You know the Travelling Salesman Problem? Find the shortest route that takes you to every city on a list and returns you home. In fact it's an NP-hard problem, where NP stands for non-deterministic polynomial time. Just in case you were in any doubt about how hard it is. But if you're a grocery retailer, delivering the weekly shopping to millions of homes, or the country's leading furniture maker... well, it's a problem you have to solve.

In 2008, Daniel Hulme started Satalia, a company that uses data science, machine learning, and optimization (making the best use of resources) to build customized platforms that solve tough logistics problems involving products, services, and people. Lately, Hulme has spent a good portion of his time explaining the ins and outs of artificial intelligence to other CEOs. He sees a big information gap at the top of most companies -- yet this is where technology investment decisions are made. Misunderstanding AI, Hulme believes, can mean both overestimating its value and underestimating its impact. Satalia's work is a leading example of what AI is currently good at. Not coincidentally, it is also the commercialization of Hulme's research at University College London (UCL), where he is the director of the business analytics master's degree program. Satalia's clients are household names in the U.K.; they include Tesco, DFS, and the British Broadcasting Corporation. PwC's Global CEO Survey: Providing unique insight into the thinking of corporate leaders around the world, PwC's annual Global CEO Survey covers issues such as the prospects for economic growth, the challenges of building a workforce, the threats facing companies today, and the impact of AI. www.ceosurvey.pwc The increasingly competitive market for AI expertise is both a blessing and a curse for Satalia. The company can't attract talent through salaries alone, so it also relies on an innovative management concept.

I had the pleasure of meeting the remarkable Angela Yin (Head of Organisational Development) and hearing her story at Satalia. For my part, I'd been a traveller through the most amazing period of workplace change but at times I was nurtured through organisations where the gut was king in decision-making, hierarchy was all-knowing and the data was something we spent too much of our time collating and storing. As someone who has always embraced the opportunity Technology offers but doesn't lose sight of the need for dialling up our humanity, I was intrigued by the Satalia story and liked how it answered some of the cynics out there who believe this data-driven organisation is a fantasy. I sat down with Angela, in the comfort of an old bank vault, which is now the Islington Rocketspace hub and asked her to share her story with us. I'll cover it over a 3 part series of blogs and ask for any input on future questions to cover.