Data & Analytics in organisations · Teaching, talks, podcast · Zurich, Switzerland

Sebastian Selman

I work on the gap between what technology can do and what organisations manage to do with it.

I teach and speak about it: guest lectures and workshops for universities and programmes, talks for conferences, and conversations on podcasts.

That gap is mostly not technical. It shows up as a data platform nobody trusts, a governance model written for a world that no longer exists, or an AI pilot that works beautifully and changes nothing. I spend my time on the organisational side of that problem — currently in enterprise data engineering and data governance, previously across Microsoft's Azure data and AI portfolio, and before that as a design-thinking consultant working with banks and healthcare on how they actually make decisions.

I teach some of this: four years lecturing on digital corporate culture at BVS St. Gallen, and a run of workshops and sessions with universities and fellowship programmes. I co-host a podcast about what happens when enterprises put AI into production, and I write — sometimes about Azure and data architecture, sometimes about borders, personas and why IKEA sells hot dogs.

I grew up in Baden-Baden, was born in Toronto, and started my working life as assistant to a violin maker in Tübingen. Some of that turns out to be more relevant than it sounds.

LinkedIn GitHub Credly Email

Now

Talks, workshops, sessions and events I'm attending — what's coming up and what's been.

10 November 2026 Session

SAP Data in Microsoft Fabric: Choosing an Integration Route That Lasts

Online — Microsoft Teams webinar

Every route from SAP into Microsoft Fabric on one map, rated for compliance, cost and readiness. I host; Markus Heinen and Bartosz Kłos make up the panel. One live hour, in English.
16 November 2026 Attending

Swiss AI Summit 2026

Kunsthaus Zürich

Previously

3 November 2026 Session

Same Event, Half the Grind: Event Management with Alibaba Cloud AI

Online — Microsoft Teams webinar

One 1,500-attendee conference run through the full event cycle twice, the way it runs today and the way it runs with AI, with live demos. Co-presented with Nico Bühler of Alibaba Cloud.
20–21 October 2026 Attending

St. Galler Produktionsmanagement-Tagung

University of St. Gallen — Hotel Einstein, St. Gallen

This year's theme: “Shaping the Future: The New Rules of Industrial Competitiveness”.
9 September 2026 Session

Slaying Dragons with AI

HeadsQuarter Stockerstrasse — “The Artistic”, Zurich

Build your own local AI agent system in the room, then use it on something that matters to you. Bring a laptop and an AI tool that can reach local files.
4 September 2026 Workshop

Slaying Dragons with AI — WAVE Fellowship

WeBloom WAVE Fellowship 2026, Zurich

A 90-minute hands-on session for the fellowship cohort: build a working local AI agent system, then point it at a future-self goal-setting exercise. Co-presented with Franziska-J. Klebôn.
14 July 2026 Workshop

Slaying Dragons with AI — Berlin Immersion

Tomorrow University of Applied Sciences, Berlin

60 minutes, 40 attendees, four working prototypes by the end of the hour. The write-up is the honest version, including what stopped the other thirty-six.

Projects

What I'm working on beyond client engagements.

Business Mission Control
Podcast 2026 –

A conversation series with Dr. Estera Kot, CTO of Clouds on Mars, on what actually happens when enterprises put AI into production. Published on the Clouds on Mars TV channel.
1. What Does A Sovereign Cloud Offer Actually Buy You? 29 October 2026
2. AI Pilots Are Designed To Pass. Production Is Not A Vacuum 1 October 2026
3. The Fabric Toggle That Is GA, Free, And Off By Default 10 September 2026
4. Clean The Data Estate First, Or The Agent Guesses 27 August 2026
5. AI Is Not Taking Your Job. It Is Promoting You 13 August 2026
6. What Happens When the Cloud Goes Down? Smart Buildings, AWS and Resilience 2 July 2026
7. What Leaders Need Before AI Readiness: Data Visibility 24 April 2026
All episodes, with transcripts Full playlist Clouds on Mars TV
Slaying Dragons with AI
Workshop series 2026 –

A hands-on session built with Franziska-J. Klebôn: participants build a working local AI agent system on their own laptop inside an hour, then point it at a future-self goal-setting exercise. Run so far with Tomorrow University in Berlin, and next with the WAVE Fellowship and HeadsQuarter in Zurich.
- Berlin Immersion: 60 minutes, 40 attendees, four working prototypes — and a write-up that is honest about the other thirty-six
- Prerequisites are deliberately low: a laptop and any AI tool that can reach local files
Writing
Articles 2019 –

Sixteen pieces, from design-thinking essays written as Sebastian Rappen to recent work on Microsoft Foundry, data mesh and where AI investment actually pays. Everything published on limmatreframe.com and LinkedIn now lives here.

Invite me

If you run a course, a programme, a conference or a podcast, and the gap between what data and analytics can do and what organisations do with it belongs on your agenda, I would like to hear from you.

Guest lecture

A session for a course or degree programme on how organisations actually adopt data and analytics, and why the technology is rarely the hard part.

Four years lecturing Digital Corporate Culture on the Dipl. Digital Innovation Manager NDS HF programme at BVS St. Gallen (2020–2024).
Workshop

Hands-on, for a cohort or a team: participants build something that works before they discuss what it means.

Slaying Dragons with AI, built with Franziska-J. Klebôn: run at Tomorrow University in Berlin (40 attendees), the WAVE Fellowship and HeadsQuarter Zurich. Earlier: lead coach on EY's Innovation Journey, training around a thousand colleagues.
Talk or keynote

For a conference, leadership event or offsite: why a data platform nobody trusts changes nothing, and what makes data actually used.

Two live sessions in November 2026: hosting an expert panel on SAP data in Microsoft Fabric, and co-presenting AI in event management with Nico Bühler of Alibaba Cloud.
Podcast guest

Happy to sit on the other side of the microphone, for shows on data, analytics, work and how organisations change.

Co-host of Business Mission Control with Dr. Estera Kot since April 2026: conversations on what happens when enterprises put AI into production.

Send an invitation

Writing

16 articles, 2019–2026. Everything previously on limmatreframe.com and LinkedIn, in one place.

2026

Monitoring and Optimizing a Hybrid Arc-Enabled SQL Server Estate
I spent some time lately thinking about how to properly monitor and mid- to long-term optimize a larger enterprise SQL estate - the following is a condensation of the research done on the…

28 July 2026
Der 5-Prozent-Filter: Wo im Unternehmen KI-Investment wirklich zählt
Vor knapp zwei Jahren durfte ich an einer Ausgabe der AI Summer School von Microsoft mitwirken und dort einen Impuls dazu setzen, wo im Unternehmen KI-Anwendungsfälle keine, ein bisschen…

23 July 2026 · Deutsch
Slaying Dragons with AI
40 people, 4 working prototypes, and how to be the next one!

14 July 2026

2025

Establishing a Data Mesh in a Fractal Enterprise: Ensuring Data Quality and establishing Data Contracts
If your company’s “fractal” structure – with many semi-autonomous business units – demands a careful balance between local autonomy and central standards, a Data Mesh architecture is…

30 May 2025
Azure’s Model Router: Smarter AI, Lower Costs for Your Business
Businesses can now reduce their AI costs without sacrificing quality. Microsoft’s new Model Router (currently in preview) is an Azure OpenAI Service feature that acts like an intelligent…

28 May 2025
Azure Databricks and Azure AI Foundry Integration announced at Build 2025
At Microsoft Build 2025, a new integration between Azure Databricks and Azure AI Foundry (now Microsoft Foundry) was announced. Azure Databricks is a unified analytics platform optimised…

23 May 2025
Integration of Microsoft Fabric and Azure AI Foundry – What, Why, and Who Benefits
The integration, in public preview, of Microsoft Fabric with Azure AI Foundry (now Microsoft Foundry) brings enterprise analytics and generative AI together, answering the key question:…

22 May 2025

2021

On the value and limits of borders
The central question of this essay was to me: Why will binary systems always only be decidable or complete but never completely decidable? And: What does that mean for me?

5 March 2021 · as Sebastian Rappen

2020

Getting unstuck, why goal setting does and doesn’t work
Are you stuck? Because you cannot even sort where to start with all the things piling up in your backlog? Or because you are not even sure what shall happen? I came across a white paper and…

6 April 2020 · as Sebastian Rappen
Remote Collaboration – A framework or tool is nothing if the people behind it don’t benefit from it.
I had the pleasure to meet Rakesh Kasturi, to address some questions that came up on LinkedIn. Centered around remote collaboration, we had the chance to address how to bring people…

27 March 2020 · as Sebastian Rappen
Heroes, fools and design thinkers meet outside the box
Horos (ancient Greek ὅρος) describes the border, the boundary stone. The human frisson of crossing such a border is stylized in modern horror films. In the movies it is opened up for…

12 January 2020 · as Sebastian Rappen
Why does IKEA sell hot-dogs?
Have you ever wondered, why they offer hotdogs at the end of an IKEA-trip? The answer is: If they wouldn’t, you would leave the store directly after the emotional all-time-low-moment of the…

9 January 2020 · as Sebastian Rappen

2019

What is the core of a persona?
A persona is the personified representation of a user or client group. Within design thinking this persona will be centered around coherent need-statements. The persona as method has…

25 November 2019 · as Sebastian Rappen
Here is a real-life business challenge
If you were to help a small "people’s knowledge center" on the islands of the Ganges delta to reimagine their business-model: What would be your suggestion? Put down your ideas in the…

20 November 2019 · as Sebastian Rappen
How to avoid Design Thinking B.S.
About a year back, the U.S. Department of Defense published their guide for detecting Agile BS. Within their guide they included a graphic I thought was so inspiring that I re-created it:

18 November 2019 · as Sebastian Rappen
Grenzen erreichen. Grenzen überwinden.
Horos (altgr. ὅρος) bezeichnet die Grenze, den Grenzstein. Der menschliche Frisson, eine solche zu überschreiten wird in der Moderne in Horrorfilmen stilisiert, gezielt erlebbar gemacht. Wo…

18 November 2019 · as Sebastian Rappen · Deutsch

All articles by topic

Career

Where the last ten years went. Select a band for the detail.

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Clouds On Mars

January 2026 – present · 11 mos · Zurich, Switzerland

Data & Analytics Consulting Lead Switzerland

January 2026 – present

Advising Swiss enterprises on data engineering and data governance, and on the organisational side of putting AI to work.

Microsoft

May 2021 – December 2025 · 4 yrs 8 mos · Zurich, Switzerland

Cloud & AI Platforms Specialist

July 2025 – December 2025

Drove Azure adoption and AI innovation across the territory — modernising infrastructure, unifying data platforms, and scoping cloud-native, analytics and AI workloads with account teams and partners.
Data & AI Specialist

May 2021 – June 2025

Worked with global key accounts in staffing, services, cybersecurity and process manufacturing to turn data and AI on Azure into business outcomes — bridging executives, IT leaders and subject-matter experts, and designing enterprise data platforms rather than debating AI in the abstract.

Bildungszentrum BVS St. Gallen

August 2020 – August 2024 · 4 yrs 1 mo · St. Gallen, Switzerland

Lecturer for Digital Corporate Culture

August 2020 – August 2024

Taught Digital Corporate Culture on the Dipl. Digital Innovation Manager NDS HF programme: how leadership values shift in a digital future, which role models a digital strategy actually needs, and how mission statements survive contact with it.

LimmatReframe

June 2019 – August 2022 · 3 yrs 3 mos · Zurich area, Switzerland

Independent Consultant, Human-Centered Design

June 2019 – August 2022

Self-employed work with clients in regulated industries — healthcare and finance — sharpening internal and client-facing value propositions through human-centered design. Built a coaching cycle to measurably improve team agility, and delivered Design Thinking, Lean and Agile training. The earlier articles on this site come from this period.

EY

November 2016 – May 2019 · 2 yrs 7 mos · Zurich area, Switzerland

Content Lead, Design Thinking GSA · Consultant TA CH

July 2018 – May 2019

Led Design Thinking content for EY's advisory practices across Germany, Switzerland and Austria. Lead coach on EY's Innovation Journey, training around a thousand colleagues; co-founded EY's global Design Thinking community. Method lead on transformation programmes including the redesign of a DAX-30 automotive group's corporate finance function.
Consultant, EMEIA Financial Services Advisory — Risk

March 2017 – June 2018

Compliance and operational risk for financial services clients: financial PMO for a global insurer's audit co-sourcing, FINMA-compliant regulatory audit of a bank's compliance function, and an operational-risk event recording system built to EBA ITS 2017/01.