About BI Newsletter
You're already good at what you do. Now let's make you exceptional
BI Newsletter is for BI/CI practitioners who want to master the skills that technical training never taught them.
You already know your methodology. You understand the tools, the frameworks, the analysis. But if you’re honest with yourself, the hardest parts of your job have nothing to do with any of that.
They’re about getting buy-in from a sceptical executive. Influencing a team you don’t manage. Making complex work land simply with people who don’t share your vocabulary. Building a career in a role that often goes unrecognised.
That’s exactly what this newsletter is for.
Every issue, we go deep on the skills that sit alongside your technical expertise — and determine whether you actually create impact with it. Stakeholder influence. Communication. Leadership. Strategic thinking. Career growth. The things that turn a capable BI/CI practitioner into someone who genuinely moves organisations.
A bit about the author
My name is Timur. Before starting my own consulting boutique in Sydney in early 2024, I spent just over a decade as an Associate Principal at McKinsey & Company — leading transformation and business improvement projects across more than ten countries and a wide range of industries, from financial services and infrastructure to energy, manufacturing and the public sector.
Transformation work sits at the intersection of strategy, operations and people — which means BI/CI specialists were almost always in the room. Over the course of my McKinsey career, I partnered with dozens of them: embedded in client organisations, doing the hard work of actually making change stick while the consultants moved on to the next engagement.
Before McKinsey, I spent several years in private equity and financial audit — which gave me an early grounding in how organisations really work, how value is created and destroyed, and how decisions get made when the stakes are high.
What we write about
Every issue of BI Newsletter explores one of ten core rubrics — the skills and disciplines that separate exceptional BI/CI practitioners from capable ones. Here’s what you can expect:
Technical knowledge: The methodologies, tools and frameworks every practitioner needs to master — applied practically.
Analytical techniques: How to think clearly, frame problems well and turn analysis into decisions people act on.
Influencing skills: Getting buy-in, managing resistance and driving change without formal authority.
Financial acumen: Understanding the numbers well enough to speak the language of the business.
Communication skills: Making complex work simple, compelling and impossible to ignore.
Team leadership: Leading, developing and motivating people (whether or not you have the title to match).
Process excellence: Going beyond methodology to embed lasting improvement in real organisations.
Relationship management: Building, maintaining and repairing the professional relationships that make BI work possible.
Personal productivity: Managing time, energy and focus so that important work actually gets done.
Career growth: Navigating, building and sustaining a fulfilling BI/CI career on your own terms.
Why this newsletter exists
Throughout my McKinsey years, one thing became consistently clear: the BI/CI practitioners who created the most impact weren’t necessarily the ones with the deepest technical knowledge. They were the ones who could influence a sceptical leadership team. Who could translate complex analysis into a story that moved people. Who understood the politics well enough to navigate them without being consumed by them.
In other words — the ones who had mastered everything around the methodology.
In my final years at McKinsey, I started a monthly knowledge-sharing session with BI/CI leaders called the BI Leadership Forum — an open space for debate, learning and the occasional heated discussion. Those calls were consistently one of the highlights of my month. This newsletter is a natural evolution of that. Same spirit, but just in a different format.
Why subscribe
The BI/CI role is a peculiar one. You’re often the only person in your organisation doing what you do — which means fewer peers to learn from, less structured development, and a professional community that can feel surprisingly isolated. Many of you have told me exactly this.
The goal of this newsletter is simple: to help you become a more complete and effective BI/CI professional — and to get more out of your career in the process.
What makes it different from what’s already out there is this: I won’t be covering the technical side of BI, or your specific industry. You know that material. There’s no shortage of it.
What I will focus on is everything else — the skills that sit alongside your technical expertise and determine whether you actually create impact with it. Stakeholder influence. Communication. Leadership. Strategic thinking. Career navigation. You might call these “soft skills.” I’d push back on that label. These aren’t soft — they’re foundational. They’re what separates a capable analyst from someone who genuinely moves organisations.
Think of your technical knowledge as the engine. What I’m offering is everything else that makes the car go — the transmission, the drivetrain, the handling. Because a powerful engine without the rest of the vehicle doesn’t get you very far.
I’ve sat on the other side of the table from BI/CI teams for over a decade. I know what the best ones do differently. That’s what this newsletter is about.
