Data leader by day, musician by night, optimist at heart.
A decade-plus in data analytics, governance and AI strategy taught me a simple lesson: the hardest part of any data or AI initiative is never the technology. It's the people. So that's where I focus.
Hi, I'm Tiankai.
I'm a Data & AI Leader with 12+ years across enterprise digital transformation: from a Master's in Business Administration & Engineering at TU Berlin, into marketing analytics and digital brand management at TD Reply, into building product data governance at adidas, and now leading data & AI strategy work at Thoughtworks.
Somewhere along the way I noticed that most data and AI programs don't fail because of bad architecture. They fail because nobody made the case in a way people could feel. So I started translating dense strategy into things people actually remember: frameworks, keynotes, memes, and yes, the occasional rap song.
That philosophy became the 5Cs framework (Competence, Collaboration, Communication, Creativity and Conscience), which now anchors both of my books and most of my client work.
I'm also a Chinese person born and raised in Germany, an in-between heritage that's shaped how I lead. Growing up between two cultures taught me early on what it feels like to not automatically be seen as part of the room. That's exactly why I care so much about inclusive leadership: making sure everyone affected by a technology transformation, not just the loudest voices, gets to be part of the journey.
Credentials & roles
Career
Focus areas
The 5Cs
Five human factors that determine whether a data or AI strategy actually sticks.
Competence
Do people have the skills and confidence to actually use what you've built?
Collaboration
Are data, business and AI teams actually working together, or just handing off tickets?
Communication
Can you explain the "why" in a way a non-technical exec, or a room full of them, will remember?
Creativity
Are you solving problems with imagination, or just copying last year's roadmap?
Conscience
Have you thought through the ethical implications before your AI system ships, not after?
Read the books
Both Humanizing Data Strategy and Humanizing AI Strategy dive deep into all 5Cs.
Explore →A quick timeline
Music becomes a lifelong habit
Started writing and performing songs as a pianist-songwriter, a creative outlet that would later collide, unexpectedly, with a career in data.
M.Sc. Business Administration & Engineering
Graduated with a degree that combined the analytical and the organizational: a fitting start for a career spent translating between the two.
Marketing Analytics & Digital Brand Management
My first role out of university, helping brands make sense of marketing performance and digital brand data.
From analytics into data governance
Moved from digital/marketing analytics into building out product data governance, and discovered governance needed a rebrand.
Data & AI Leader
Leading data & AI strategy and governance work, speaking globally, and writing books that put humans back at the center of AI.
A few moments
