Meet our two new Daemonites, and hear their take on how AI is changing consultancy in 2025

At Daemon, we’re lucky to be lean, small but mighty. We’re able to attract top talent from some big international players because of the culture we offer, the freedom in the way we work, and our reputation for doing groundbreaking consultancy work. And we’ve got two absolutely incredible new Daemonites to introduce to you.

Meet Elaine Shanks and Steve Anderson, two distinguished new senior team members. We wanted to understand both Steve and Elaine’s vision for their new roles, and shed light on how client needs have changed. 

Meet Daemon’s new distinguished senior team members

Elaine is passionate about the entrepreneurial spirit, technical expertise, and creating real value for her clients. Elaine has an extensive background in HM Treasury, EY, Accenture, Infinity Works and some high-flying client-side roles, including Sky and Ten Lifestyle Group.
Connect with Elaine

Steve also has an impressive track record, having been with Freeserve.com (an ISP Unicorn) since the beginning of his career and then moving on to EE (formerly Orange), William Hill, and Infinity Works a few years prior to Elaine also joining. He’s a hands-on guy who really gets how Daemon operates and is keen on taking our technical offerings to the next level in terms of depth and creativity.
Connect with Steve

 Why data is so important in the age of AI

Elaine is passionate about the efficiency, productivity and personalisation benefits of AI. For her, there were three key areas where clients can take advantage of this:

1. A lot of Daemon’s clients are part of the fabric of the UK economy, with many years of legacy. This means that there are layers of architecture, tooling and technical debt within the business, built over time. Technology can offer huge wins for a business like this to go faster, offer more to their customers and be more efficient.
2. Without the correct data readiness, moving beyond POC with AI is really tricky. That’s where Daemon can help, by offering data environments built for AI at scale. This protects a business while giving them the benefit of cutting-edge tooling.
3. There is a huge opportunity for our clients' workforces in terms of understanding AI and how that makes businesses more efficient. We’re here to help businesses understand how data governance and privacy, even in regulated industries, isn’t a barrier to staying competitive.

Here’s what Elaine had to say,

“If businesses want to stay competitive in the age of AI, they need to optimise their data. Having the right data foundations, governance, monitoring and controls as well as the cool LLMs and AI tooling means organisations can  safely introduce AI that delivers outcomes, not technology. This is where Daemon as an advisor can really add value.” 

For Steve, AI is there to help our engineers be both consultative and technical. As a business, Daemon is naturally there to support clients by being inquisitive and not afraid to talk to clients as people. We understand AI, but we also recognize that businesses must always embrace the complex changes when adopting AI.

AI can automate or accelerate large parts of people's responsibilities, and like Digital Transformation, it’s important to have change champions in place to help transition operating models to their new future states. This can be unsettling for some clients and their staff, so Daemon can help settle in changes as they take shape. If businesses have an innovative mindset and aren’t afraid to embrace change, they can create exciting new experiences for their customers and their staff. For Daemon, we see education and change management within teams a large part of our role.

Here’s Steve’s takeaway,

“Businesses need to be conscious of AI. It needs to be introduced safely, and for me, imagine if you didn’t tighten the wheel nuts on an F1 racing car and then sent it back out on the track. You might be okay, but at high speed, you’re going to do more damage than if you did your safety checks first. You absolutely have to understand the pace and the direction you’re going in; everything has to be focused on performance and quality.”

Do you have a business that needs AI, but doesn’t have a roadmap. Talk to our AI & ML experts.

How we’re adapting to our clients’ current challenges

We were also keen to understand what challenges Steve and Elaine were currently facing. What challenges are they trying to solve in 2025?

For Elaine, it is about efficiency. Her clients deal with high volumes and are price-sensitive; this means that even small efficiencies have a big payoff. Elaine’s team is working on reducing cost and complexity to bring clients savings. All this contributes to a slicker, more lean business that can invest wisely in areas that matter. She also has a keen eye on the geopolitical supply chain, as well as evaluating costly technology providers and increasing automation.

“Right now for our clients, it’s a complicated time. We recognise those challenges and are here as consultants to help businesses not just survive, but thrive.”

For Steve, his focus is on integrating cloud services with new AI tooling. Since there has been a large-scale movement towards public cloud services, there is now a high financial focus from businesses on minimizing costs, in particular subscription license costs, which have spiraled as more teams spin up services without the appropriate level of governance to control costs. Integrated AI tooling provides more diligence to minimize operating costs and improve best practices across technology teams. Here’s what Steve had to say:

“At the moment, many clients are working with us to address how much of their cloud services should remain on public platforms versus private or hybrid ones to combat rising licensing costs. If you pay large public cloud costs, you might not use every functionality. If you build your own cloud platform solutions, there’s an associated team running cost, and you won’t leverage as many new features coming from the big players. We help businesses navigate these complex decisions by diving headfirst into client requirements, rapid prototyping, and focused initiatives.”

The Daemon approach to consultancy

What sets us apart? We’re agnostic. Our cross-industry perspective gives us a blend of startup agility and the backing of experienced professionals. We’re easy to contract with, offering capabilities in the UK and South Africa. For us, we’re committed to being ambitious, growing our impact, and empathizing with client challenges along the way. As Steve says,

“If your business is evolving, we’re the right partner to engage with. We help celebrate milestones, unite your team on the journey, and maintain focus. At Daemon, we offer more than a fresh perspective; if you're feeling overwhelmed or stuck, we can uncover new opportunities.”

In 2025, the struggles we’re dealing with are new, yet familiar. For us at Daemon, we love helping our clients respond to challenges as they unfold. Whether it’s efficiency, upskilling or just uncertainty, we love supporting businesses of all sizes.

Let us energise your team around your latest technology challenge. Talk to Daemon today.