Big on Data? The data gurus you should know about.

​Keen to make your mark in data science? Or just looking to expand your knowledge? We’ve identified the top influencers and communities to help you attain and maintain expert status.

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From interesting articles, to exciting studies and even best selling books, Bernard Marr, Hilary Mason and Christian Chabot are at the forefront of the data science and analytics community.

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Once you’ve found inspiration from them, connect with others in your field on Kaggle – the home of Data Science.

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1. Bernard Marr

He’s a best selling author and is often referred to as The Big Data Guru – and we couldn’t agree more. The CEO of Advanced Performance Institute, Bernard has been called one of today’s leading business brains.

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For an expert take on anything analytics, KPI or data related, this is the man to follow.

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Read his article on Big Data Billionaires, an interesting and informative piece on the latest big shots who made their money with Big Data. They include CEO of Uber, Travis Kalanick, and co-founder and CEO of Airbnb Brian Chesky.

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Follow Bernard on LinkedIn and Twitter for his latest articles and news about his latest book which is called, you guessed it, ‘Big Data’.

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2. Hilary Mason

She is the founder of Fast Forward Labs and the lead Data Scientist at Accel. Her resume is seriously impressive – she was Chief Scientist at Bitly and co-founded HackNY and DataGotham.

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Read her articles to find out “how to find a data scientist job”, or if you’re hiring, read her take on “How to know when you need a data scientist”.

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Her LinkedIn profile is definitely worth a look and her tweets are just as useful and entertaining. Follow her here: @hmason.

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3. Christian Chabot

If you’re into data science and analytics, you’ll know Tableau – one of the fastest growing analytics companies in the world. Christian is co-founder, CEO and Chairman of the company. “Making data easy to see and understand is one of the great opportunities of our time,” says Christian about starting Tableau.

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Follow him on LinkedIn to see what he’s up to. Have a look at Tableau here.

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4. Kaggle

The world’s biggest community of data scientists is made up of tens of thousands of people from a number of fields, including computer science, statistics, econometrics, maths and physics, and industries such as insurance, finance, science, and technology.

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This is the place to go if you want to learn, network and collaborate with like minded people in similar fields.

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And if you’re completely new to Data Science, they have a wiki dedicated to teaching you everything you need to know to get started.