About Us
Mistral Data’s aim is to develop data driven software services that can help our customers improve the services they in turn offer to their customers.
Although founded in 2021, we have been developing data driven software solutions to the UK Rail Industry for over 12 years as part of FirstGroup, resulting in a wealth of experience in understanding UK Rail Industry data and the opportunities this data offers.
Our focus is on the ingest; integration; visualisation and analysis of different data sources using cloud native technology to provide a data driven insight to business challenges.
We have started in the UK Rail industry where there is a huge amount of data continuously collected in different systems and used for single purposes at both industry and Train Operating Level.
We integrate data from customer systems such as the website and app, with real-time data generated from the Rail Industry operational or Train Operating Company on-train and control centre systems, to provide a single version of what is happening on the railway and to then provide a messaging and alerting capability. This allows quicker and more informed decision making across all parts of the Rail Environment, that in turns helps our customers improve the overall passenger experience or performance of the railway.
Our approach is to build our solutions using native cloud services provided by Amazon Web Services and Snowflake. We typically build Software as a Service (SaaS) type solutions, which means we are responsible for the 24×7 management, resilience and performance of these services, together with ensuing your data is secure and only accessible to those people who should have access to it.
We build services and solutions based on roadmaps and ideas presented by our customers, with our aim being to continually improve those services as ideas and data availability evolves.
Innovation is at the core of our team ethos as we look to deliver new services and solutions that can quickly demonstrate whether the opportunity is real or not, and then look to deploy at scale if the business challenge is proven.
Our vision and values reflect our team’s approach, devoted to the support and development of these Software Services.
Meet the team
Harinder Bassan
Head of Management InformationHarinder has worked in the rail industry since 2012 and has extensive experience in business intelligence using SAP and Snowflake. She leads our team responsible for defining and delivering data warehouse solutions within the transport sector, enabling data driven decisions and providing insights across business areas.
Tom Grant
Technical DirectorTom’s expertise are business intelligence, data integration, architecture and cloud technologies. Tom leads the technology function, which drives security, resilience, and quality through our product development, and ensures our customers to get value from their data.
Liam Gent
Programme DirectorLiam has held senior Project, Programme and PMO roles at FirstGroup and Abellio since joining rail in 2005. He is responsible for delivery of Mistral’s programme of work and product roadmaps overseeing a product management team. As well as holding a MSc in Project Management, he is also accredited in a number of the Association of Project Management (APM) disciplines including PRINCE2, Managing Successful Programmes, Management of Risk and P3O.
Lizzie Duffy
Senior IS Business AnalystLizzie joined the rail industry in 2004, specialising in IS for Commercial, Operations & Engineering on train operating company projects and rail franchise bids. She is responsible for the elicitation and documentation of business requirements across the Mistral Data product set.
Duncan Waugh
Managing DirectorDuncan is the Managing Director of Mistral Data, having worked within the Railway industry for the last 24 years, focusing for the last 15 years on leading the design and subsequent delivery of a technical and data driven strategy.
Lauren McKenzie
Head of Customer EngagementLauren has worked in the rail industry for almost 15 years. Throughout this time she has lead marketing teams and worked within the central IS and Commercial teams within FirstGroup. At Mistral Data she manages our customer stakeholder engagement and develops the sales and marketing strategy.
Andy Burgess
Head of Cloud Operations & SecurityAndy has almost two decades experience in digital technology development and management, and 10 years experience with using and managing AWS services. He leads the Cloud Operations (CLOPS) team at Mistral Data, ensuring all our services are secure and operational.
Our vision and values
Our vision
Moving forward with better data
Ethos
To provide a flexible; adaptable and enjoyable working environment where ideas can flourish and where our customers will want to come back for more.
Services
To design, develop and deliver optimal data driven solutions for our customers, by pushing the boundaries of what’s possible and without limits.
Growth
To provide a one-stop shop of data services that unlock opportunities for customers to help explore data to build more insights for better decision making.
Sustainability
To lead by example and fully integrate environmentally conscious sustainable thinking into the services we provide that are second nature to us, not an optional extra and encourage partners and customers to follow suit.
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