Matt Large
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Matt Large

Data & AI leader — platforms, teams and strategy.

Tunbridge Wells, Kent07966 528404[email protected]linkedin.com/in/mattlarge

My 26-year career has taken me through a broad range of roles — implementer, analyst, architect, consultant, manager — each going deeper into the architecture and operation of data, and the systems and teams that manage it. Alongside the industry I have been lucky to work on projects from traditional data warehouses to large data lakes and production data science. Having completed a full cycle of value-driven data strategy design, delivery and operation as Director of Data at UNiDAYS, I want to apply that experience at organisations looking to change their approach to, and value from, data.

Experience

April 2026 — present

Freelance Educator Data & AI Literacy Academy, London

Responsibilities

  • Delivering in-person and online training to organisations, supporting data and AI literacy programmes
November 2025 — September 2026

Data Consultant UNiDAYS, London

Significant achievements

  • Implemented revenue recognition changes, working closely with the Finance team
  • Custom data warehouse and reporting for a key global partner

Responsibilities

  • Advising data leadership
  • Delivery of specific data and reporting products
July 2018 — April 2025

Director of Data UNiDAYS, London

Significant achievements

  • Creation and oversight of a long-term strategic data platform, from greenfield to enabling data-driven decision making across the organisation
  • Automation of manual data work saving multiple FTE of effort
  • Built a stable team from scratch, with a single permanent leaver in 6+ years
  • Maintained a lean cost base for the data team, earning fiscal trust from the Exec team and positive requests for further spend
  • New campaign performance reporting supported the scale-up of marketing products from 1% to 4% of company revenue, opening up further scaling for the following year
  • Presented on Pragmatic Data Strategy at Big Data & AI World 2025

Responsibilities

  • Recruitment and line management of the data team (4x data warehouse, 2x report developers, 2x data analyst)
  • Procurement of key software platforms: reporting, ETL, data clean room, data acquisition
  • Data architecture
    • Analysing source data systems, internal and external
    • Leading target warehouse and lake schema design
    • Advising engineering teams on data design of operational systems to support later analysis
February 2016 — July 2018

Lead Solution Architect Black Swan Data, London

Significant achievements

  • Architecture responsibility for a large GIS project
  • HR systems data integration specification for a major high-street retailer
  • Growing the team through targeted recruitment

Responsibilities

  • Technical solution design of large, complex projects
    • Requirements elicitation from external and internal stakeholders
    • Cross-workstream solution co-ordination
    • Data standards for broad application across business and projects
    • Data pipeline, structure and processing design
  • Part of pre-sales processes
  • Management of the solution architecture team
September 2009 — February 2016

Senior BI Programmer/Analyst Channel 4, London

Significant achievements

  • Design and implementation of data feeds, ETL and data warehouse aligning all VoD programme and advert viewing data
  • Business approval of requirements and technical design for two big data projects
  • Winning team for Big Data/Analytics Project of the Year at the 2014 UK IT Industry Awards
  • Single specification and test suite for analytics tracking of VoD platforms
  • Presented Channel 4's big data systems at the JAX London conference and the Big Data London meet-up

Responsibilities

  • Technical oversight of BI projects, big data and web analytics tracking
    • Trusted advisor to business stakeholders
    • Response to business requirements
    • Technical design for implementation by internal and external development teams
    • Reporting, ETL and data warehouse design
    • Data exchange definition with internal and external systems
December 2005 — September 2009

Consultant PA Consulting Group, London

Significant achievements

  • HSE solution automated data acquisition and dashboard analytics, cutting monthly metric turnaround from 5 person-days of effort to a few hours
  • Author of the technical chapters of a successful £4M+ proposal
  • Gained Business Objects Enterprise Certified Professional status

Responsibilities

  • Senior technical advisor to clients; technical lead; proposal development; creation of internal training and knowledge-management materials
  • Roles
    • System Architect for the Health Service Executive (HSE, Ireland) MI dashboard
    • Development Lead for a global telecoms client's MI dashboard
    • MI workstream lead for a grants management system
    • Data migration lead for the CSCI/Ofsted data exchange programme
January 2000 — December 2005

Development Group Manager Simulacra, London

Significant achievements

  • Increased capacity and efficiency of the development team, overseeing completion of a record number of projects for the company
  • Projects completed for QCA, Design Council, DfES, MLA, BBC and the National Theatre
  • DfES Curriculum Online web service and XML Schema design
  • Architecture and implementation of a CMS administration desktop application and the MLA multi-site, single-architecture project
  • Redesign and implementation of core code frameworks

Responsibilities

  • Technical authority for the company; budget management; recruitment, performance and reward reviews
June 1998 — August 1999

Developer IABG, Munich (industrial placement during degree)

Significant achievements

  • Automated Word document compilation from a requirements database for German Air Traffic Control
  • Web-based problem reporting tool