Who is Lior Barak?
Lior Barak is a Data Portfolio Advisor based in Berlin and the creator of Impact Operations — the three-metric system (FTE Debt, PCU-V, CDSI) that turns data spend into a CFO-auditable asset portfolio. 15+ years running data organisations at Zalando and idealo.
Lior Barak is a Data Portfolio Advisor based in Berlin. He works with CEOs and CFOs at Series B–D companies to turn data spend from an unauditable cost centre into a capital-efficient portfolio their board can evaluate in financial terms.
Background
Over a fifteen-year career Lior ran data organisations at Zalando and idealo, two of Europe's largest e-commerce operations. At idealo he led a 35-person data product and engineering organisation. At Zalando he completed a data transformation programme in thirty weeks. In both roles the recurring problem was the same: no shared financial language between the data function and the people writing the cheques.
That gap is where Impact Operations was built.
The Impact Operations Methodology
Impact Operations is a three-layer, three-metric capital allocation system for data portfolios. It translates what a data team does into numbers a CFO can read and a CEO can own.
- FTE Debt. The monthly cost to the business when data products don't fit how people actually work. Measured in hours lost to workarounds × fully-loaded hourly cost.
- PCU-V (Portfolio Capacity Units, Verified). The true monthly carrying cost of each data product: infrastructure, incidents, support, and change. Typically 2 to 4× the infrastructure-only number in the cloud invoice.
- CDSI (Capacity Drain & Shift Index). A 1 to 12 score that measures how much team capacity is going to unplanned work rather than the roadmap. Healthy range: 4.2 to 7.2.
Together these three metrics produce a Portfolio ROI Ratio (FTE Debt displaced ÷ PCU-V) that a CFO can defend at a board meeting and an investor can price into a valuation.
Current Focus
Lior works with a small number of executive teams at a time. He does not write reports that end up in a drawer. The engagement model is pressure-testing: sitting across from leadership, challenging assumptions, and working through the financial picture of the data portfolio together.
He also hosts the What the Data?! podcast and writes two newsletters: Impact Operations (methodology-focused) and Cooking Data (broader data strategy essays).
Books
- Data is Like a Plate of Hummus (2020). A practical philosophy of data strategy for non-technical leaders.
- What Data Really Costs (July 2026). A business fable about FTE Debt, capital allocation, and the operating model between people and technology.
Related reading
Next Step
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