Speaker Profile

Ian is the founder of sports advisory business Ludonautics, where he develops statistical tools for the prediction of football matches and the performance analysis of players. He is one of the original architects of the data revolution that has swept through football.

Between 2012 and 2023, Ian worked for Liverpool FC as Director of Research, and built the first in-house analytics department in the Premier League. Ian’s tenure coincided with the club’s greatest period of success since the 1980s. Liverpool won the UEFA Champions League, UEFA Super Cup, and FIFA World Club Cup in 2019, the Premier League in 2020 (Liverpool’s first league title for 30 years), and the FA Cup and League Cup in 2022.

From 2005 until 2012 Ian was head of football research at Decision Technology, where he ran analytics projects for the Premier League, Tottenham Hotspur, and bookmakers. He also appeared weekly in the Fink Tank, the Times' long-running article on football statistics.

He holds a PhD in physics from the University of Cambridge and a MPhys from Cardiff University.