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Ross Katz

Principal

Ross Katz

Principal & Data Science Lead

Ross sits at the nexus of strategy and data science, helping client leadership teams turn data into operating leverage rather than slide decks. Most of his work is in biotech and life sciences, e-commerce, and SaaS — sectors where the difference between a useful model and a shelved one comes down to translation between the data team and the people running the business.

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Podcast episodes with Ross

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Ross Katz & Jason Bradwell — Why Nvidia's $13B Hugging Face Deal Was Never About Revenue
Eventual ConsistencyEp. 30

Why Nvidia's $13B Hugging Face Deal Was Never About Revenue

with Ross Katz & Jason Bradwell

41:11
Lisa Downey — DrugBank CEO: Why Your AI Model Gives You Half the Answer
Data in BiotechEp. 78

DrugBank CEO: Why Your AI Model Gives You Half the Answer

with Lisa Downey, DrugBank

52:12
Ross Katz & Jason Bradwell — The $1 Million Threshold for Self-Hosting Open-Weight AI Models
Eventual ConsistencyEp. 29

The $1 Million Threshold for Self-Hosting Open-Weight AI Models

with Ross Katz & Jason Bradwell

40:07
Erika Kvikstad — Genomic Data Bias, Fuzzy Phenotypes, and Drug Target Discovery
Data in BiotechEp. 77

Genomic Data Bias, Fuzzy Phenotypes, and Drug Target Discovery

with Erika Kvikstad, Independent

70:08
Ross Katz & Jason Bradwell — How to Build a Data Team Ready for AI Agents
Eventual ConsistencyEp. 28

How to Build a Data Team Ready for AI Agents

with Ross Katz & Jason Bradwell

46:30
Adam Freund — From Single-Cell Data to Cell-Depleting Therapies
Data in BiotechEp. 76

From Single-Cell Data to Cell-Depleting Therapies

with Adam Freund, Arda Therapeutics

54:12
David Yaffe — What the Prefect-Dagster Merger Means for Your Orchestration Stack
Eventual ConsistencyEp. 27

What the Prefect-Dagster Merger Means for Your Orchestration Stack

with David Yaffe, Estuary

41:18
John Androsavich — Why Biotech Talks About AI But Won't Pay for the Data It Needs
Data in BiotechEp. 75

Why Biotech Talks About AI But Won't Pay for the Data It Needs

with John Androsavich, Ginkgo Datapoints

62:56
Matthew Sekac — How Welocalize Made an AI Agent Earn Its Way Into Production
Eventual ConsistencyEp. 26

How Welocalize Made an AI Agent Earn Its Way Into Production

with Matthew Sekac, Welocalize

51:29
Woody Sherman — Physical AI for Drug Discovery: Beyond Language Models
Data in BiotechEp. 74

Physical AI for Drug Discovery: Beyond Language Models

with Woody Sherman, PsiThera

58:07
Ross Katz & Jason Bradwell — The Consulting-Lab Land Grab: What Sits Above the Model
Eventual ConsistencyEp. 25

The Consulting-Lab Land Grab: What Sits Above the Model

with Ross Katz & Jason Bradwell

34:15
Ross Katz & Jason Bradwell — Similar Keynote, Different Platforms: Snowflake vs. Databricks
Eventual ConsistencyEp. 24

Similar Keynote, Different Platforms: Snowflake vs. Databricks

with Ross Katz & Jason Bradwell

43:14

Articles by Ross

Luminous blue and copper data orbs travel along a dark steel truss bridge and gather into distinct clusters on the right, where copper trails loop back into the structure, evoking components composed into a system the company holds together itself.
aiagentic-analytics

Don’t Outsource Your Agentic Analytics Stack, Compose It

Out-of-the-box agentic analytics systems lock your semantic layer, context, evaluation, and feedback loop inside one product. Those four belong to you.

Ross Katz
Luminous blue data orbs stream through a dark industrial pipeline that forks into copper-lit channels on the right, evoking a thin routing layer that directs an analytics agent to the right data in fewer steps.
aimotherduck

MotherDuck Guides: What to Put in Them, and What to Push Down

MotherDuck Guides are a routing layer for analytics agents, not documentation. What to put in them, what to push down, and how to keep them correct.

Ross Katz
Stacked geological strata floating in dark space, with luminous mineral veins running between the layers. The lower strata glow cool steel blue and the upper strata glow warm copper, evoking the layered architecture of a context layer for AI agents.
aidata-engineering

The Context Layer: What to Build, What to Skip, and Where to Start

A staged framework for deciding which data architecture components AI agents need, when to build them, and why, based on the value you are creating.

Ross Katz
Two intersecting elliptical orbital systems sharing a single bright central nucleus, one ring system glowing cool steel blue and the counter-rotating system glowing warm copper, each carrying luminous data orbs along its concentric paths against a dark nebular background, evoking the dual mechanism systems of internal and external AI value
aidata-strategy

A Map of Where AI Creates Value in Your Business

Use case lists are not strategy. A mechanism-based framework for identifying where AI creates value, organized by what the AI is doing.

Ross Katz
Crystalline iceberg with a small luminous peak above the waterline and a massive fractured structure submerged beneath. The visible accelerated layer of data work above the compounding maintenance burden below.
aidata-teams

The Maintenance Trap: Why AI-Accelerated Data Teams Feel Slower

AI accelerates the 21% of data work that is code generation. The other 79% is maintenance, and every new asset makes it worse.

Ross Katz
Industrial rail bridges at dawn with luminous data orbs flowing through the infrastructure
aimcp

MCP in the Enterprise: Cost, Security, and Workload Routing

MCP is now core infrastructure. Its real cost at enterprise scale, where the security model breaks, and how to route agent workloads deliberately.

Ross Katz
Governed data infrastructure versus ungoverned agent access — data flowing through a structured pipeline versus scattering across a broken bridge
aidata-engineering

Skip the Data Stack, Get the Wrong Answer Faster

AI agents querying raw source systems inherit every data quality problem the transformation layer solves — then present wrong answers with confidence.

Ross Katz
SaaSpocalypse diagnostic framework
saasai

SaaSpocalypse: Who Deserves the $300B Software Selloff

An 8-question diagnostic framework for assessing which SaaS businesses AI threatens, validated against 2026 YTD stock performance.

Ross Katz
Modular geometric structures docking together in mid-air — composable LLM architecture
llmmachine-learning

LLM Tools for Data Apps: Architectural Components

How to decompose LLM workflows into task components, break down complex RAG systems, and select tools using 10 evaluation principles.

Ross Katz
A beam of light split through a dark crystal prism into seven distinct wavelengths
llmmachine-learning

7 Principles: Which LLM Business Cases Will Work and Which Will Fail

A practical framework for evaluating LLM use cases in enterprise settings, separating hype from high-ROI opportunities.

Ross Katz
A fork in a luminous pathway — an open bridge diverging from an enclosed tunnel, data orbs choosing their route
llmmachine-learning

11 Questions: Open LLM vs Third-Party LLM API

A framework of 11 critical questions to evaluate whether your use case needs an open-source LLM or a third-party API like OpenAI or Claude.

Ross Katz
Light-painting long exposure of white and red streaks looping and crossing through darkness, suggesting tangled motion
biotechdata-strategy

How Biotechs Can Squeeze Value from Lazy Data

Why biotech data sits underutilized, why off-the-shelf solutions fall short, and how an external data team delivers quick wins under $150K.

Ross Katz
Long-exposure photograph of red and blue sparkler trails fanning outward from a single bright point against a black sky
biotechdata-engineering

6 Ways Biotech Manufacturers Can Unlock Data Value

A practical guide for biotech CMOs to unlock value from manufacturing data through process optimization, compliance, digital twins, and predictive maintenance.

Ross Katz
A crumbling industrial structure being rebuilt with luminous blue scaffolding — digital transformation mid-flight
digital-transformationstrategy

5 Ways to Screw Up Your Digital Transformation

Five common mistakes that derail digital transformation projects and how to avoid them, from data management to change management.

Ross Katz
Winding channels with copper gate mechanisms firing as luminous particles pass through
marketinganalytics

How to Start Event-Based Marketing: A Bottom Up Approach

A bottom-up approach to event-based marketing using data integration, customer behavior analysis, and automation to optimize marketing spend.

Ross Katz
Specialist vessels converging on a dark industrial structure — expert capability arriving on demand
data-engineeringstrategy

10 Reasons to Hire an External Data Team

Ten reasons to partner with an external data team for your data projects, and four situations where building an internal team makes more sense.

Ross Katz
A vast constellation map of interconnected nodes representing the questions e-commerce leaders need to answer
ecommercestrategy

117 Key Questions for E-Commerce Leaders

117 questions e-commerce leaders should answer across finance, marketing, sales, operations, support, technology, and BI — prioritized by business impact.

Ross Katz
Close-up angled shot of SVG source code on a monitor with pink and blue syntax highlighting against a dark background
data-sciencedata-engineering

How to Budget for Data Science and Data Engineering Work

A framework for budgeting data science and engineering projects using impact vs. complexity scoring, with surveys for assessing both.

Ross Katz
Two luminous rivers of particles — one emerald, one copper — converging through engineered aqueducts
ecommerceanalytics

How to Understand Your Customer Acquisition Cost and Lifetime Value

A practical guide to calculating Customer Acquisition Cost and Lifetime Value, and using the CAC:LTV ratio to manage growth and profitability.

Ross Katz
Laptop screen showing a dark web-analytics dashboard with cyan bar charts for load time, bounce rate, page views, and session metrics
data-strategybusiness-intelligence

3 Drivers of Data-Savvy Organizations

How data availability, actionability, and credibility determine whether your organization captures value from its data investments.

Ross Katz

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