Data Storytelling: Turn Insights Into Influence
Shailvi Wakhlu
Data Storytelling Expert
Make your data impossible to ignore
If you work with data, this will feel familiar:
📊 You share solid analysis and clean charts
🧠 The insights make sense to you
🤷🏽♀️ But the room doesn’t act on them
Meetings move on. Decisions stall. Your work gets misunderstood, oversimplified, or ignored.
This isn’t a data problem.
It’s a storytelling and influence gap.
Most data professionals are trained to analyze—not to persuade. Yet you’re expected to explain complex insights, align stakeholders, and drive action with clarity and confidence.
This course helps you close that gap.
You’ll learn how to:
🔍 Find the story hidden inside your data—not just the numbers
🎨 Design visuals that highlight what matters most, instantly
🗣️ Present insights with confidence to technical and non-technical audiences
🎯 Frame recommendations so decisions actually get made
Through hands-on workshops and real-world projects, you’ll practice turning raw data into clear, compelling narratives you can proudly present.
The result?
✨ Your insights get remembered
🚀 Your recommendations gain traction
🤝 You show up as a trusted decision partner—not just a data expert
If you want your work to shape decisions, not just inform them, this course gives you the playbook.
What you’ll learn
Learn to turn insights into stories that capture attention and drive decisions
Framework to structure insights around context, stakes, and action
Techniques to move beyond “what” to “so what” and “now what”
Examples of stories that changed real business decisions
Methods to identify high-impact insights, not just interesting ones
Prioritization tools based on audience and business goals
Exercises to cut noise and focus on what truly matters
Principles for simplifying complexity in charts and slides
Visual patterns that highlight key takeaways at a glance
Before/after examples of effective data visual redesigns
Techniques to explain data clearly to technical and non-technical audiences
Language frameworks for recommendations and tradeoffs
Practice presenting insights with clarity and presence
Strategies to tailor stories for executives, partners, and peers
Tools to handle questions, skepticism, and pushback
Case studies of cross-functional influence through data
End-to-end project from raw data to polished narrative
Feedback to strengthen clarity, flow, and impact
A presentation you can confidently showcase or reuse at work
Learn directly from Shailvi
Shailvi Wakhlu
Data leader at Meta with two decades turning data into influence
Who this course is for
Data pros who want influence — You’re great with numbers, but want to tell stories that spark action, not just dashboards.
Product & business leaders — You use data to make decisions, but want to communicate insights that truly land.
Curious storytellers — You’re comfortable with data and want to present it with clarity, confidence, and impact.
Prerequisites
Basic data analysis experience
You should know how to gather, clean, and summarize data using your preferred tools.
Familiarity with data visualization tools
You’ve built charts in tools like Looker, Tableau, or Google Sheets and can interpret visuals confidently.
Curiosity about communicating insights
A desire to make your data more impactful through clear storytelling and strong narratives.
What's included
Live sessions
Learn directly from Shailvi Wakhlu in a real-time, interactive format.
Portfolio sample
Use the output of the hands-on project for your portfolio.
Lifetime access
Go back to course content and recordings whenever you need to.
Community of peers
Stay accountable and share insights with like-minded professionals.
Certificate of completion
Share your new skills with your employer or on LinkedIn.
Maven Guarantee
This course is backed by the Maven Guarantee. Students are eligible for a full refund up until the halfway point of the course.
Course syllabus
Week 1
May
8
Data Storytelling: Session 1
Week 2
May
11
Data Storytelling: Project 1
May
15
Data Storytelling: Session 2
Free resource
Debiasing Data: Types, Impact & Practical Fixes
Recognize Key Types of Data Bias
Learn the most common biases that distort data and decision-making.
Understand the Business Impact
See how biased data affects business outcomes and why fixing it matters.
Apply Practical Debiasing Strategies
Get concrete techniques to reduce bias throughout the data lifecycle.
Schedule
Live sessions
2-3 hrs / week
Fri, May 8
2:30 PM—4:00 PM (UTC)
Mon, May 11
3:00 PM—4:00 PM (UTC)
Fri, May 15
2:30 PM—4:00 PM (UTC)
Projects
1 hr / week
Async content
1 hr / week
Frequently asked questions
$850
USD