Data Society Acquired by Growth Catalyst Partners-Backed Data Leadership Platform to Form Data Society Group
Washington D.C., February 13, 2024 — Data Society, a leader in tailored data science and AI workforce training and development solutions since 2014, announced it is joining forces with a Growth Catalyst Partners (GCP)-backed company launched in late 2023 to help organizations drive cultural change as they leverage data and AI to gain competitive advantage. The company will assume the Data Society brand, going to market as Data Society Group.
Along with the Data Society operating unit, the nucleus of the new venture includes The Data Lodge, a pioneer in data literacy program bootcamps and change management services, and CDO Magazine, a trusted information resource, event producer and peer community for data, analytics and AI executives, especially Chief Data Officers (CDOs). Together, the Data Society Group brings an unrivaled resource as organizations accelerate data empowerment for all in a time of digital transformation and AI.
“There’s never been a more important time to help CDOs upskill their organizations to use data in impactful and responsible ways,” said Data Society Group CEO Doug Llewellyn. “By adding the sophisticated data science and AI instructional resources of Data Society, we are poised to be the preeminent partner to help organizations and their people make better decisions, collaborate for impact, and improve business outcomes based on data.”
Data Society Group already serves an impressive list of blue-chip clients across healthcare, financial services, business services, government, and more as an invaluable resource to global leaders for whom harnessing data and AI is mission critical.
Today’s CDO faces a complex mandate to deliver business value and impact, contributing to a short average tenure in their position of less than 2.5 years, according to Wavestone. To meet these significant goals, the CDO must tackle deep cultural and capability gaps while navigating a complex landscape of point solutions vendors and technologies. At the same time, research suggests only around 11% of employees feel fully confident working and communicating with data. The need for support and guidance has never been greater.
Founded in 2014, Data Society has grown rapidly, being named to the Inc 5000 list of fastest-growing U.S. companies in 2021, 2022 and 2023. It was also a finalist for EY’s prestigious Entrepreneur of the Year award in 2021 and named a Fast Company Best Place to Work for Innovators in 2023. Data Society’s CEO Merav Yuravlivker commented on the transaction, “We’ve seen how developing a data-literate workforce helps organizations stay competitive in their industries and better serve their constituents. Data Society is excited to join The Data Lodge, CDO Magazine and GCP to elevate a culture of responsible data and AI use in industry.”
Scott Peters, Co-Founder and Managing Partner of Growth Catalyst Partners, said, “Data Society has built an exceptional business and strong brand that cements the infrastructure of this new platform company, the 14th in our portfolio. We look forward to partnering with Doug, Merav, and all of the leaders and team members across Data Society Group to build an essential resource for data and analytics leaders.”
About Growth Catalyst Partners
Growth Catalyst Partners is a middle market private equity firm investing in information, marketing and tech-enabled services businesses. GCP’s strategy involves targeting growth segments of industries and identifying and building market-leading companies with breakout potential. GCP partners with company founders and owners, along with top executives within those industries, and provides strategy, capital, proprietary deal origination and operating expertise to the management teams. GCP’s team has deep sector expertise and has led hundreds of transactions and successful investments in services businesses for over 20 years. Since the firm’s founding in 2015, GCP has completed over 100 acquisitions across its industry-leading platform companies. For more information, visit growthcatalystpartners.com.
About The Data Society Group
Data Society Group enables organizations to harness the full potential of data and AI by working with data leaders to crack cultural challenges and develop future fluent workforces. We unlock innovation and radical collaboration through peer-to-peer exchange, best-in-class data literacy assessment and training, and custom data science and AI applications. Our mission: to enable the enterprise from the inside out, providing comprehensive guidance. We support organizations in enabling new skills, mindsets, and ways of working, ultimately fostering a culture of confidence in applying modern data and AI practices. For more information, visit datasocietygroup.com.
About Data Society
Education is at the core of Data Society’s business, and the company has a pioneering approach for providing elite industry-tailored data science training that fully resonates with all organizations. Data Society trains Fortune 1000 companies and government agencies to assess their levels of data literacy, train, and then integrate data into their daily work—teaching them to discover innovative ways of using data science, AI, and ML to achieve organizational goals. For more information, visit datasociety.com.