilo Sato, Global Head of Technology – Data and AI, Thoughtworks

Danilo Sato, Global Head of Technology – Data and AI, Thoughtworks

Describe your career to date

With over 23 years of experience, I have worked with clients across many cultures and industries such as financial services, healthcare, telecom, media, travel, automotive, retail, and CPG. Since joining Thoughtworks in 2008, I have grown from delivering software projects, to leading client teams, and later leading our European Data and AI practice. I now lead our global technology strategy in Data and AI. I focused my career on data in 2014 when I joined Thoughtworks’ Office of the CTO and led the initiative to bring data into our DNA. During that year I published my book DevOps in Practice. From 2015 onwards, I grew our global data science and engineering community by over 10x practitioners across 18 countries. When Thoughtworks formalised our Data and AI services in 2020, I became the Head of Data and AI for the UK and Europe. During this time, I built a strong team, and won the DataIQ 2022 Shared Data, Shared Culture award alongside ITV. At the end of 2023, I took a new role as Global Head of Technology – Data and AI. I now advise our clients’ executive leaders driving data and AI transformations and bring the best of Thoughtworks’ teams to partner on their journey. Internally, I drive the execution of our technology strategy across the global Data and AI practice. The topics I cover range from strategy, data governance, operating models, to building products and platforms that bring the strategy to life using modern data architecture and engineering such as Data Mesh.

What challenges do you see for data in the year ahead that will have an impact on your clients and on the industry as a whole? 

We constantly sense and analyse technology trends in different industries, especially through the work we deliver with our clients. We publish the Technology Radar twice a year, and the latest 2024 version of our Looking Glass report identifies over 100 trends and highlights five lenses to assess the impact of these trends on business. A few lenses of interest are how there is AI everywhere now, which drives conversations on how organisations are realising value from Data and AI platforms. Data and AI growth highlights why responsible tech becomes a critical consideration for leveraging the power of data in an ethical and responsible way.

How are you developing the data literacy of a) your own organisation and b) your clients?

I helped create Thoughtworks’ capability model which maps the skills, competencies and archetypes required to deliver data and AI projects. We established and continue to evolve our global Data Academy, with the goal of creating and curating relevant content for Thoughtworkers to grow their data skills. Besides existing self-paced training tools such as Udemy and Datacamp, we also developed specific courses around Data Mesh and CD4ML. Thoughtworks helps clients to improve their literacy using our co-sourced approach to delivery, where we enable them to learn new skills by working side-by-side with us on projects.

How are you preparing your organisation and your clients for AI adoption and change management?

My new role was created to drive our technology strategy within the Data and AI practice, and AI adoption is a key part of it. I focus on how AI is impacting the services and offerings we bring to our clients – such as data and AI platforms for scale and LLMOps – as well as advising which investments we make internally to support that. We look at data and AI adoption as a transformation activity that is socio-technical. That means our clients need to establish a structure and operating model to unlock value at scale, and set up the technology foundation required to deliver it.

Danilo Sato
has been included in:

100 Enablers 2022 (EMEA)
100 Enablers 2023 (EMEA)
100 Enablers 2024 (EMEA)

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Danilo Sato, Global Head of Technology – Data and AI, Thoughtworks

Join our membership network of over 250 global senior data and AI leaders.

The trusted global collaboration and intelligence platform for data leaders.

Join our membership network of over 250
global senior data and AI leaders.