PLATA
Technology Officer. The combination of skills made him, in his CTO’ s words, the right person for the role.
Ivan Shchukin, Head of Data Warehouse at Plata, recalls the moment:“ Andrey Shelekhin, our CTO, said:‘ Ivan, you have an amazing skill set for our head of data warehouse role. Come to Plata – we need to create the best product.’”
Ivan accepted, and set about building something that he believes remains relatively rare in the industry. From the outset, he established two governing principles for the data warehouse that would shape everything that followed.
The first was comprehensive data collection. In place of storing only selected datasets, the team would capture all company data with full version history – meaning every change to a record is logged and preserved. The second principle was speed. Where many data warehouses operate
“Everything aged more than one quarter is legacy – if you’ re evolving, you will win”
Ivan Shchukin Head of Data Warehouse Plata on a 24-hour lag, refreshing their data once a day, Plata’ s system would update within one hour.
Ivan explains the thinking:“ We want to collect all data in the company with full versioning. Everyone wants this, but most players in the market are afraid of it. I had no limitations and no fears.”
That one-hour latency target was not merely a technical preference. It was a business decision. In retail banking and fintech, the ability to identify and respond to problems, such as a spike in failed transactions or a dip in customer engagement, within hours rather than days creates a measurable competitive advantage.
Ivan says:“ We can measure our business very precisely, like checking a person’ s temperature. It’ s the main reason we’ ve been so successful in Mexico – we know what is working and what isn’ t, and we can react in hours, not days.”
The warehouse now underpins approximately 80-90 % of the company’ s data processes, all running with automated quality checks and alerts. That level of automation has allowed Plata to keep its headquarters lean, even as the business has grown substantially.
From garage band to 10 teams The data warehouse department has grown from a team of eight when Ivan arrived to more than 50 people organised across roughly 10 specialist teams. Managing that expansion has been one of the more demanding