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The practice behind the methodology

Dheeraj Saxena

Founder | Customer Data Architect | Independent Advisor

dheerajs@datawhistl.com

I have spent 25 years at the intersection of customer data and marketing technology — designing the data architectures that marketing functions run on, fixing the ones that do not work, and advising the leaders accountable for both.

My career has taken me through the engineering and architecture practices of IBM Interactive, TCS, Wipro, Digitas and Serco Consulting — working across some of the UK’s most complex marketing and customer data programmes for organisations including Argos, the NHS, Unilever, Kraft Foods, Norwich Union, the BBC, and Essity.

That experience sits behind everything that Datawhistl does. The methodology is not theoretical. It has been stress-tested across real programmes, real data environments and real organisational constraints — in regulated industries, at enterprise scale, with the full complexity that large consumer and B2B businesses actually face.

Advisory Focus

Customer Data Architecture

Data source inventory, unified customer data model design, identity resolution architecture, integration architecture, data quality frameworks, activation layer design. The foundations that marketing technology runs on — designed properly, from first principles.

Data Governance and Regulatory Compliance

Consent data architecture, preference management design, data retention frameworks, GDPR compliance mapping, FCA Consumer Duty readiness. The governance layer most organisations skip during implementation and most expensively discover under regulatory scrutiny.

AI and Marketing Technology Readiness

Data readiness assessment for AI-driven marketing use cases. Predictive scoring, next best action, real-time personalisation — all depend on data foundations that most organisations do not yet have. Independent assessment of what needs to change before the AI investment delivers.

Industry Expertise

  • E-Commerce
  • CPG
  • Multi-Channel Retail
  • Property & Life Insurance
  • Automotive

Technology Stack

Cloud & Data Infrastructure

AWS, Snowflake, Databricks, Azure

Customer Data Platforms

Salesforce Data Cloud (Data 360) · BlueConic

Marketing Technology

Salesforce Marketing Cloud · HubSpot · Braze

Working with me

If you are a senior marketing or data leader facing a customer data architecture decision that cannot go wrong — a platform investment, an AI capability programme, a regulatory compliance requirement or an inherited data environment that has never been properly designed — this is the right conversation to have.

Engagements are fixed scope, fixed price and outcome-focused. The discovery call is thirty minutes, there is no pitch and if this is not the right fit I will tell you that and point you toward what is.

Find out more

Please fill the form below and I will aim to revert within 1 business day