Data Within Reach

Making Sense of SQL (even if you're not an engineer)

Care

athenahealth

Harvard Business School Online

Paint Nite

Emma Boroson

Data engineer, MBA, and educator -- teaching analytics without the overwhelm

Translate a real SQL query into plain English so you’re not guessing, when it shows up at work.

Follow what a SQL query is actually doing

Learn where to start, and how to spot the few parts of a SQL query that tell you what's really going on

Know where to focus (and what you can ignore)

Build confidence and credibility to keep up and participate when SQL comes up in the conversation

Stop feeling lost or intimidated

Stop being the “number explainer.” Build the stories, systems, and credibility to lead with clarity and confidence in the age of AI.

Data & AI leader,19yrs of scaling teams

Pier Martin

 Data & AI leader with 19+ years scaling global teams, Executive coach 

Cohort 3

Cohort 4

As a data leader, do you catch yourself asking questions like…- How do I get execs to actually act on my insights instead of tuning out?- How do I influence peers in Product, Ops, and Marketing when they don’t report to me? - How can I build credibility around AI adoption without just demoing tools?- How do I stop my team from being seen as a “ticket shop” and instead as a trusted partner?If you’re not confident about these, this course is for you. This is a hands-on leadership course designed for emerging data leaders, analytics managers, data science managers, and heads of data who want to grow from technical doers into visible, trusted, AI-ready leaders.Before this course, you may feel:- Stuck explaining numbers that don’t lead to action.- Anxious that AI will outpace your team or make your work irrelevant.- Reactive to hype or resistance, rather than steering the narrative.After this course, you’ll:- Turn “data dumps” into compelling stories that executives repeat in the boardroom.- Translate AI pilots into credible business cases that prove ROI, reduce fear, and win support.- Lead your team confidently through change, balancing optimism with realism.

Lead with Data. Inspire with Story. Win with AI.

How to Master Strategic Communication

How to Lead AI Change with Confidence

  How to Build Your Leadership Operating System

Folks who are early in their career, focused only on technical execution, or looking to break into data/analytics should not enroll.

This course is NOT FOR everyone

It is designed for data managers, analytics leads, and heads of data already managing teams and facing leadership challenges.

This is NOT a beginner-level technical course

Overlooked Data Manager delivering dashboards but dismissed in strategy conversations, eager to be trusted for impact.

Stretched Head of Data managing 5-15 people, stuck firefighting, and needing systems to show control and credibility.

Aspiring AI-Ready Data leader, newly promoted from IC, strong technically but lacking storytelling and executive presence.

Become the go-to data professional who prevents bad data, not just fixes it

Data Quality Leader

Strava

Komodo Health

Salesforce

Fitbit

Shailvi Wakhlu

Data leader at Meta with two decades improving data quality

Fall Cohort

Spring'26

Bad data is everywhere—and if you work with data, you’ve felt the pain.📉 Broken dashboards 🔁 Conflicting metrics 🧯 Late-night pipeline debugging 🗣️ Re-explaining numbers you know are wrongOver time, this erodes trust in your data—and in your work.Most data professionals are stuck in reactive mode. You fix issues after they’ve already caused damage, only to see the same problems resurface weeks later. That’s not a skill issue—it’s a systems issue.This course helps you change that.You’ll learn how to approach data quality systematically, not ad hoc:<ul><li>🔍 Identify where and why data quality issues originate</li><li>🧪 Diagnose problems quickly using structured SQL-based techniques</li><li>🛡️ Put guardrails in place so errors are caught before they impact decisions</li></ul>Just as importantly, you’ll learn how to make data quality visible and valuable. You’ll practice communicating the business impact of bad data so this work gets prioritized—not ignored.The result? ✅ Less firefighting 📊 More trust in your data 🚀 Greater confidence in the insights you deliverIf you’re ready to stop chasing bad data and start preventing it, this course gives you the playbook.

Stop firefighting bad data: prevent, diagnose, and fix it systematically

Prevent data quality issues before they reach stakeholders

Diagnose and debug data issues using a repeatable SQL approach

Assess data health across the full data lifecycle

Automate data quality checks to protect pipelines

Reduce firefighting and increase trust in your data

Influence teams to prioritize data quality initiatives

Data Analysts &amp; Data Scientists who want to prevent bad data instead of constantly fixing errors and dealing with misleading insights.

Data Engineers who want to build reliable pipelines with automated quality checks to ensure a trustworthy, high-integrity data environment.

Data Practitioners who need to secure company-wide buy-in for data governance initiatives that drive better business decisions.

Master an SE specific influence playbook to diagnose stalls, move deals, and become the trusted strategic partner leaders rely on.

Executive Coach & Ex-Salesforce Director

EPiServer

Advanced Chemistry Development

Seneca Polytechnic

David Fung, Leadership Coach

Leadership coach for SE & tech leaders, Prev. Salesforce SE Sr Director

Cohort 1

Sales Engineers live in the mess between customer reality, sales pressure, and product constraints. You see risks and better options before anyone else, yet in deal discussions your input often lands as noise. You receive vague feedback like “be more strategic” without a playbook, and left wondering what "secrets" there might be for influencing your peers.Generic leadership training does not help. Leadership books and generic communication training don’t teach you what to say in a live deal review, how to mitigate a risky sales promise, or how to fight for a feature that keeps getting bumped. It feels disconnected from the pressure of real quarters.This course matters because it starts in your world. I don’t use hypotheticals, I help you work on a live deal or initiative you own right now. You get a simple framework to diagnose why stakeholders ignore you, plus concrete scripts, written communication rewrites, and a reusable 30-day influence plan. The goal isn't to change your personality. It is to operationalize your expertise, transforming you into the trusted strategic operator leadership relies on for big decisions.

Get the influence skills SEs and SE leaders need to grow your career

Understand Resistance and Influence

Handle Conflict Without Drama

Create a 30-Day Influence Plan

Communicate to Drive Decisions

Strengthen Your Professional Credibility

Become a Trusted Strategic Partner

Sales Engineers at any levelGet a seat at the table shaping deal strategy and product direction instead of just running demos.

Sales Engineering LeaderTransform your team from reactive support into strategic drivers of deals and product direction.

Product or Customer Success PartnerTurn your customer insights into product reality and drive deeper adoption on strategic accounts.

Transform from consumer of analytics to independent operator - asking sharp questions, validating answers, shipping decisions.

Principal Data Scientist @ Ontra 

Stripe

Nextdoor

PwC India

Ontra

AppFolio

Shane Butler

Principal Data Scientist @ Ontra | Ex-Stripe, Nextdoor, PwC, Appfolio

Data Science Leader |Ex-Microsoft

Microsoft

eBay

Grammarly

Superhuman

Sravya Madipalli

Data Science Leader@Superhuman (Prev. Grammarly)| Ex-Microsoft, eBay, Nextdoor

Head of Data @ Ontra AI | Ex-LinkedIn

LinkedIn

Pinterest

Hai Guan

Head of Data @ Ontra | Ex-Nextdoor, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Meta

The future belongs to full-stack builders, not narrow specialists. As AI reduces the value of deep domain silos, the people who thrive will be the ones who can work across disciplines and ship.You can already prototype designs, write code, and generate content with AI. But analytical independence - the ability to validate your own ideas and make data-informed decisions - remains the missing skill in most builders' toolkits.AI can conduct the analysis, but it can't tell you what to ask or whether the answer makes sense. That requires analytical judgment.This course teaches you to think like a senior Product Data Scientist. You'll learn the frameworks used at FAANG companies to frame problems, choose the right metrics, diagnose root causes, execute the analysis, and turn insights into decisions.-&gt; <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" href="https://join.slack.com/t/dataneighbor/shared_invite/zt-3ox4drc3r-3g0ptSthytkgv0sD6ovvqg">Join AI Builders Slack Community!!</a> &lt;-What makes this different: No SQL. No stats lectures. Five weeks of hands-on real scenarios. You'll build a complete analytical case study - metric specs, deep dives, experiment plans, stakeholder readouts.The result: You become analytically self-sufficient. The last dependency removed from your toolkit. Make data-informed decisions in hours, not weeks.

Ask Better Questions, Make Faster Decisions - with AI as Your Analyst

Frame Problems Like a Senior Data Scientist

Design Metrics That Actually Drive Decisions

Diagnose Root Causes Without Guessing

Design Experiments That Ship

Turn Analysis Into Action With AI as Your Copilot

Synthesize Insights and Prioritize for Impact

Product Managers, engineers, and operators who need analytical independence and frameworks to measure success and drive decisions.

Designers and researchers stepping into strategy roles who need to quantify impact, run experiments, and influence with data-driven insights

Data professionals who want to frame better questions, delegate technical execution to AI, and drive impact with agentic analytics tools.