dbt Champions: What we learned from founding members

The dbt Champions are dbt community members who go above and beyond to share their knowledge, help fellow practitioners, and make the dbt community better. We launched the program earlier this year to recognize those contributions and give Champions more opportunities to connect, collaborate, and grow. Six months in, I've been reflecting on what this first group of 30 Champions has taught us.

dbt Champions at dbt Summit 2026

A little encouragement can change what's possible

A while back, Bruno Lima created a dbt cheat sheet.

He wasn't trying to launch a movement. He'd made something useful, and his manager encouraged him to share it. So he did.

People found it helpful. They shared it. The response encouraged Bruno to keep contributing, and one small act of putting something into the world opened the door to a much bigger relationship with the dbt community.

When I talked with Bruno at dbt Summit in September, he reflected on what that experience had taught him:

“Maybe sometimes, what people need is just a small little help, to grow a lot.”

I've been thinking about that line since. Because it captures something I've come to believe about community: people don't always need someone to teach them how to contribute. Sometimes they need someone to recognize what they're already doing, tell them it matters, and encourage them to keep going.

And sometimes that encouragement travels further than anyone expects.

Marcelo Bour told me about watching Bruno speak at dbt Summit in 2024. Bruno was visibly nervous, which, rather than putting Marcelo off, made the whole experience feel more approachable.

Here was someone sharing what he'd learned, nerves and all.

Marcelo saw that and thought he might be able to do something similar.

Fast-forward to 2026, and both Bruno and Marcelo are members of our inaugural dbt Champions cohort.

That ripple effect began long before the Champions program. It's exactly the kind of contribution we wanted to recognize when we welcomed our inaugural cohort on March 26.

And one of the things I've been most excited about is seeing what they've chosen to build.

Karthik Rajashekaran and Johnathan “JB” Brooks at dbt Summit 2026

Big Projects turn ideas into something tangible

Across our inaugural cohort, Champions have taken on 20 Big Projects: initiatives rooted in their interests and expertise that have the potential to benefit the broader dbt community.

Some are finding new ways to make data useful in the real world. Others are building practical tools and sharing hard-earned guidance. Some are exploring how AI can make analytics more powerful and trustworthy, while others are tackling the challenges of modernizing analytics engineering.

There's no single definition of a great Big Project. That's part of what makes them interesting.

Take Zoe Yim's Pipeline to Plate, for example. Zoe first found her way into analytics engineering through a nonprofit using data to improve the lives of Atlanta residents. That experience stayed with her.

Now she's putting those skills to work again, modernizing an open-source resource that helps people find Atlanta stores where they can use EBT (Electronic Benefit Transfer) benefits.

It's a reminder that the skills we use every day can make a difference well beyond our immediate profession.

Or Adedamola Onabanjo's Messy MRR, an open-source dbt package and practitioner playbook for subscription revenue modeling. He's taking a problem that many teams wrestle with and turning his experience into something others can learn from and build upon.

And then there's a collaborative project from dbt Champions Opeyemi Fabiyi and David Effiong, who worked with their colleague Joseph Ojo at Data Culture to build Agent Trust for dbt. The team describes it as an open-source reference for building AI analytics agents on a governed dbt foundation, with a goal of testing whether the answers those agents produce are correct. At a time when everyone's talking about what AI agents can do, I appreciate that they're tackling an equally important question: Can we trust what those agents tell us?

Even better, this is one Big Project you can already explore for yourself: Agent Trust for dbt, on GitHub.

Three very different projects, united by a common instinct: to take something you've learned, questioned, or struggled with, and turn it into something that might help someone else.

And those are just 3 of the 20 Big Projects underway across our inaugural cohort. Some, like Agent Trust for dbt, are already available for others to use. Others are still evolving, and that's part of the process. Work like this rarely follows a perfectly tidy timeline.

We've discovered how transformative these initiatives can be for the participants themselves. They provide a space to bring ambitious concepts to life, whether by tackling a workplace hurdle or pursuing a personal interest outside their daily routine.

Either way, it can give them something concrete to show for their investment of time: a resource they've created, a problem they've helped solve, or a story they can share with their team, on LinkedIn, in a blog post, or perhaps one day from a conference stage.

And they don't have to figure it all out alone. They're surrounded by other practitioners who can offer feedback, challenge assumptions, and help make a good idea better.

Big Projects will return for the 2027 Champions cohort. They'll remain optional, because there's more than one way to contribute to a community. But for anyone who's been sitting on an idea they'd love to bring to life, they can be a pretty compelling opportunity.

Finding your people changes more than your network

Of course, the Big Projects are only part of the story.

Something else has been happening over these first 6 months, and it isn't nearly as easy to capture in a project description or a program dashboard.

People have been finding their people.

When I spoke with Silja Märdla, she described what it means to have friends who also understand her work.

“Not all of my friends know what I do, but this group of people actually understand me from the first sentence.”

I suspect anyone in the analytics engineering community who's ever tried to explain analytics engineering to friends outside the profession can appreciate that.

But the connections go beyond finding people who speak the same technical language.

Brad Cronkrite was struck by the depth of practical experience across the cohort, and how willing everyone was to share it.

“I knew the kind of people showing up for this community would be willing to share and help elevate others, but it's pretty amazing to see just how much they are capable of doing exactly that.”

For Meagan Palmer, that environment has also created room to grow.

“For me, learning in public has been a huge boost. It gives scope to learn with people, change and adapt when presented with new ideas or information. This then lets me show up with more confidence. Not confidence that I know everything, but confidence that I have valuable contributions to make and I’m able to learn more.”

That's something I hadn't fully anticipated when we launched the program: not just the knowledge Champions would share, but the confidence they'd gain from sharing it.

Caption: Some of the best moments at dbt Summit happened between the scheduled activities.

And then September arrived.

By the time dbt Summit brought us together in Las Vegas, many of the Champions had spent months getting to know one another through online conversations, virtual meetups, and their Big Projects.

dbt Summit was a chance to turn those digital connections into real-world friendships.

And it was a joy to watch.

There were Champions meeting face-to-face for the first time, conversations that picked up as though they'd been happening in person for years, and plenty of laughter.

We'd organized a Champions Happy Hour, opportunities to connect with attendees at the Community Corner, interviews in the Content Studio, and a moment of recognition during the Community Keynote.

And yes, there were matching soccer jerseys.

Because apparently, when you bring together a global group of data practitioners, one entirely reasonable thing to do is dress them like a football club.

The dbt Champions made their presence known at Summit, matching jerseys and all.

But some of my favorite moments were the ones we hadn't organized.

As Silja pointed out, the Champions' WhatsApp group was buzzing throughout the week. People were finding one another for breakfast, lunch, dinner, even spa outings. The recurring sentiment, as she described it, was essentially: Where is everyone? I want to hang out.

And from what they've shared with me, those conversations haven't stopped since Vegas. They're still talking regularly, often about life well beyond work.

I was invited into the WhatsApp group, but chose to leave it as a space just for them.

There's something particularly gratifying about watching a community develop friendships that don't depend on you being in the room.

Those moments reminded me why we'd wanted to create this program in the first place.

Not to manufacture community leadership.

To recognize it, support it, and help it grow.

That sense of belonging extends beyond Champions; it’s part of finding your people in data.

The next chapter

Six months in, the projects are still evolving and the relationships are still deepening. But one lesson keeps coming back: some of the most valuable contributions don’t begin with a polished presentation or a massive following. Sometimes they begin with someone answering a question, sharing something useful, or encouraging another person to try.

That’s what we want to recognize and support in the next cohort.

Applications and nominations for the 2027 dbt Champions cohort are now open.

If you've been contributing to the dbt community, or you've been thinking about getting more involved, I'd encourage you to consider applying.

And if someone comes to mind who consistently makes this community better, please consider nominating them.

Jeremy Chia offered some advice during our conversation at Summit that feels especially appropriate here:

“Don't wait until you're feeling absolutely ready. Just give it a shot. The application makes you reflect and learn about yourself in the process.”

I keep coming back to Bruno's story about that cheat sheet

Someone saw value in what he'd created and encouraged him to share it.

Bruno did.

And somewhere along the way, his willingness to share helped someone else believe they could contribute, too.

That's how communities grow.

Not simply because more people join.

But because more people begin to see what they have to offer, and find others who encourage them to offer it.

Sometimes all it takes is someone saying, “You should share that.”

Become a 2027 dbt Champion

Applications and nominations are open through November 13, 2026, at 11:59 p.m. ET.

Apply to be considered for the 2027 dbt Champions cohort.

Nominate a community member.