Navigating Intelligent Forecasting: Kyle Katt, Vice President, Technology Studios at Launch

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Narrator

At a crossroads of uncertainty and opportunity. How do you navigate forward? This podcast focuses on making smart choices in a rapidly changing world. We investigate the challenges of being at a crossroads and finding opportunities that arise out of disruption. Listen in on future forward conversations with the brightest luminaries, movers and shakers. Let's navigate forward together and create what's next.

00:00:25:14 - 00:00:53:12

Lisa Thee

Hello everyone, and welcome to the Navigating for podcast. My name is Lisa and I'll be your host today. We love to collect the best luminaries, visionaries and enough to help you see where the trends are going in the world. Today, I have the luxury of interviewing Kyle Kat. Kyle is the CTO of Launch Consulting and he is passionate about data analytics and artificial intelligence and helping companies and organizations evolve and demystify that process.

00:00:53:14 - 00:01:04:00

Lisa Thee

He has a lot of experience in both the corporate and the startup world, so he's a wonderful bridge between innovation and adoption. And we're really thrilled to have you here today. Kyle, thank you for joining us.

00:01:04:03 - 00:01:09:04

Kyle Katt

Great. Great to be here. Appreciate the opportunity to be part of the podcast.

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Lisa Thee

Awesome. Well, can you tell us a little bit about your background? Where where were you born and what's something from your childhood that you think shaped you into the interest around data analytics and technology?

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Kyle Katt

Yeah, definitely. So I'm from the Seattle area. I was born in Kirkland, grew up in Kirkland, in Bellevue, went to a local high school in near Lake High School here and, you know, wanted after high school, wanted to experience other parts of the country. We went to school down in California at UCLA, and that was super exciting. UCLA actually won a national championship in basketball my junior year, so it was really fun to be part of that going back to my childhood.

00:01:55:20 - 00:02:22:23

Kyle Katt

You know, I've always been interested in computers and, you know, in the eighties, the computer age was kind of really starting to grow exponentially. And, you know, I remember being a eight year old kid in a computer class at RadioShack with a bunch of 30 and 40 year olds. And, you know, it was something that was just very fun for me, something that I kind of naturally gravitated towards.

00:02:22:25 - 00:02:41:13

Kyle Katt

And, you know, then all through school, high school, college, you know, data and and analytics for back then they just called it reporting and Excel and stuff like that. But that's always kind of been my passion. And I always kind of go back to that, that crazy RadioShack class back in the eighties.

00:02:41:15 - 00:03:00:20

Lisa Thee

That cracks me up. It makes me think of those things you see posted on social media like date yourself by saying a story, use a shop app that doesn't exist. And I the RadioShack is up there in the top ten. I think we're from the same generation. And yes, my alma mater, University of Michigan. And we went to the Rose Bowl the year I graduated and that was super fun.

00:03:00:20 - 00:03:17:09

Lisa Thee

So I can relate to some of your UCLA family. So with that in mind, for somebody that doesn't know anything about your expertise, can you give us an overview in a simplified manner around what people that have expertise in artificial intelligence and data analytics actually do?

00:03:17:12 - 00:03:57:27

Kyle Katt

Sure. Yeah. And, you know, that's that's something that has changed quite a bit over the years. You know, as as the data space in general has evolved and matured into the cloud, into artificial intelligence. But the way I kind of think about it is, you know, in in today's today's world data has become an asset. And if you're not leveraging your data to not only, you know, strap drive strategy in your business drive insights on a day to day basis, but also monetize data and and have your data directly influence, you know, your revenue and your and your bottom line.

00:03:57:29 - 00:04:30:12

Kyle Katt

You know, that's then you're not doing yourself the service that you could be doing. So my personal background in that space know, it's kind of gone through that whole that whole progression, you know, from just very basic data modeling to describe how the business works in terms of the database schema, the the tables, the facts, the dimensions you need to actually model your business from there all the way to, you know, how your how your field folks, how your user, your consumers are actually going to interact with the data.

00:04:30:15 - 00:04:51:13

Kyle Katt

So then that kind of gets into the analytics world, you know, do we need a basic spreadsheet? Do we need an interactive dashboard? Do we need self-service analytics for people to explore things on their own? You know, and then, you know, more recently into the artificial intelligence world and specifically for me, my focus has been in machine learning.

00:04:51:16 - 00:05:17:13

Kyle Katt

And, you know, a couple of things, a couple of things there that's kind of been in my personal sweet spot is is helping big corporations, you know, within their finance department leverage machine learning for forecasting. So if we want to figure out what our sales is going to most likely look like next quarter, next year, instead of having all the controllers leverage last year's data and just use personal experience, it's great to have all that.

00:05:17:13 - 00:05:45:23

Kyle Katt

And then layer in, you know what a machine learning forecast might might add. And you know, at launch we've actually taken that a step further and made a couple of X of solution accelerators. One called the Intelligent for the launch, intelligent forecasting engine or life. And so, you know, part of my passion is bringing concepts like that into into reality that can actually add value.

00:05:45:25 - 00:06:14:01

Lisa Thee

Yeah, I love what you're talking about there. It's really about making finding the signal and the noise, finding the wisdom in an ocean of data and then being able to augment the subject matter experts with decision support tools that help them to strengthen their superpowers, not replace them. Right. And that's where tools like the artificial intelligence solution that you talked about really come in handy to balance the gut check of the experience of the humans with some machine learning predictive analytics based on historical information.

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Lisa Thee

Right?

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Kyle Katt

Yep, exactly right. Yeah.

00:06:17:01 - 00:06:24:17

Lisa Thee

Cool. So what is your why what inspires you to bring your best self to work on some of the days when you just would like to hit the snooze button?

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Kyle Katt

That's an interesting question. And it you know, that's something that might change day to day, week to week, quarter to quarter, depending on kind of what I'm involved with. But I think the common factor for me across all of that is I'm a very entrepreneurial, spirited person. You know, me and my two business partners started our own business 14 years ago.

00:06:44:27 - 00:07:10:22

Kyle Katt

And, you know, I think launch has a very entrepreneurial spirit even to this day. I love not only the work I do and the data analytics and technology space, but I love the the aspect of helping build the business, helping involved the organization, and just working on the business itself in addition to, you know, what we're actually doing with and for our clients.

00:07:10:22 - 00:07:25:06

Kyle Katt

So it's that entrepreneurial aspect of consulting in general. And then and then how long delivers all that. That kind of excites me and gets me out of bed when I'm wanted to hit this new bar.

00:07:25:08 - 00:07:45:15

Lisa Thee

I can relate a lot to that myself. That's what drew me to launch. Being an entrepreneur by background and having had an exit to a larger startup, I was looking for a place where I could sprinkle my magic in a lot of different accounts and bring that innovation back into the corporate world, because sometimes it's really hard to drive that entrepreneurialism point, right?

00:07:45:15 - 00:08:10:26

Kyle Katt

Time Exactly. And you know, and that's it. And that's sometimes the exciting part, you know, because the business itself evolves and grows and has to has to shift and fall. You know, like digital transformation wasn't necessarily the hot topic ten years ago, but now it's all about that and the human experience associated to that. So helping the business stay current is also super fun.

00:08:10:28 - 00:08:25:29

Lisa Thee

Yeah, I love that reference to the human experience of the digital transformation. Can you talk a little bit about how things have shifted in the landscape over the years from being focused on the technical side to being focused on how the humans evolve with the technology?

00:08:26:02 - 00:08:52:01

Kyle Katt

Yeah, you know, in my mind it's probably always been there in certain pockets. There's probably always been certain consulting companies or certain certainly corporations of businesses that have been really good at that. You know, like Apple, that's kind of their thing. The, the experience with the products in addition to what the technology does. But I think today the difference is every single company has to have that kind of on the forefront know.

00:08:52:02 - 00:09:16:05

Kyle Katt

So not only the digital transformation to bring it from on prem into the cloud or leverage modern technologies like Power BI or Tableau versus just everything in Excel, you know, that's step one. But then, you know, I don't know how many projects I've been a part of where we built an amazing solution. But for whatever reason, the corporate team rolls it out to the field and no one wants to use it.

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Lisa Thee

Not here syndrome.

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Kyle Katt

Exactly. So, you know, the human experience and being part of it from the beginning, you know, we have a we have an offering called vision mapping, which we might get into later. But just understanding how the people are going to use the data and the product and the end result is is cradle to critical to be built into the actual architecture and design up front.

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Kyle Katt

Otherwise, you know, people are just not going to adopt it.

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Lisa Thee

Yeah, it's really got to be a pull from the users, not a push to the users. Right? It's bringing that entrepreneurial lens of being obsessed with the customer and the customer experience is really how you make sure that you're not developing technology for technology sake, but you're actually solving real problems in the real world for people. Right?

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Kyle Katt

Exactly. Yeah.

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Lisa Thee

So what advice would you give yourself at 18 years old if you were starting over?

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Kyle Katt

Wow. What advice would I give to myself at 18 years old? You know? Well, a funny story is when I was in high school, I really didn't know whether I wanted to go into computer science or become a doctor. And those are two very, very different things. And I actually did a internship at Harborview Medical Center, downtown Seattle to find out if I wanted to go into that career or not.

00:10:35:03 - 00:11:06:25

Kyle Katt

And, you know, through that summer, I realized that, yeah, it was a super noble and valuable and amazing profession, but that just really wasn't for me. And, you know, kind of going back to that RadioShack class, I kind of figured out that, you know, the computer science world and programing data analytics, that was really my passion. So I think the advice I would go back and give myself back then is just listen to your heart, follow your follow the passion that, you know, really excites you.

00:11:06:27 - 00:11:24:07

Kyle Katt

Kind of that cliche is if you really love what you do, you never work a day in your life. I think I would just go back and reinforce that and just advise myself to not worry about what people think. I should do or what sounds good, but really follow what you're passionate about.

00:11:24:10 - 00:11:44:20

Lisa Thee

Yeah, I can relate. I feel like young people having the opportunity to actually have real world work experience and different things that interest them can. It's just as important to learn what you don't want to do as it is to learn what you do want to do. And that's much nicer to learn in a 2 to 3 month internship than a 2 to 3 year job cycle if it's not the right fit.

00:11:44:21 - 00:11:45:03

Lisa Thee

Right?

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Kyle Katt

Absolutely. I know not only to save yourself time, you save yourself a lot of heartache and expectation management and just more confidence, I think, to.

00:11:54:25 - 00:12:01:21

Lisa Thee

I agree with you. What achievement are you most proud of so far?

00:12:01:23 - 00:12:30:26

Kyle Katt

Let's see here. I would you know, there's a few there's a few different achievements I'm super proud of from a couple of different perspectives. Just I think for my overall career, you know, starting a business with two of my best friends back in 2007 and and just putting in the blood, sweat and tears and getting it to the point where it was an actual viable business that, you know, that that clients and ultimately other organizations found value in.

00:12:30:29 - 00:13:02:29

Kyle Katt

And then we were able to merge that into launch in 2016. And you know, launch has also then merged and other companies over the years. So just seeing the progression of all that and now how just the launch capability is, you know, so much beyond data and Olympics into all of the things we talked about digital transformation, human experience, software engineering, you know, even some of the business side consulting subsidies are just seeing that grow exponentially.

00:13:03:01 - 00:13:13:02

Kyle Katt

You know, over the last 14 years has been really exciting to me. And I'm super proud of kind of where we've come from. Way back when.

00:13:13:05 - 00:13:35:06

Lisa Thee

I felt like, I think you should be very proud of that title. And the other thing on the business side that I think it's kind of cool that sometimes 16 organizations is the storytelling aspect, right? So having the people that can do the videos, having the people that can do the visuals, the graphics, the public service announcements, sometimes that's not really the top talent of the people that are driving digital transformation.

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Lisa Thee

So having that storytelling capability, being able to make the invisible visible to a large, broad swath of stakeholders in a simple way is also some of the magic that a consulting firm can bring.

00:13:47:04 - 00:14:18:08

Kyle Katt

Absolutely. You know, I guess one of the thing I would just call out to that's not necessarily just me personally, because, you know, consulting is definitely a team sport, whether it's a big team or a huge team. You know, some of the stuff we've done over the years, specifically at Microsoft, you know, you kind of get lost in in the minutia of the project or in just the day to day activities and deliverables and sprint over Sprint, you kind of sometimes lose sight of what you're actually building and delivering.

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Kyle Katt

You know, and looking back on a couple of of key wins, specifically within Microsoft Finance, you know, we started out just building Excel reports for, you know, the two or 300 controllers around the world to understand, PAL. But then, you know, over the years, we have expanded and matured that capability to the point we're doing really impactful things now, like delivering the daily revenue flash to Satya Nadella and Amy Hood that they look at in their email every day.

00:14:47:05 - 00:15:03:12

Kyle Katt

And as you can imagine, if there's an error on that report, that that can be a real problem for a lot of people. So just understanding kind of how we've evolved the capabilities in some of these areas and I'm super proud of some of the things we're delivering in those spaces.

00:15:03:14 - 00:15:12:13

Lisa Thee

Yeah, going from batch reporting to closer to real time analytics to make sure that executives have the right dashboards to be making those business decisions on a daily basis. Right.

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Kyle Katt

Exactly. Yeah.

00:15:14:26 - 00:15:29:27

Lisa Thee

So what advice would you give for somebody when they are facing a hard lesson in their career? Maybe they took a big risk and it's not paying off so well. What would you share with them to think through how to handle the turbulence in the career cycle?

00:15:30:00 - 00:15:52:15

Kyle Katt

I think I come at that from a little bit different perspective than most people. One thing about my background is I also have a genetic I condition that causes my eyesight to be really poor. And about ten years ago it got to the point where I really couldn't be on my laptop all day, every day writing code and just be able to see the screen good enough to do that.

00:15:52:15 - 00:16:17:09

Kyle Katt

So I really had to take a step back and say, okay, I can't add value in the same way I've been adding value for the whole first half of my career. You know, what can I do? So at that point I made a switch to focusing on architecture and design and kind of technology management and helping drive and shape the organization around technology.

00:16:17:11 - 00:16:44:05

Kyle Katt

So what I learned from there and the advice I would give to people going through a hard time is there's a lot of different ways to measure success. There's a lot of different ways to add value. You know, you learn a lot from your failures in addition to your successes. And what you really need to do is just understand what you're good at, what type of value you can add, what kind of perspective you can bring, because you know, what makes a team strong is the diversity of those perspectives, the different ways different people add value.

00:16:44:08 - 00:16:59:25

Kyle Katt

And you can't just judge for yourself on what's been working in the past. You got to evolve. You know, how you how you add value just as much as your, you know, your technical skill set or what you actually specifically work on.

00:16:59:27 - 00:17:18:29

Lisa Thee

That's such a great thing to really sit with and reflect on. I can say it, this journey in my career, there's a lot of things that I thought of as success maybe when I was 18, right, that aren't as applicable today. I mean, the work landscape has changed. The way we add value has changed the things that we look at, that machines can do really well.

00:17:18:29 - 00:17:48:23

Lisa Thee

That used to be like top tier things that humans learn has evolved. And so I think you having that medical situation forced you to reevaluate where you can add value. And a lot of us are going to be facing that post-pandemic. Where do we add value? How do we add value? How do we be lifelong learners? And I think your story is really inspirational for people to sit back and think about that just because you have done something doesn't mean that's the only way you can continue to evolve and grow.

00:17:48:26 - 00:18:05:06

Kyle Katt

Yeah, that's right. And if going back to either question, if you're in if you're in the space or industry that you're passionate about, it's usually pretty easy to find different ways to add value because it's, you know, it's coming from your heart, not just what you're used to.

00:18:05:08 - 00:18:21:21

Lisa Thee

Hear that everybody that's coming from the C-suite. So this is tried and true recommendations. So thank you, Carl. This was so informative and inspirational. I really appreciate you taking the time. Do you mind sharing with us where people can find you and keep tabs on if they want to keep up with what you're working on?

00:18:21:23 - 00:18:42:25

Kyle Katt

Yeah, definitely. So. I mean, you can find me on LinkedIn, you can definitely find me on the in the leadership team on the launch website. And actually, you know, some of the launch YouTube channels as well. I'm sure there's some reference to some of the stuff we're doing, either me personally or what we're doing in the digital transformation space.

00:18:42:28 - 00:18:45:22

Lisa Thee

Thank you so much for your time today, Kyle. I really appreciate it.

00:18:45:24 - 00:18:48:11

Kyle Katt

All right. Thank you so much.

00:18:48:13 - 00:18:59:13

Narrator

Hey, everyone. Thanks for listening to the navigating powered podcast. We'd love to hear from you. At a crossroads of uncertainty and opportunity, how do you navigate forward? We'll see you next time.