Why ‘Bulbul’ Analytics?
The yellow-vented bulbul is one of those birds that, once you’ve noticed it, you’ll wonder how you ever missed it. Small, lively and full of personality, it’s a common sight across Southeast Asia — perching boldly in gardens, parks and woodland edges, completely untroubled by human company. It has a neat, dapper appearance — dark cap, white cheeks, and that distinctive flash of yellow beneath the tail that gives it its name. But it’s the voice that really makes it memorable: a cheerful, bubbling song that feels like the soundtrack to a warm tropical morning.
The name Bulbul Analytics comes from a very personal place. While living in Singapore, my wife and I had the privilege — and the exhausting joy — of hand-rearing five of these birds at different times. Each one arrived helpless and dependent, needing feeding every twenty minutes until it could manage on its own. We watched each one grow stronger day by day, graduating from total dependence to cautious independence, until eventually the moment came to release it back into the wild. There’s something quietly profound about that process — taking something fragile and uncertain, giving it exactly what it needs to thrive, and watching it find its own wings. It felt like the right name for a business built around doing something similar with data: helping it grow from raw and unruly into something clear, purposeful and ready to fly.
And one of the five? She never quite left. Having grown a little too fond of human company — and, frankly, a little too accustomed to head massages and being covered at night — she decided that the wild could wait. She’s here still, a small yellow-vented presence who occasionally supervises the work of Bulbul Analytics from her favourite perch. We like to think she approves.
Our Senior Analyst
Hi, I’m Trevor — the person behind Bulbul Analytics, and very possibly the only data analyst with a yellow-vented bulbul on his shoulder while he works.
My journey to data was anything but conventional. I trained as a teacher, but straight out of university I took a detour into the world of computing, working as a systems analyst for Coca-Cola and Cadbury-Schweppes. My projects felt genuinely pioneering at the time, including vending machine systems and one of the very first live stock exchange feeds, giving senior executives a real-time window into their portfolios. It was an early lesson in what data, presented clearly and at the right moment, can do for decision-making.
I eventually found my way into the classroom, teaching mathematics and IT across the UK, Europe, the Middle East and Asia. Alongside teaching, I took on roles in data management and timetabling and it was here that a pattern became impossible to ignore. Schools were swimming in data, yet rarely using it to actually make decisions. That gap, between data collected and data acted upon, became my mission. I started building the habits and systems to make data clean, accessible and genuinely part of the conversation.
After more than thirty years in international education, I took the leap and created Bulbul Analytics to help schools and small businesses do exactly that: explore their data, listen to what it’s telling them, and turn those insights into actions that make a real difference.
When I’m not working with data — or attending to a certain feathered supervisor — you’ll find me out on a long walk or cycle ride, watching musical theatre, visiting somewhere new in the world, or happily lost in a good book.
