NIGEL MULLANE

When he isn’t playing the saxaphone – he was recruited for the Database Dept. in 1999 by his fellow musician Paul Burns, from Sydney band the Enormous Horns – Nigel Mullane lives and breathes data. In fact Nigel sees data as a living beast, governed by mathematical rules and structures (as is music) but always apt to surprise you.

He’s immersed himself for more than 20 years in the nitty gritty study of data – he believes you need to get down and dirty to fully understand it – but he’s still delighted when he learns something new about it, which happens quite often.

Just as a fixed number of notes, scales and tones in music can lead to an infinite number of uplifting melodies and magical songs, so can a fixed number of data elements provide an infinite variety of information. And like music, which can be inspiring and commercial as well as discordant and disruptive, data can be used to great effect or misused to great detriment.

Nigel understands data and its use at a profound and practical level and has worked with and consulted to some of the largest users of marketing data on the globe during his 16 years with the Database Dept.