Episode 5

full
Published on:

17th Feb 2026

S6, E5: Driven by Data Dilemmas. AI Adoption or Anarchy? w/ Irina Mihai, Director Data Foundations, Decision & Data Science function, adidas

Today on the Driven by Data Dilemmas Show, host Catherine Dowden-King is joined by Irina Mihai, Director of Data Foundations, Decision & Data Science function, adidas. In this episode, they discuss three key stories surrounding an AI Adoption or Anarchy. They discuss the how behind adoption, the wins organisations are seeing in real-time, and the final story offers an alternative perspective on the mass layoff fears.

Irina offers her candid views on how to tame anarchy and lays out some of her plans for adidas' AI adoption.

Remember, you can send your own dilemmas to community@orbitiongroup.com, and Catherine will gladly read them to our expert guests to answer and provide their own insight on.

Driven by Data Dilemmas is the spin-off show from the Driven by Data Podcast! Catherine Dowden-King is joined by some of our best-loved senior leaders in the data, analytics and AI space to ask them to share their experiences, advice and thoughts on data dilemmas.

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About the Podcast

Driven by Data: The Podcast
Designed for Data Enthusiasts to hear from the Data & Analytics industry's thought leaders
Orbition Group is delighted to bring you this podcast series, which is designed for Data Enthusiasts, to hear from some of the most high-profile Data, Analytics and AI thought leaders from around the globe.

Each episode will detail the guests journey to the top while bringing unique insights, drawn from first-hand experience on the industry’s most trending topics.

This podcast was created as a way for our industry's most respected leadership figures from across the world to give back to the Data & Analytics community, by sharing; knowledge, experiences and ideas, to inspire, innovate and provide real-life use cases on the industries most pressing topics/challenges.

About your host

Profile picture for Kyle Winterbottom

Kyle Winterbottom

Founder of Orbition Group, a Search and Talent Solutions business that operates exclusively within the world of Data, Analytics & AI.

I am hugely passionate about enabling organisations to drive decisions and obtain value from the use of Data, Analytics & Artificial Intelligence.

As such, I believe it is imperative that as a community, we share; knowledge, ideas, real-life use cases and inspiration to collectively give back to our industry.

Given my fortunate position of speaking with hundreds, if not thousands of leadership figures within the global Data & Analytics community each year , I feel it is my duty to share the successes, failures, challenges and opportunities.

Therefore, I have positioned Orbition Group to be a facilitator of that knowledge sharing, through these podcasts, events we host and public speaking.