David Sánchez is the latest addition to the baobab team. Get to know him better in this interview.
- Who is David Sánchez?
I am a telecommunications engineer, born in Madrid with roots in Toledo, father of two girls, voracious reader and passionate about horse racing. On the work side, I am a business development person with strong technical skills; or put into other words, a broad spectrum product manager, capable of managing commercial relationships. I like the continuous contact with people that developinga business demands but not at the cost of detaching myself from how problems are solved.
- What is your connection to data science and operations research?
It is an old relationship with different sides to it. I started my professional career at Denodo, a data virtualization company, initially as a technician, later managing professional services and business development. In essence their product was a data integration middleware with long sales cycles on which analytical-based projects could be approached.
After that phase, I created 24symbols with some friends. It consisted in a B2C subscription reading service, a world first. As a digital service, it required taking data on user behaviour to grow, maximize revenue and reader loyalty.
The next company I founded was Quantified Reading, whose mission was to bring advanced analytics to the world of publishing: monitor reader behaviour to help publishers decide which books to publish in the future.
As you can see, data and analytics as a decision-making tool have always been present in my career.
- How did you get to baobab? What led you to join?
I met Pablo (Castiella) professionally years ago, and I have followed his career on Linkedin. I saw baobab engaged in exciting projects, solving complex problems with data science and analytical technologies, and I think my soul as a mathematician needed that kind of challenge. I am also very attracted to baobab’s culture: the flexibility of a company this size allows contributing on many fronts.
- What will your role be in baobab?
I will work as a Business Development Manager, combining the relationship with the client with consulting, looking for the most suitable use case to deliver the highest possible value. In addition, I have a lot of experience in developing complex software products. Although the mathematical models need to be customized to achieve excellent results, I believe that I can help identify and develop generalizable and scalable solutions based on the enormous potential of the technical team here.
- What do you like to do outside baobab?
Plenty of things. I have played futsal all my life, even now that I am reaching a certain age; I am also slowly but surely taking a degree in Philosophy at UNED, whenever my work allows it; I like to spend time with my family, and I am also a part-time professor of Design and Operation of Communications Networks and other subjects at Carlos III university.
- What challenges would you like to face?
I have already mentioned the challenge of finding the room for a product in a service company. It is an attractive, top-level challenge.
On the technology side, and probably stemming from my experience in Quantified Reading, I would like to go deeper into the use of NLP (natural language processing technologies) for analytical solutions beyond chatbots. Combining math and language is a fascinating challenge. I am convinced that there is a way to go for NLP technologies within the realm of prescriptive analytics, and it is worth exploring.
Welcome to baobab, David!
