Show Notes
Welcome to Data & Drams, in this interview, I was thrilled to be joined by Sasenka Abeysooriya, who shared his fascinating, non-linear journey from the Netherlands to Australia, all the while navigating the professional evolution of project management into the critical field of data governance. As Strategy Director for The University of Queensland and AUSCERT, he leads initiatives that strengthen resilience, foster innovation, and address complex organisational challenges. We dove into his love for cricket and his candid perspectives on how soft skills like listening and empathy are the essential, yet often-underrated, components of true leadership, contrasting them with purely technical abilities and highlighting the invaluable asset of diverse backgrounds in a modern team. A committed advocate for equity and inclusion, Sasenka has led transformative programs expanding access to higher education and serves as a non-executive director at World Wellness Group, an organisation focused on equity in healthcare. Tackling the crucial topics of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI), Sasenka underscores the significance of trust, proper measurement, and representation at the decision-making level for real impact. Over our chat we enjoyed a delicious Lark Symphony Nº1, which has been crowned Australia's Best Blended Malt at the World Whiskies Awards four years in a row! This exceptional whisky is a true Tasmanian icon, celebrated for its poise and incredible balance. Full of life from start to finish, it carries the uncompromised signature style of LARK whisky. You’ll also hear us talking about the Whisky Club and Barrel Lane, both incredible membership options to explore new whisky’s across the world and throughout Australia. Check them out if you’ve been wanting to try something new. Sasenka has a unique perspective on career, leadership, and the power of soft skills which I know will resonate with so many of you which is why I can’t wait for you to hear it. So pull up a chair, pour yourself a drink, and join Sasenka and I for Data & Drams.
More from Data and Drams
Welcome back to Data & Drams, I’m joined By Carlie Dyer, originally from New Zealand, Carlie has called Melbourne home for the past 11 years. Beginning her career in wine at the age of 19, Carlie quickly developed a passion for the science and art of fermentation during her time as a winery technician. After seven years in the wine industry, her love of creativity and experimentation inspired her to transition to the spirits industry. As Head Distiller and Head Blender at Starward, Carlie oversees all aspects of liquid production, from distillation to bottling. She works closely with a team of distillers who bring expertise from the beer, wine, and engineering industries to craft a distinctive Australian whisky, fully matured in red wine casks. I was lucky enough to taste the latest Starward Shiraz co-ferment release while Carlie took me through its flavour and her process. We discussed Carlie’s incredible journey from wine labs and vintage work into her role leading Starward's production. We dove deep into the science behind their co-fermented spirits, from pairing grape juice with single malt wort to how sensory checks, congener tracking, and Melbourne’s unique climate shape what ends up in the bottle. Plus, Carlie opened up about the art of team sensory calibration, navigating industry challenges like excise taxes, and what it takes to build a new signature category for Australian whisky. It was so cool to look at where wine chemistry meets modern whisky making, and I know you’re going to love it. So pull up a chair, pour yourself a drink, and join Carlie and I for Data and Drams. Check out the dram of the episode, Co-Ferment Shiraz .
Welcome back to Data and Drams. Today, I’m joined by Senior Product Designer Stergios and Enterprise Architect Kostas, the duo behind Caskbase; the indie studio creating digital tools born out of genuine passion, and the creators of the mobile tasting app, Dramfly. With over two decades of combined experience across enterprise tech, fintech, healthcare, and luxury automotive, the two met more than a decade ago bonding over a shared love of drams and regular trips to whisky festivals. Stergios, brings over twelve years of research-led product design leadership, shaping human-centered experiences for millions of users at places like Barclays and Standard Life, as well as crafting luxury digital journeys for high-end automotive brands. Kostas, brings over 20 years of commercial software experience. Having led technical strategy for complex systems, ETL pipelines, and high-performance applications, he specialises in building robust, domain-driven architectures. We spoke about their whisky origins and how swapping big enterprise environments for startup agility forced them to prioritise rapid experimentation, including how discovering dead zones in underground Scottish pubs led them to iterate the app and create an offline mode. We also walked through Dramfly’s core user journey, from logging dram profiles to mapping flavour radars and dove deep into Kostas’s technical choices, from immutable snapshots to their .NET and Azure stack and (as Kostas puts it “an army of little AI agents). Plus, we covered MVP scope, GDPR compliance, and their future ambitions for community recommendations. So pull up a chair, pour yourself a drink, and join Stergios, Kostas, and me for Data and Drams.
Welcome back to Data and Drams, I’m joined by Angela D’Orazio the Creative Director of Whiskymaking at Compass Box. With a career spanning more than two decades at the cutting edge of whisky innovation, Angela has a global reputation for fearless creativity and flavour experimentation. Angela spent over 20 years at Mackmyra, where she served as Master Blender and Chief Nose Officer, and was responsible for some of the industry’s most unconventional releases - from award winning green tea finish to Swedish oak on cloudberry wine and Calvados finishes to Sweden’s first smoky whisky. She also helped develop the world’s first whisky designed using AI. She’s a World Whiskies Awards ‘Whisky Legend’, an inductee into the Swedish Whisky Hall of Fame, and a globally respected judge at major competitions including IWSC, ISC, and the World Whiskies Awards. She broke boundaries when she ran the world’s largest whisky tasting and has spent her career mentoring and inspiring the next generation of whiskymakers. As Creative Director of Whiskymaking at Compass box, Angela brings her passion for boundary-pushing flavour and storytelling to a whisky brand equally committed to questioning conventions. Now when I first got my hands on the AI Intelligence whisky, I thought wouldn’t it be amazing to interview the mind behind this. Fast forward to now, I am so grateful to have had the opportunity to do just that. We spoke about Angela’s journey into whisky, navigating male dominated spaces and her advice on how to lead within them; we also talked about how the industry is balancing tradition with technology, industry cost cycles and digitisation. Plus we dove into her experience on the AI Whisky Project and what those inputs, interactions and constraints were and how she sees whisky and their recipes evolving over the next decade. Angela’s immersive storytelling was amazing, not to mention a special appearance from her poodle Doris and hearing from other farmyard friends. This is an interview I won’t forget for a long time. So pull up a chair, pour yourself a drink and join Angela and I for Data and Drams.
Welcome back to today’s episode of Data & Drams. I’m joined by Jan Hodel-Keane, a Senior Technical Account Manager at Kerry Group, who brings a strong blend of technical, managerial, and scientific expertise to the distilling industry. In his current role he partners with distilleries and leading brands across the UK & Ireland alcohol beverage sector, working at the intersection of technical insight and commercial delivery. Previously, as Principal Consultant at JR Unity Ltd. and R&D Manager at West Cork Distillers, Jan led yield improvements, fermentation optimisation, and innovations in cask management, reducing process variability and enhancing operational performance. He holds a PhD in Chemical Engineering focused on gin distillation modelling, alongside a Master's in Brewing and Distilling, where he developed deep expertise in spirit quality assessment and sensory profiling.
Welcome to Data and Drams, the podcast exploring the people driving tech and the data driving your favourite bottle. I'm Sarah. By day, I'm a tech delivery manager, and by night, I'm putting aside the corporate speak to sit down with C-suite tech leaders and spirits industry insiders over a glass of whisky.Because over a dram, the real stories come out. No polished LinkedIn bios, no gatekeeping, just real stories, tech innovation, and actionable insights. Whether you're here for raw leadership lessons or the data and automation driving modern distilleries, we're bridging that gap. Pull up a chair and subscribe to Data and Drams wherever you get your podcasts, and let's demystify data one dram at a time.