Databricks Partner Kickoff: a big week for the partnership
This week we were in Las Vegas for Databricks’ Partner & GTM Leadership Kickoff, a gathering of leaders from across Databricks’ Go-to-Market & Field Engineering teams; as well as the top-tier Databricks Partners.
From Advancing Analytics, I was joined by our CEO - Terry McCann, our CTO - Simon Whiteley, and our Head of GTM - Tom Miller.
The kickoff is an invite-only event from Databricks, where partners and Databricks teams get aligned on the year ahead. Strategy, product direction, industry priorities, and lots of time with the people actually building and selling the platform. It’s also where you get to the real conversations that don’t fit into a 30-minute online meeting.
Gold in the Brickbuilder Partner Network
The headline for us is this: Advancing Analytics has been recognised as a Databricks Gold Consulting Partner in the Brickbuilder Partner Network.
The Brickbuilder Partner Network replaces the previous partner programme with set of partner tiers that are an easier to understand and consistent across all partner types. Last year, we were awarded Elite partner status for the first time - the smallest Elite partner in the world, and one of only two based in the UK. This year, that means we’re a Gold Partner.
However, it’s not just a simple rebrand. Gold status also underpins the investment we have made, and continue to make in differentiating what we do at Advancing Analytics. Databricks deliberately make it a little harder each year to stay on top - so that meant more certifications, more industry badges, more investment in writing blogs & customer case studies, and more focus on ongoing customer success & satisfaction. All things we love, but also a huge achievement for our team.
It also reflects what we’ve been building for years: deep technical capability on Databricks, real delivery credibility and global consistency, and a focus on delivering solid business outcomes for our customers.
Also, yes, we’re going to get a giant new Gold Partner logo printed for the our London office wall. Not everything needs a strategic justification.
Brickbuilder Specialisation recognition across our key industries
Alongside Gold status, we’ve also been named as one of the first Brickbuilder Specialisation partners, and the only one headquartered in Europe.
And we have not just one Brickbuilder Industry Specialisation, but a total of three!
This matters because the best work we do is never just building a Lakehouse. It’s outcome-led, industry-shaped, and built by people who understand what good looks like in the real world.
What we’ve been building: LakeForge and Pantheon
A big part of why we’re excited about this year is that we’re not just talking about speed and production readiness, we’ve been building it into our own IP.
LakeForge is our Databricks LakeFlow framework, designed to help teams get production-ready data pipelines without the usual trade-off between speed and standards.
On our LakeForge website we describe it pretty clearly: it’s built to give teams the speed of vibe-coding, with the guardrails of traditional engineering.
Under the hood, LakeForge is powered by Pantheon, our team of agents that helps accelerate pipeline development while keeping things consistent and supportable.
The approach behind LakeForge is deliberately outcome-focused: faster delivery, reduced dependency on scarce senior engineering time, with governance, documentation and lineage baked in.
If you want a more technical view of the thinking behind it, our CTO Simon wrote up a great blog about LakeForge recently. It’s essentially our answer to a problem lots of teams are feeling - AI can help you move fast, but if every pipeline is created differently, you’re just manufacturing future pain. LakeForge is “vibe-coding on rails”, not the wild west.
What’s next
We’ll share more over the coming weeks on what Gold status and our Brickbuilder specialisations mean in practice, including updates on how customers are adopting LakeForge and Pantheon into their organisations, and how it aligns with the product direction of Databricks.
In the meantime, if you’re sat there thinking “we’ve got data, we’ve got ambition, but we’re still not moving fast enough”, we’d love to chat with you.
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Adam Jackson
Adam Jackson is the Head of Marketing & Partner Alliances at Advancing Analytics. Following 13 years at Microsoft, he joined us in 2024.