Yew Tree Data Consulting is led by Ian Thomas, a more than twenty-year veteran of the data & analytics industry.

Ian co-founded WebAbacus, one of the UK’s first web analytics firms, working with major brands and media agencies to define the digital analytics industry, delivering some of the industry’s first ever multichannel campaign analysis and attribution projects. He subsequently served on the board of the Digital Analytics Association, helping to support and educate practitioners worldwide.

From 2006 to 2018, Ian held a number of data leadership roles for Microsoft, based at the company’s global headquarters in Redmond, Washington. He built and managed petabyte-scale analytics platforms for Microsoft Advertising and the Bing search engine, leading the adoption of experimentation-led product development. He subsequently led the Marketing Data & Analytics team for Microsoft’s consumer products, including Xbox, Windows, Bing and Surface, pioneering the use of Machine Learning & AI to deliver significantly improved campaign ROI through predictive segment generation and model-driven campaign analysis.

Since 2019 Ian has applied his expertise to help companies deliver value from data in their own organisations via a combination of project work and interim CDO positions. Yew Tree Data Consulting has undertaken projects for a variety of clients including Sony, Kingmakers, Multichoice Group, and Snowplow, helping these organisations grow their data functions and learn how to create value from data effectively.