About
Brian Dawson · COO, BSC Analytics
I'm an operator at heart. I build high-performing teams, set a high bar for excellence, and make sure the work actually lands. At the end of the day, we just get it done.
The part of my work I'm proudest of is the environment I build, where people and AI each do what they do best. I surround myself with smart, driven operators, give them clear goals and real ownership, and keep evolving how we work so people and technology bring out the best in each other. That balance is what turns a plan into results that hold up long after launch.
How I lead comes down to a few habits. I try to be the steady one in the storm, because pressure shouldn't change how you treat people, and emotional decisions are rarely the best ones. I listen first and keep learning, since everyone around the table is driven by something different. I build trust fast by asking for people's opinions and building on their ideas, even when I don't take every suggestion. I'll challenge a rule when the situation calls for it, because no rule covers every variable. And I'd rather get started before things are perfect, then come back, check whether the decision worked, and adjust quickly if it didn't.
I learned that discipline over more than two decades of running the systems organizations depend on every day. At the State of Delaware I led application delivery and hiring for financial ERP on SAP and Oracle/PeopleSoft. At UMass I rose from Senior Project Leader to Senior Manager and Director, leading a $14MM PeopleSoft HR upgrade that was named Project of the Year. At Citizens Bank, as Head of HR Technology and VP for about seven years, I owned an enterprise applications portfolio, built a data lake and analytics capability that informed key decisions, delivered roughly $1.5MM in annual savings through platform rationalization, and was named a Credo Champion, one of the bank's highest colleague honors.
Today I'm Chief Operating Officer at BSC Analytics, where I joined as VP of Service Delivery in 2022 and moved up through Chief Delivery Officer to COO. I own the P&L, operations, delivery, People & Culture, and recruiting, and I have led a team that has ranged from about 60 to 150+ people while leading the company's transformation toward AI-delivered outcomes with humans in the loop. I made Salesforce the daily operating system for accounts and delivery, and our clients rate us with a B2B NPS of 88 on more than 75% response, which tells me the team is holding the bar as we scale.
I'm a PMP and ITIL Practitioner, and mentoring the next generation of leaders is one of the parts of the job I value most. It's my way of paying forward a little of what mentors once gave me. Outside the office I'm an endurance athlete: two Ironmans, a marathon, and a long string of halfs and obstacle races. Training taught me the same lesson operations does. Your mind wants to quit long before the work is actually done, so I believe in steady cadence and doing the hard miles well.
If you want to talk about operations, transformation, or building teams that deliver, message me.