Neo Financial is Canada’s fastest-growing company, reimagining the banking experience with digital-first products like high-interest savings accounts and personalized credit cards.
Brandon Rochon, Head of Data at Neo, leads a team of analysts and engineers focused on getting the right insights into the hands of every team, from marketing to operations. But as the company scaled, so did the challenges.
Neo had a classic scaling problem. Using Looker and custom-built dashboards led to inconsistent definitions and conflicting insights. There was no single source of truth, and teams were reaching different conclusions from the same data.
And without a self-serve option, every dashboard tweak or data question had to go through the analytics team.
"Our analysts were spending more time on ad-hoc requests than on deeper, more strategic analysis."
- Brandon Rochon, Head of Business Intelligence & Data Analytics
With only a handful of BI users and a fast-growing business, the bottleneck was slowing everyone down. Business users couldn't get answers fast enough. The data team couldn't focus on high-impact work. In fintech's fast-paced world, slow data wasn’t an option for Neo.
Neo's team was already using dbt for their data transformations. So, when they discovered Lightdash through the dbt community, it was the perfect match. Lightdash’s native integration with dbt made it a seamless fit.
"Lightdash's ability to sit directly on top of our existing dbt projects meant we could define all our metrics and dimensions in one place."
- Brandon Rochon, Head of Business Intelligence & Data Analytics
But it wasn't just about the tech stack. Lightdash also offered:
The migration to Lightdash was surprisingly efficient. Neo had production dashboards up within weeks. Because Lightdash runs directly on top of dbt, the setup was quick. The only hurdle was cleaning up and aligning existing models.
For the data team, onboarding was almost instantaneous due to their dbt familiarity. Business users were up and running after just a few short training sessions. Most could confidently explore and build reports within hours.
"The Lightdash team has been a true partner. Their support is best-in-class, with direct access to their data and BI experts."
- Brandon Rochon, Head of Business Intelligence & Data Analytics
The transformation was immediate. Lightdash gave Neo’s data team room to focus on strategy, not support tickets. Business teams could finally explore data on their own, with confidence in the numbers.
"We can now answer questions in minutes that used to take days or weeks."
- Brandon Rochon, Head of Business Intelligence & Data Analytics
A few of the features that helped Neo move fast:
Neo is now looking ahead to agentic analytics: a future where insights are surfaced automatically, tailored to each team.
With Lightdash’s AI-first roadmap, from natural language queries to automated insight delivery, they’re already seeing that future take shape.
For teams considering similar transformations, Brandon's advice is clear:
"If your data team lives and breathes in dbt, you need to take a look at Lightdash."
- Brandon Rochon, Head of Business Intelligence & Data Analytics
Let's talk about how Lightdash can help your team move faster, cleaner, and smarter. Just book a demo with a member of our team to get started.
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