What keeps a data pro at one company for almost thirty years? On this episode of The Data Chief, Pascale Hutz, the Chief Data Officer and EVP of Enterprise Digital & Data Solutions at American Express, shares how her career at American Express has transformed over the years and what she’s learned along the way. Tune in to hear more about her latest cloud migration journey, why she’s on a  “mission to decommission,” and how she fights imposter syndrome even as a C-level executive in one of the largest, most impactful financial services firms in the world. Tune in to learn:About Pascale’s career journey (03:41)That data should be considered like a product 14:18:How to stay tranquil during transformation (17:02)The importance of decommissioning tech  (21:21)Mentions:"Data Mesh: Delivering Data-Driven Value at Scale" (written by Zhamak Dehghani)World50“Enterprise Data Platforms, American Express, VP: The Data Landscape is Evolving Continuously” “Not Impossible” (written by Mick Ebeling)Get even more insights from data and analytics leaders like Pascale on The Data Chief.  Mission.org is a media studio producing content for world-class clients. Learn more at mission.org. Hear more from Cindi Howson here. Sponsored by ThoughtSpot.

How can data be activated to create better healthcare outcomes? Dr. Victoria Gamerman, the Global Head of Data Governance and Insights at Boehringer Ingelheim, offers that part of the answer is that data is changing to be thought of as part of the broader healthcare “ecosystem.”  Listen in for how some of the philosophical frameworks concerning data can help to improve healthcare.Tune in to learn:Changes in how data is being used in healthcare (07:00)How a system could be set up to share health data safely and wisely (13:05)How design thinking can apply to healthcare (25:41)What data mentality needs to change (28:26)Mentions:HBS Professor Linda Hill Says Leaders Must Engage with Emotions as Never BeforeClayton Christensen - "Jobs to be Done" theory“Coded Bias” (movie)Get even more insights from data and analytics leaders like Victoria on The Data Chief.  Mission.org is a media studio producing content for world-class clients. Learn more at mission.org.Show Notes for YouTube:How can data be activated to create better healthcare outcomes? Dr. Victoria Gamerman, the Global Head of Data Governance and Insights at Boehringer Ingelheim, offers that part of the answer is that data is changing to be thought of as part of the broader healthcare “ecosystem.” Listen in for more of Victoria’s takes on how data can improve healthcare.Key Moments:00:00 Getting to know Victoria and her career journey04:26 What sort of work does Boehringer Ingelheim do?07:00 What are some changes in how data is being used in healthcare?10:24 Is sharing health data becoming easier?13:05 Creating a system to Share health data safely and wisely16:42 Will wellness data become more integrated?19:47 Are regulators behind technologically?25:41 How does design thinking apply in healthcare?28:26 What mentality about data needs to change?30:37: Data and academia36:54 How can we bring people along in terms of data?38:33 Learning from data disasters42:11 How does Victoria continue to learn new things?Mentions:HBS Professor Linda Hill Says Leaders Must Engage with Emotions as Never BeforeClayton Christensen - "Jobs to be Done" theory“Coded Bias” (movie)Get even more insights from data and analytics leaders like Victoria on https://www.thoughtspot.com/data-chief. Mission.org is a media studio producing content for world-class clients. Learn more at https://mission.org. Hear more from Cindi Howson here. Sponsored by ThoughtSpot.

What does it take to turn a new position that never existed into one that delivers transformation for an entire organization? As the first Chief Data Officer at Prudential Financial and the initial Chief Data Analytics Officer at a prior career stop at State Farm, Kjersten Moody knows the answer. Tune in to learn how being a constant learner has consistently allowed her to see challenges as opportunities for growth.Tune in to learn:How Kjersten’s role model influenced her life and career (04:08) How Prudential is thinking differently about its strategy and data (32:28) About the role that a good culture can play in supporting transformation (36:19)How Kjersten has elevated data science at Prudential (42:33)How to meet stakeholders in a place that’s helpful to them (47:38)Mentions:“The Checklist Manifesto: How to Get Things Right” by Atul GawandeGet even more insights from data and analytics leaders like Kjersten on The Data Chief.  Mission.org is a media studio producing content for world-class clients. Learn more at mission.org. Hear more from Cindi Howson here. Sponsored by ThoughtSpot.

How do you make innovation truly come alive? For Abhi Bhatt, the AVP, Technology, Data & Analytics at CarMax, innovation is about using data to change “business models.” Abhi also describes the need to train up teammates and others who use the data concerning technological advances. Additionally, he shares his career journey and how his positive experience as a CarMax customer initially activated his interest in the company.Tune in to learn:How did Abhi end up working at CarMax? (13:00)How can companies make the most of their internal data? (17:18)How do you train up relevant parties concerning new technology? (23:41)How does Abhi find talent? (27:56)How does Abhi keep up with so much innovation? (37:07)Mentions:Top Trends for 2022Get even more insights from data and analytics leaders like Abhi on The Data Chief.  Mission.org is a media studio producing content for world-class clients. Learn more at mission.org. Hear more from Cindi Howson here. Sponsored by ThoughtSpot.

How has the Chief Data Officer role changed? Heidi Lanford, CDO of Fitch Group, shares that “it’s gone from stewarding and protecting data to monetization of data.” She explains how CDOs can be effective by working together with other company leaders and communicating simply. Learn from Heidi why there can be great career value in being willing to be uncomfortable.Tune in to learn: How does Heidi work with the leadership team? (10:03) How does Heidi suggest CDOs communicate to CEOs?(13:05) How can a CDO work with the technology side to update the tech stack? (18:58) How is Heidi helping her workers become more data literate?(27:50) What’s the benefit of choosing to be uncomfortable in one’s career journey? (37:48)Mentions:“Getting to ‘Yes And’: The Art of Business Improv”Building CDO Influence in the C-SuiteGet even more insights from data and analytics leaders like Heidi on The Data Chief.  Mission.org is a media studio producing content for world-class clients. Learn more at mission.org. Hear more from Cindi Howson here. Sponsored by ThoughtSpot.

The data landscape is evolving in the life sciences and healthcare sectors. Murali Vridhachalam, the Head of Enterprise Data and Analytics at Gilead Sciences, and Mahmood Majeed, Managing Partner at ZS Associates, offer their compelling perspectives on digital transformation in life sciences and healthcare and how data can be used in these areas to improve patient outcomes. Plus, Mahmood and Murali share their takes on how to effectively reskill data professionals and the role of IT in healthcare and life sciences is evolving.Tune in to learn:How has the pandemic driven digital transformation in healthcare and life sciences? (05:34)Why has healthcare and life sciences historically been behind in terms of digital (11:37) transformation?Does data mesh add to confusion? (19:59)How has modern data and analytics delivered better patient outcomes? (25:21) How do you effectively upskill and reskill your people? (30:41)Mentions:Zhamak DehghaniData MeshGet even more insights from data and analytics leaders like Murali and Mahmood on The Data Chief.  Mission.org is a media studio producing content for world-class clients. Learn more at mission.org. Hear more from Cindi Howson here. Sponsored by ThoughtSpot.

Your data will never be clean and it will never be perfect. So how do we create meaningful models anyway? As Dr. Katia Walsh puts it, data leaders are facing a “tsunami of data.” But that tsunami shouldn’t stop you from testing, iterating, and moving quickly. Dr. Walsh is the Chief Global Strategy and AI Officer at Levi Strauss & Co. and today she shares how her team has leveraged a mindset of “think big, start small, scale fast” to create cutting-edge data models and digital capabilities quickly. Tune in to learn:(4:22) Why every business is a data business and how building out new digital and AI capabilities is about improving the 3Cs (connections, commerce, and creation.)(8:21) How Levi Strauss & Co. leverages data to create custom experiences no matter where a customer engages with them. As Katia says, “It’s not business; it’s personal.”(18:43) Why Katia’s motto is “think big, start small, scale fast.”(19:43) What do when you don’t have perfect data (and why you will never truly have perfect data).(27:55) Where to look for your organization’s next data leader - it’s not where you think.(30:36) How Levi Strauss & Co. is using bootcamps to increase data literacy at every level of the organization.Mentions:Levis.comGet even more insights from data and analytics leaders like Katia on The Data Chief.  Mission.org is a media studio producing content for world-class clients. Learn more at mission.org. Hear more from Cindi Howson here. Sponsored by ThoughtSpot.

With every passing year, a new batch of data tools comes available, and a new crop of data professionals enters the job market. The Chief Data Officer has evolved into a position that acts both on the offensive and defensive sides of these changes. Our guest today, Cara Dailey, the EVP, and CDO at LPL Financial, has helped shape and define the role of data leaders in the C-suite as she’s moved through her career. Her experiences at companies like Nike, Bank of the West, and Silicon Valley Bank have led her to embody a spirit of data-enablement – rather than governance. She also begs the question, “Is all data created equal?” Tune in to find out on this episode of The Data Chief. Mentions: InvestInDataTom DavenportRandy Bean - Fail Fast, Learn FasterSimon Sinek - Start with WhyMonte Carlo Barr MosesHarvard Business ReviewKey TakeawaysGreat CDOs balance offense and defense. Primarily, the role of the CDO started with the idea that organizations needed someone focused on protecting the data, keeping it safe and secure. Now, as the world has evolved, so has the role. Modern data leaders need to also be able to impact their organization by bringing value through performance data analytics for clients, customers, and employees. Cara posits that it’s not enough to simply protect; you must also ask yourself what are you actively contributing? Focus on data enablement. The best data executives can think of themselves as part of a data enablement forum, inviting a collaborative attitude in the increasingly important world of data governance. Make it such an integral part of the program you’re creating as the data leader. Think of yourself and your team as the data glue that holds the organization together. Not all data is created equal. While data is a powerful tool for decision-making, it’s important to remember not all data needs to or even should be valued the same. In highly regulated environments, absolute accuracy may be required. But for internal use cases like improving a product or process, directional indicators are just as good.Get even more insights from data and analytics leaders like Cara on The Data Chief.   Hear more from Cindi Howson here. Sponsored by ThoughtSpot.

If you look around your home, it’s very likely you have at least one item from the Unilever family of brands lying around. From the soap in your shower to the ice cream bars in your freezer, Unilever delivers everyday products that help people get more out of life. And they rely on data to ensure they’re doing so sustainably. Today’s guests are Unilever Director of Digital Finance Transformation, Vandana Khanna, and Director of Data and Analytics, Deeksha Singh. On this episode, the two leaders join Cindi to share exactly how they’re using data to impact everything from supply chain decisions to employee belonging. They also dive into how they are demystifying data at every level, eliminating manual reporting and data visualization work, and using data and AI to be a more sustainable company. All of this and more in today’s episode with Vandana Khanna and Deeksha Singh. Get even more insights from data and analytics leaders like Vandana and Deeksha on The Data Chief.  Key TakeawaysChange starts with inspiration: When an organization is used to manually creating dashboard reports for every business question or visualizing data in Excel, it can be hard to break these habits and change behaviors at scale. The key is inspiring people with the art of the possible. Show users what good looks like and how technology can empower them to be faster and smarter, and the rest will follow.Digital transformation goes hand in hand with opportunity: It’s common for business people to run for the hills when they hear the word “transformation.” As a leader, it’s important to communicate that there's nothing to fear. There is no transformation without people. You need both to move the needle, and often people’s roles become even more important because they’re needed to ensure the technology is working as it should.You may never be bias-free, but you can be bias-aware: People and data are inherently biased, but thankfully bias awareness is growing in corporate culture. One of the most effective ways that global brands like Unilever are achieving less bias and more diversity is by bringing more diverse leaders into the fold. These leaders bring new perspectives and context to processes that increase the inclusivity of your product and organization overall. Key QuotesVandana:“So an example would be when we started working on RPAs, we started taking away all the manual reporting. Imagine the width and the breadth of the manual reporting we had! As soon as RPA were put in place we had triggered momentum across the sourcing units with these RPAs. They became the biggest hit because people said, ‘Oh, wow, I'm able to save so much time.’” “Human beings have biases. We cannot eliminate our biases. No matter how we try, we will never be bias-free. We will be bias-aware.” Deeksha:“I also believe that data is one of the key strategic assets for any transformation to happen for any organization for that matter. And it's growing, it's growing in variety in volume in velocity. Any organization will be able to manage the complexity and make sense of this data in a timely manner, which I think will thrive when it comes to digital transformation today and in future.” “Sustainability is at the core, the heart of everything we do. Unilever's purpose is about making sustainable living commonplace, and yes, a large amount of data is being used – in terms of how we enable a reduction in carbon reduction in plastic deforestation and its impact and even sustainable sourcing. So if I were to pick an example, a case in point of sustainable sourcing. We've partnered with a third party who provides us with the cloud services that, along with the satellite data that is available – in terms of monitoring the impact of these ingredients that are being sold from different locations across the globe, coupled with the power of AI. We mix all of this [and] we get very rich geospatial data, which we are using in a lot of decision making when it comes to, where we are sourcing from. So for example, if these ingredients are being sourced from a location, which is impacted by deforestation and has a future impact of deforestation, we can take a quick decision of not sourcing from those locations, from those places where there is deforestation in act.”“I feel that as an organization, what we have also realized is the power of data and digital literacy, which is around raising the floor and bringing people along – in terms of making them literate [and] making them aware of things that are coming their way, rather than just giving them a surprise, blow to their heads to say that we are changing tomorrow.”“Everybody wants change, but nobody wants to change.” MentionsUnstereotype - Unilever’s bias awareness and trainingMagnum Ice Cream - Mentioned guest productInvisible Women - Book recommendation BiosVandana KhannaAs a digital transformation Leader and Director of Digital Finance Transformation at Unilever, Vandana has extensive experience in Finance, IT, Supply Chain, and Product Management — delivering analytics, data science, and automation capabilities that help companies thrive. With deep expertise in CPG, Telecommunications, Retail, and Pharma, I lead diverse teams of direct and indirect reports and drive results through finely-tuned business acumen using Agile practices. She is responsible for leading the design and delivery of complex projects leveraging BI and Data Analytics to answer critical business questions, detect consumer behavior and provide creative solutions for a wide range of business challenges.She incorporates technologies like IoT, Cloud, Big Data to improve the financial performance of any organization. I have developed business intelligence and reporting solutions through ETL, Data governance, and Data Visualization.Deeksha SinghDeeksha is the Director of Data and Analytics at Unilever, who is an information technology  leader, with more than 10 years of experience. She is well-versed in Platform, Operations Management, Data & Analytics, and Digital Transformation. She has proven expertise in managing complex transformation initiatives, navigating ambiguities, and partnering with Senior Stakeholders. Deeksha is recognized for cost-effective system improvements, operational streamlining, efficient change management, and a positive leadership style. Currently, she is setting up the Global Analytics Platform for Unilever simplifying access to data and insights, while crafting seamless user experience and joined-up user journeys. Hear more from Cindi Howson here. Sponsored by ThoughtSpot.

Nitish Mathew, the Global Head of Data Engineering and Governance at Afterpay, joins The Data Chief to discuss measuring the impact of analytics, the rise of the analytics engineer, the importance of taking risks, and much more.Tune in to learn:Why you can't take a data center mindset to the cloud (6:30)Why stakeholder satisfaction is the ultimate KPI (15:00)Inspiring your team through purpose (19:10)How to build a “walled garden” for business users (22:40)The importance of taking risks and celebrating failures (30:40)Get even more insights from data and analytics leaders like Nitish on The Data Chief.Episode mentions:Afterpay BlogNetezzaBlockCashAppChristian IdiodiFive Dysfunctions of the TeamFail Fast, Learn Faster: Lessons in Data-Driven Leadership in an Age of Disruption, Big Data, and AI Risk: A User's GuideINSPIRED: How to Create Tech Products Customers Love--The Data Chief is presented by our friends at ThoughtSpot. Searching through your company’s data for insights doesn’t have to be complicated. With ThoughtSpot, anyone in your organization can easily answer their own data questions, find the facts, and make better, faster decisions. Learn more at thoughtspot.com.  Hear more from Cindi Howson here. Sponsored by ThoughtSpot.

Whether you’ve passed your cursor over their logo on a streaming service, spotted it on the front of a Golden State Warriors jersey, or use their cash-back rebate system, the Rakuten brand is everywhere and actively expanding. Today’s guest, Takuya Kitagawa is the Managing Executive Officer & CDO at Rakuten. On this episode, Takuya joins Cindi to discuss how the company has found massive, international success across multiple industries by integrating data across lines of business to deliver better customer experiences. He also dives into the importance of data fluency at every level, and elaborates on how Rakuten is leveraging the concept of “digital twins” to better connect with customers. Stick around to hear all of this, plus exciting details regarding Rakuten latest moonshot projects.Key TakeawaysIntegrated data delivers better customer experiences: Rakuten has seen major success in offering enhanced services and experiences to customers around the world. Their secret? Integrating data across multiple lines of business, starting with customer login credentials. This approach makes using multiple services a seamless experience and builds customer loyalty.You don’t have to reinvent the wheel: Before building a new technology from the ground up, see if anyone else has already done it. There’s so much you can learn, borrow, or buy from others. If you can learn to leverage the innovation that’s already happening around you, you’ll be in a better position to accelerate your own digital transformation. Invest in data fluency at every level: It’s important that executives be just as data fluent as anyone else in your organization. For Rakuten, investing in data fluency at the highest levels of leadership manifests as quarterly AI bootcamps and mandatory data trainings.Key Quotes“We discovered when we acquired the credit card company, that it is much, much cheaper to send traffic from one internal service to the other than down going through of course advertising companies such as Google and Facebook, even though this takes a little ingenuity and creativity. If you think about it, eCommerce and credit cards come really well together because, to shop online, you need credit cards and the key point is how do you connect credit card back to the shopping?”“Our CEO had a very, very clear directive - if we are going to acquire a company, integration of it starts from integration of ID. So log ID needs to be completely the same. This already has been a common practice across Google, in Facebook to align the log ID starting from there you really have to integrate the data. So that's a key point when you acquire a company one of the key agreements you have to make with the other company is we have to integrate ID and data.”“Algorithms [are] becoming a commodity at this point. The key differentiator of AI is data."“Frankly, the best practice is to learn from [the] outside, because venture capital money is flowing at this ridiculous amount, and there [are] so many people, so much money, and so much effort to try to make things easier. Before you try to build what’s necessary yourself, it's better to look around and see if there are other companies who can help you… Be humble. [We] try to learn from our site and leverage what is already there.”MentionsDr. Hisataka Kobayashi’s Discovery of photo immunotherapyHarvard University Partnership FC Barcelona and Golden State WarriorsAbout TakuyaTakuya Kitagawa is the managing executive officer and Chief Data Officer of Rakuten Inc, and serves as the director for Well-being for Planet Earth(WPE). As Chief Data Officer of Rakuten group, he is responsible for the end-to-end value creation and execution of AI & data strategy, and manages a global organization located across the world including Japan, U.S., India, France and Singapore. He also leads Rakuten institute of technology, R&D function of the group, as the global head. Vision of his group is the fundamental understanding of customers and their behaviors with AI and data; how business and service can empower customers to spend their money and time better. As a board of director for well-being for Planet Earth, he further extends and applies the understanding of human beings and society to contribute to more general domains of well-being across the world. Prior to working on AI, he worked as a theoretical physicist and published more than 20 papers in journals including “Science” and “Nature Physics.” Dr. Kitagawa obtained his Ph.D. in physics from Harvard University and A.B. in physics and mathematics from Harvard College.--The Data Chief is presented by our friends at ThoughtSpot. Searching through your company’s data for insights doesn’t have to be complicated. With ThoughtSpot, anyone in your organization can easily answer their own data questions, find the facts, and make better, faster decisions. Learn more at thoughtspot.com.  Hear more from Cindi Howson here. Sponsored by ThoughtSpot.

As the world continues to fill with impersonal, factory-machined goods, so increases the desire to see and feel more human creativity in the items we use in our lives. Etsy, a community marketplace for creative goods, was designed to help people sell their unique and homemade items online. The company continues to innovate and transform the small-business world, leading by focusing on innovation in their technology. Today’s guest, Chu-Cheng Hsieh, is the first Chief Data Officer at Etsy. On this episode, Chu-Cheng Hsieh joins Cindi to discuss his unique perspective on helping build a data-driven organization from the ground up and how he’s fostered a culture of experimentation that has led to rapid growth and transformation within the company. He also dives into trends such as machine learning and data observability, and explains some of the most helpful mental frameworks he’s learned in his life and career.Key TakeawaysCheck human intuition with data: Your gut feeling might be right, but in today’s world it’s critical to remember the importance of being able to back up your thinking and your decisions with facts. Hsieh emphasizes the importance of trusting the data that’s in front of you, even if the answer goes against decades of personal experience.Create a ‘regret minimization framework’: Popularized by Jeff Bezos, the ‘regret minimization framework’ is a way to help you more clearly define what career decisions you should make. It encourages the thinker to imagine being at the end of their life, looking back at what they’ve done, and asking themselves, “Is that really the life story I want to have?”Invest in insights: Hsieh shares that “You don't want to judge your success based on just [the] outcome. You should judge your success based on the decision quality.” By investing in thoughtful decision-making, you can increase the probability of success, even when you don’t have all the facts or data.Key Quotes“I only have one life, so I can either become a professor or I can do something different. So I use[d] something called regret minimization framework. I think Jeff Bezos mentioned this. I closed my eyes, imagined [myself] 30 years from today and I'm telling my life story to my grandson. And I think [what] kind of story will make me feel more excited and happy?”"One thing which I learned, this surprise[d] me, is that human instinct is often wrong. You [think] that if I change this color from blue to red that people will like that. [But] that's your opinion. You are just one person. Even [with] 20 years of experience in this field, you could be wrong. I can show you tons of examples that the data will show totally different[ly] [from] what you thought it to be.”“Your intuition, [is to] think one millisecond doesn't matter. It actually [does] matter because sometimes this one millisecond, especially for people who are using their mobile device, the user experience can be totally different, especially when the network is spotty.”“You don't want to judge your success based on just [the] outcome. You should judge your success based on the decision quality. And if you have good insight, this doesn't mean that you always [are] right. The only thing you can do is to invest [in that] insight, so that when you make a decision, you know the reasons and insight behind the decision. This gives you a higher probability of making the right decision. So this concept of ‘Thinking in Bets’ is what I [use] to help me to make a better quality decision.”MentionsBook: Thinking in Bets Jeff Bezos’ regret minimization frameworkAbout Chu-ChengChu-Cheng Hsieh manages the data org across Etsy globally, including engineering, data science, and machine learning. Partnering with Etsy’s product and business executives, he develops the data strategy, represents data science, and drives high-impact decisions. He is specialised in search engine, recommendation systems, and machine learning technology. His primary responsibility is to deliver strategic and creative data science approaches that help achieve Etsy’s mission and goals.He received a PhD in computer science from UCLA, and has two master degrees. In his leisure time, he enjoys innovating and collaborating with academic researchers. He has brought cutting-edge research into products. He publishes papers in top-tier conferences, such as WWW, SIGIR, KDD, and enjoys giving talks/keynotes at a variety of academic or industrial conferences on information retrieval, recommendation systems, and data mining.--The Data Chief is presented by our friends at ThoughtSpot. Searching through your company’s data for insights doesn’t have to be complicated. With ThoughtSpot, anyone in your organization can easily answer their own data questions, find the facts, and make better, faster decisions. Learn more at thoughtspot.com.  Hear more from Cindi Howson here. Sponsored by ThoughtSpot.

There’s nothing like watching your favorite sports team live and in-person. The roar of the crowd. The smell of the concession stand. The suspense of the game clock winding down to its final seconds. But would you have guessed that behind every ticket purchase, box of cracker jacks, and Jumbotron moment, there are teams of data professionals working to make your fan experience even more seamless and engaging?Joining Cindi today to discuss the data and analytics powering our favorite sports events are Jay Riola, the SVP of Strategy & Innovation for the Orlando Magic, and Charlie Shin, the VP of Data Strategy and Analytics for the Indianapolis Colts. With perspectives from both the NBA and the NFL, Jay and Charlie explore the evolution of mobile ticketing, challenges with identity management, the importance of building fan trust, and the most surprising insights they’ve ever discovered within their data. Key TakeawaysCustomers expect more for their data: When customers share their data, they expect something in return. Respecting their privacy and keeping their data safe are the bare minimum. They expect real, tangible value. As a business, your responsibility is to use this data to enhance their experience. Whether that be through custom offers, more relevant content recommendations, or more seamless purchasing experiences, what matters most is that you’re delivering on the expectation of value.Collecting data is one thing, putting it together is another: While technologies like mobile payments and social media have made it easier for businesses to collect data, they’ve also added complexity to the process of building accurate customer profiles. To truly understand the person on the other side of the screen, you must have the right skills and infrastructure to bring all that data together. Great data scientists need to be a triple threat: It is no longer enough to be very good at the technical components of your job and “so-so” at translating insights into actionable recommendations for business stakeholders. The best data scientists have technical chops, a deep understanding of how their business works, and the storytelling skills to turn insights into influence.Key QuotesCharlie:“In sports, they started off by focusing on the product, which is the on-field performance, our players. So a lot of the emphasis was using datas to optimize their investments, enhance their quality of on-field performance. But as the competition grew… now we've seen a shift where the focus is more on the customers and their experience in addition to the on-field quality.”“Identity management is a key topic in sports at this point… We have a variety of different data sources, whether it's ticketing, merchandising, digital engagement, or website or apps, there's a lot of information that's coming through. And then we're trying to figure out how do we tie all this together so that we have that clear understanding of that single view of our customers across these touchpoints. And I don't think this is just a sports industry challenge, right? I think it's a challenge across all industries that manage consumer information.”Jay:“We were a pretty early adopter of variable ticket pricing and thinking about the value from a ticket perspective of our games differently based on the team that we were playing, the time of the year, whether it was early in the season versus later in the season, obviously weekday versus weekend, but just recognizing that the marketplace values these games differently and so should we... Then it became, how do we dynamically price our tickets? How are we changing pricing as we approach games to reflect the demand situation that we have or if an opponent is performing better or worse than we expected, and we can raise or lower pricing. I think where data is really helping guide us… is product development and thinking about ticketing in new and kind of transformational ways.”“We have seen significant growth in ticketing revenue and improvement in retention of fans, as we've introduced this more sophisticated way of thinking about pricing and sales to our business. And I would venture to guess that most teams that have implemented this are seeing returns as well in terms of revenue growth and also total ticket sold.”“We are fortunate to work in an industry where fans are more willing to share their data with us… But I do think that the same expectations do come along, which is I'm giving you something and in return, there's an expectation, obviously that you will protect my data and store it safely… but also that now you're going to enrich my experience with you somehow… I think it's kind of shifting responsibility to companies to be far more active in how they think about not just security and data management, but returning value on that expectation that will come from your fans and your consumers.”About CharlieCharlie Shin is a highly analytical customer strategy and marketing executive with global and domestic experience in data analytics, strategic planning, project management, customer segmentation, customer relationship management, and KPI management. He excels at guiding enterprise data strategy, CRM initiatives, and organization-wide marketing technology infrastructure.Prior to joining the Colts, Charlie was a VP of Strategy & Analytics at MLS for past 15 years where he developed the foundation and enhanced league-wide data strategy, analytic capabilities and CRM technology infrastructure. He also worked as a senior business consultant at Samsung OpenTide and PwC Consulting for over six years managing various projects related to customer strategy, CRM strategy, performance marketing, customer segmentation and new business model development. In addition, he currently serves as an adjunct faculty at NYU and Columbia University.Charlie holds a BA in business administration from Yonsei University and an MS in sports business from New York University.About JayJay Riola is entering his 16th season with the Orlando Magic. He was promoted to senior vice president of strategy & innovation in July 2019. Riola oversees the Magic’s business strategy and innovation efforts including data engineering, strategy and analytics, mobile strategy, CRM, digital marketing and marketing technology, as well as other strategic initiatives and special projects.Riola started with the Magic as an intern in 2006 and worked as part of the Magic’s internal team overseeing the design and construction of the Amway Center, which opened in 2010. Since 2010, he has worked in several roles to grow the Magic’s data and analytics program from a small, startup effort into a department that is regarded by sports industry professionals as a best-in-class team. Riola has also helped lead the Magic’s mobile strategy and digital technology efforts, including advancement of the team’s mobile app and development of new and innovative digital ticketing solutions. In 2016, he helped lead the process to bring the Orlando Magic’s G-League team, the Lakeland Magic, to Lakeland, Florida, negotiating the deal with the City of Lakeland and the RP Funding Center.In addition to his role with the Magic, Riola is an adjunct instructor with the DeVos Sport Business Management Graduate Program at the University of Central Florida, where he teaches a sport business analytics course. He is active in the broader sports business industry serving on several boards and advisory committees, including currently serving as chair for UCF’s DeVos Sports Business Management Program’s Advisory Board, Baylor University’s Center for Sports Strategy and Sales (S3), KORE Software’s Customer Advisory Board, the Greater Orlando Sports Commission’s Human Rights Committee for its 2026 FIFA World Cup Candidate City Bid and the NBA’s Team Innovation Advisory Council (TIAC). Riola also serves on the board of Sports2Change, a nonprofit organization he founded that encourages volunteerism among youth student-athletes in Central Florida.Riola received his bachelor's degree in business administration with concentrations in finance and marketing from Trinity University in San Antonio, Texas in 2006, where he played on the men’s basketball team. He received his MBA from the University of Florida in 2011. Riola currently resides in Orlando’s College Park neighborhood with his wife, Julia. They have a daughter, Madeline, and a son, Mason.--The Data Chief is presented by our friends at ThoughtSpot. Searching through your company’s data for insights doesn’t have to be complicated. With ThoughtSpot, anyone in your organization can easily answer their own data questions, find the facts, and make better, faster decisions. Learn more at thoughtspot.com.  Hear more from Cindi Howson here. Sponsored by ThoughtSpot.

For years, businesses have prioritized academic background and domain expertise when searching for top talent, matching current skills to job reqs with little regard for candidate aptitude. But according to Iwao Fusillo, Chief Data and Analytics Officer at General Motors, this is an outdated strategy. Iwao has led and developed data and analytics teams across multiple verticals, including finance and sports. In his experience, the secret to building successful and diverse teams is assessing passion, too. Fusillo, a data and analytics veteran with prior stops in the NFL and American Express, now leads GM’s program for enterprise-wide analytics and data science. In this episode of the Data Chief, Iwao joins Cindi to discuss how data and analytics are fueling the future of General Motors, advice for structuring and scaling data teams, and how GM’s newly founded data and analytics academy is fostering data literacy across the organization.Key TakeawaysPresentation is key: As data and analytics professionals, one of the most important skills you can develop is how to speak the language of the business. This means presenting data stories in a business-friendly way so that non-technical stakeholders start to build trust in data programs, not fear or confusion.The best talent is both skilled and passionate: If you’re only evaluating candidates based on a bulleted list of current skills and past experience, you’re very likely missing out on great talent. Don’t discount a desire to learn and passion for your product or industry.AI requires a hands-on approach: While AI and machine learning offer many opportunities for improved business operations, they can pose great risk if left unsupervised. Responsible use of these technologies means paying attention to data quality and acting quickly when biases are identified.Key Quotes“It's such a unique time to be in the automotive industry because automotive and tech are coming together. As I sit here today, as GM's Chief Data and Analytics Officer, I really do feel that data and analytics are fueling GM's future, our all-electric, zero-emissions future, and being responsible for a program of enterprise-wide analytics, top-tier data science capabilities in an industry that I've got such passion about is big for me.” “As analytics mature over the next decade, as A.I. continues to mature over the next couple of decades, Chief Data Officers, Chief Analytics Officers will in fact be tapped more for CEO positions and independent board positions. Many more functions will be led by data-savvy, senior executives.”“Passion, when it comes to data, [data] literacy is really important. That's why we put the GM analytics academy course out there, to not only build the literacy itself but just the passion in having a core competency around analyzing and presenting data in a compelling way to make decisions.”“I am seeing a rapid uptake here at General Motors in data and analytics being a part of that strategic story, data, and analytics, being a part of every person in every function and how they think about it and how, how they think about advancing their function.”“There's domain expertise, and I think having great math and science skills are important, but they're not a full package. You don’t have to have math and science, or you have to have transferable skills, yes. I would say, I would take the passionate person who I could drop into a textile mill in the middle of the Midwest somewhere. And that person will figure it out. I'd rather have that than the person with the exact academic background.”“Some of the attributes we teach in the analytics academy are speaking in the vernacular of the business. How do we talk about data concepts from descriptive analytics to predictive analytics? How do we talk about those concepts in a business-friendly way?” Bio:Iwao Fusillo joined General Motors as Chief Data and Analytics Officer in January 2021. Reporting to the Head of Innovation & Growth for GM, Iwao is responsible for driving GM’s program for enterprise-wide analytics and data science capabilities. He leads the end-to-end data lifecycle and establishes business processes for best-in-class data strategy, architecture, governance and democratization. Acting as GM’s data evangelist, he ensures that GM’s 1,300+ data analytic professionals use a value-based approach to defining workstream priorities and serves as a trusted business advisor to senior management and various stakeholders to identify strategic analytics opportunities with transformative value creation potential. --The Data Chief is presented by our friends at ThoughtSpot. Searching through your company’s data for insights doesn’t have to be complicated. With ThoughtSpot, anyone in your organization can easily answer their own data questions, find the facts, and make better, faster decisions. Learn more at thoughtspot.com.  Hear more from Cindi Howson here. Sponsored by ThoughtSpot.

Every day we make decisions. Some are as simple as deciding when to leave for work in order to beat traffic or what to eat for breakfast. Others bear much greater importance, such as what new products to launch or what new markets to tackle. Analytics plays an important role in helping your business make these decisions in a smarter, more data-driven way.“The purpose of analytics is to help us make decisions, is to create decision-making capabilities across the company. The next step was to find out what those decisions are that we would need to make? When I say decisions, these are not like once in a quarter, boardroom decisions. I'm talking about everyday decisions that many of our colleagues make every single day.”Vijay Kotu is the SVP of Data and Analytics for ServiceNow, a company that is helping enterprises manage digital workflows. In this episode of the Data Chief, Vijay discusses how he is building a high-growth “mathematical enterprise” where frontline workers are empowered to make smarter business decisions with data and AI. He also speaks about the impact of ecosystems, the need for businesses to have a holistic view of their data in order to create positive outcomes, and why being intentional about analytics use cases is absolutely essential. Key Takeaways:Don’t underestimate the impact of micro-decisions: We all want to be more data-driven, but don’t fall into the trap of thinking that data and analytics can only be applied to once-a-quarter, boardroom-level decisions. Enabling frontline employees to be more data-driven in their everyday work is a hugely powerful way to make a positive impact across your entire business.Evaluate how data can improve workflows: The holy grail of analytics is converting insights to action. One of the most effective ways to do this is by automating workflows whenever and wherever possible. With automation, you help everyone in the business be more efficient without adding any extra work or manual decision-making.Data becomes exponentially more powerful when it’s connected: Having all of your proprietary data in one place is a great way to start your data journey but it becomes exponentially more valuable when you connect it to outside data sources. Bringing together multiple sources of data gives you even richer insights about your customers, employees, and products.Data serves the business: At the end of the day, your data goals should align with that of businesses. Data and analytics professionals must remember that data is there to serve sales, marketing, product, IT, etc. into making better decisions for the business. They are the ones running the functions and the data and analytics teams are the backbone of that. Therefore, data teams should be designing products with that in mind.Key Quotes“The purpose of analytics is to help us make decisions, is to create decision-making capabilities across the company. The next step was to find out what those decisions are that we would need to make? When I say decisions, these are not like once in a quarter, boardroom decisions. I'm talking about everyday decisions that many of our colleagues make every single day.”“Data just in one place, it's less valuable. But when you connect it with other data points that you have, it becomes even more valuable.”“What are you going to do with those insights? That would be the actions. If these insights are helping you make a decision, how do we actually put that decision in action is closing the loop. That has been the Holy Grail of analytics. Rather than stopping at insights, you're closing the loop on helping people do that action here.”“The things that matter the most for our customers right now is a prioritization decision, and doing really well in those areas will help us reach further in our goal.”Bio:Vijay Kotu is Senior Vice President of Analytics at ServiceNow. He leads the implementation of large-scale data platforms and services to support the company's enterprise business. He has led analytics organizations for over a decade with focus on data strategy, business intelligence, machine learning, experimentation, engineering, enterprise adoption, and building analytics talent. Prior to joining ServiceNow, he was Vice President of Analytics at Yahoo. He worked at Life Technologies and Adteractive where he led marketing analytics, created algorithms to optimize online purchasing behavior, and developed data platforms to manage marketing campaigns. He is a member of the Association of Computing Machinery and a member of the Advisory Board at RapidMiner.To hear more about ServiceNow, check out their podcast.--The Data Chief is presented by our friends at ThoughtSpot. Searching through your company’s data for insights doesn’t have to be complicated. With ThoughtSpot, anyone in your organization can easily answer their own data questions, find the facts, and make better, faster decisions. Learn more at thoughtspot.com.  Hear more from Cindi Howson here. Sponsored by ThoughtSpot.

At the end of every year, you’re probably asking the same questions we are. What are the big changes coming next year? How do I stay ahead of them? And what’s separating real trends from the hype?To answer these questions, we are excited to bring together some of the top minds in the industry. In this special episode, we’ll pick their brains and dig into what you need to know to thrive in the year ahead. You’ll hear from three incredible guests -- all of whom are building and shaping the future of data and analytics:First, Ben Taylor, the Chief AI Evangelist at DataRobotThen, the Global Field CTO of Databricks, Chris D’Agostino.And finally, Bruno Aziza, the Head of Data & Analytics at Google Cloud.Nothing is off the table. So whether you want to hear about augmented everything, dig into the debate around different cloud platforms, or learn why analytics has become more impactful than ever, this is the episode for you.Key TakeawaysCDOs must deliver simplicity but contend with complexity: As the data ecosystem continues to introduce new innovation at an ever increasing rate, data leaders must grapple with all these new capabilities. At the same time, however, the rising need for access to this innovation from nontechnical, business professionals means CDOs must simultaneously deliver simple, intuitive experiences that empower the rest of the businessIs the data warehouse on the way out? D’Agostino makes a bold prediction that within 10 years, the traditional data warehouse won’t exist. That begs the question: what will replace it? The lakehouse, data mesh, and data fabric are all contenders, but require organizational changes, not just the introduction of new technologies, as Aziza points out. Preventing bias within models: A consistent problem in the industry - one that we’ve touched on several times this year - is the potential for machine learning and AI to scale bias in unprecedented ways. As we enter 2022, it will become even more imperative that you and your team are able to answer questions like “how will this model potentially amplify basis,” “how can we prevent biases,” or “what biases exist in our data sets?” Creating an ecosystem of data sharing: The rise of analytics exchanges creates massive opportunity for businesses for two reasons. First, it allows users to share data across platforms at a faster rate. And second, users are now able to share more than just data, but actual assets at an improved rate.In 2022, AI, ML, and data products must prove value: For years, companies have experimented with AI and ML, but as Taylor points out, the disillusionment with the impact of these experiments is at an all time high. So whether you’re building data products or launching new AI use cases, data leaders need to lead with the value they will deliver, not only imagine the art of what’s possible.--The Data Chief is presented by our friends at ThoughtSpot. Searching through your company’s data for insights doesn’t have to be complicated. With ThoughtSpot, anyone in your organization can easily answer their own data questions, find the facts, and make better, faster decisions. Learn more at thoughtspot.com.    Hear more from Cindi Howson here. Sponsored by ThoughtSpot.

As we wrap up Season 2 of the Data Chief Podcast, It’s time to once again thank all of our listeners for tuning in and sending Cindi your ideas, and to all of our awesome guests who willingly shared their time and insights along the way.  This season The Data Chief shared stories such as Sol Rashidi, CAO Estèe Lauder Companies, about how she starts every day by reading for an hour.  Or from Season one, Alberto Rey Villaverdo, Executive Director of Advanced Analytics at VirginMedia, about how he reads an hour or more every single day. It’s those stories that have inspired this special end-of-season episode.In this podcast, Cindi is joined by four distinct authors with must-read books, two new that are new to bookshelves, and two that are time-tested. Be sure to check out the companion blog on thedatachief.com for other books Cindi recommends as well.In this episode you’ll hear from Randy Bean, author of Fail Fast, Learn Faster.John Thompson on Building Analytics TeamsCole Knussbaumer Knaflic on Storytelling with DataDoug Laney on Infonomics: How to Monetize, Manage, and Measure Information as an Asset for Competitive AdvantageKey TakeawaysFrom Randy Bean, Developing a data culture is an ongoing process: Becoming data-driven or developing a data culture is not a destination, it's an ongoing process that never truly ends. In fact, the most sophisticated data companies are often the most worried about how they’re doing. This mindset of continued iteration and improvement is what fuels innovation. When you feel like you have it all figured out, think again.From John Thompson, When building an analytics team, hybrid models deliver the best of both worlds: Although more complex than other organizational models, hybrid data teams allow you to meet the needs of your business in a faster, more scalable, and more effective way. How? At any given time, high-volume data professionals will be focused on repetitive tasks like data acquisition, data integration, feature engineering, modeling, and feeding data objects up the chain, while artisanal data scientists directly interface with the subject matter experts embedded across various lines of business. From Cole Knussbaumer Knaflic, Shape data stories with your audience in mind: When presenting data, it’s important to understand who your audience is. What do they care about? How will this information impact them? What action should they take after receiving it? Tailoring your data story to them and building a narrative arc that takes them along for the journey is key to creating the kinds of a-ha moments that stick.From Doug Laney, Data monetization requires innovative thinking: For many organizations, the value of their data outweighs the value of the rest of their business. Instead of focusing on the limitations of regulations like GDPR or HIPPA when going to monetize it, try to think outside the box. Can your data help you develop a new product or service? Can it forge a partner relationship? Can you sell a derivative of it? The possibilities are limitless.--The Data Chief is presented by our friends at ThoughtSpot. Searching through your company’s data for insights doesn’t have to be complicated. With ThoughtSpot, anyone in your organization can easily answer their own data questions, find the facts, and make better, faster decisions. Learn more at thoughtspot.com.  Hear more from Cindi Howson here. Sponsored by ThoughtSpot.

Is the role of a data scientist still a “sexy job” or has it lost a bit of its luster? And what’s more important for successful data leaders, deep data knowledge or business savvy?Daniel Seymore is the Head of Business Intelligence for Investec, a bank that is delivering out of the ordinary insights in the world of finance to help its customers create and manage wealth. One of Daniel’s career-guiding principles is to question the conventional, and on this episode of The Data Chief, he sheds light on some of these questions and shares how he is continuing to live by this principle to help Investec modernize its data capabilities. Daniel and Cindi also discuss why the only constant in life is change, which means businesses must place a larger emphasis on upskilling workforces. Lastly, the two dive into why domain expertise might be the most important skill for any data leader.Main TakeawaysDomain expertise matters: The hardest pivot for most technical professionals is moving away from day-to-day technical capabilities and into a leadership role. Data science is an important part of any company’s toolkit, but great leaders should understand the problems they’re solving on a business level and be able to relay it back in a way everyone can understand.Fail quickly to learn and adapt: With any project, it’s good to have a plan but it’s also important to embrace the idea of failure. The faster you fail, the sooner you can learn and adapt your processes to succeed.Change management is about partnerships: Gone are the days when employees sit back and take every direction from their boss at face value. Successful change managers recognize the individual value each employee can add to a project. They treat it as a partnership. And this is benefiting not just immediate teams, but the business as a whole.About DanielDaniel Seymore joined Investec in 2016 and soon after got appointed to lead the Private Bank Business Intelligence team. Prior to Investec, Daniel worked at SARS as the Manager of the Performance Analytics team. His career has mainly been focused within the data realm with extensive experience within the fields of data analytics and decision sciences.At Investec Daniel is responsible for operational and strategic management of the business intelligence and operational analytics capability within the Private Bank department. This includes identifying and implementing machine learning use cases and scaling the capability enterprise wide, refactoring and streamlining of data warehouse processes and implementation of self-service capabilities for end-users.--The Data Chief is presented by our friends at ThoughtSpot. Searching through your company’s data for insights doesn’t have to be complicated. With ThoughtSpot, anyone in your organization can easily answer their own data questions, find the facts, and make better, faster decisions. Learn more at thoughtspot.com.   Hear more from Cindi Howson here. Sponsored by ThoughtSpot.

JoAnn Stonier loves her role. After all, when you’re the Chief Data Officer for Mastercard, the opportunities to create real change are plentiful. But Stonier knows her work is about more than just data privacy and governance, it’s about aligning the company’s data strategy to business goals and impacting the organization in a positive way. And of course, making sure that all 725 million of Mastercard’s credit card holders are protected.With a career rooted in privacy, a degree in law, and a background in interior design, Stonier is not just a well-rounded CDO, she’s a visionary. On this episode of The Data Chief, JoAnn joins Cindi for an inside look at data’s impact on people, data ethics, and the importance of building trustworthy models.Main TakeawaysThe CDO is an enabler of the business: In Joann’s own words, “the role of the CDO is to engage the business in tomorrow’s business.” This means CDOs must consistently be aligned with the company's goals, and develop capabilities that lay track for future innovation. Great data governance, data management, and data quality are table stakes. The CDO must also have a sense for where the market is going and how the business can carve out new space for itself to deliver value to customers.Data is about people: As a data leader, it’s easy to get caught up in the novelty and opportunity of innovation. But data is more than an anonymized collection of 0s and 1s, it’s about people and the tremendous impact it can have on their lives. As products and services are developed, it’s important to apply individually-centric design principles and evaluate how you might be affecting someone, for better or worse, on the other side.Responsible AI starts with trustworthy data: Simply put, data is food for AI. In order to build ethical or responsible AI and machine learning algorithms, there must be improvement in data trust and quality. Oftentimes these algorithms are missing integral data points that neglect particular demographics. This creates a level of bias in the numbers that will only continue to be amplified over time.About JoAnnJoAnn Stonier is the Chief Data Officer for Mastercard, where she is responsible for the enterprise data strategy and management, including identifying and mitigating data risks across the company, as well as influencing data-driven products, overseeing data policy and governance.  She advises executive management on a broad range of complex data policy and regulatory issues.    Prior to her current position, Ms. Stonier established the first Privacy Office for Mastercard in 2008, and developed the organization’s Information Governance program beginning in 2013.  Prior to joining Mastercard, Ms. Stonier was the Chief Privacy Officer for American Express Company.  JoAnn is a recognized data and privacy expert and is sought after for her innovative and practical approach to solving problems in the digital age.  In 2018 she assisted in the creation and launch of Trūata, an Irish data trust enterprise, formed to ensure anonymization compliance with the EU-General Data Protection Regulation. She currently serves on their board.  In addition to the Trūata board of directors, she currently advises a broad range of industry and policy groups regarding data innovation and privacy including:  the United Nations Global Privacy Advisory Group; the World Economic Forum’s Data Driven Development Steering Committee; and the Board of Directors of the Information Accountability Foundation.  She is also a Board Advisor for Hope for the Warriors, a non-for-profit organization that assists U.S. military personnel and their families.   She has served on the Board of Directors for the International Association of Privacy Professionals from (2013-2018) and served on the Executive Committee in multiple roles including Chairman in 2017. For her data thought leadership, Ms. Stonier has been recognized by the Information Governance Initiative as the Chief Information Governance Officer of 2015 and in 2011 she was named as an Aspen Institute First Mover Fellow.  Ms. Stonier received her Juris Doctorate from St. John’s University in Queens, and her Bachelor of Science degree from St. Francis College.  Ms. Stonier is a lawyer and holds memberships in the Bar of the State of New York and the Bar of the State of New Jersey.  --The Data Chief is presented by our friends at ThoughtSpot. Searching through your company’s data for insights doesn’t have to be complicated. With ThoughtSpot, anyone in your organization can easily answer their own data questions, find the facts, and make better, faster decisions. Learn more at thoughtspot.com.   Hear more from Cindi Howson here. Sponsored by ThoughtSpot.

Every data professional will gladly discuss their big wins — but what about their big losses? How have career hiccups molded them into the leaders they are today and put them on a path to transform entire industries? Sol Rashidi is the Chief Analytics Officer at the Estée Lauder Company. Throughout her personal and professional life, Sol has used moments of uncertainty as opportunities for growth. Today she is recognized as one of the top 50 most powerful women in tech. On this episode of The Data Chief, Sol joins Cindi for a candid conversation about how she uses challenging circumstances as fuel for further innovation, and how she turns failures into valuable learning moments. Sol also takes a deep dive into the unique position of the CDO as both a business and a tech partner, why data as a service for internal stakeholders is just as important as when designing consumer-facing data products, and why knowing your shelf life is one of the most valuable professional skills you can have.Main TakeawaysCompetition breeds innovation: When it comes to fostering innovation, having the right talent and a propensity for technology are both critical to success. But so is a healthy amount of competition. When your margins are locked, there’s no sense of urgency and it’s easy to slide into a state of complacency. On the other hand, industries with more competition tend to see higher levels of innovation because teams are motivated to push the envelope.   Data as a service for internal stakeholders: External facing data apps and operationalizing machine learning are great for data monetization, but applying a product mindset is a key tool for internal stakeholders as well. The reality is enterprises are hungry for insights and it’s important to develop tools with these constituents in mind. Data and insights must come to life for the organization so it can be used by anyone within the organization. The scope of tech is always changing: Every new piece of technology is going to possess the latest and greatest features, but it’s important to understand where that technology is in its maturity cycle and a particular tech partner’s focus. Will a particular service solve the need for the business at hand, and will it continue to serve a need into the future? These answers are often more telling than any laundry list of features.About SolSol Rashidi currently holds 8 patents, with 21 filed in the Data & Analytics space and is a keynote speaker at several technology conferences speaking on various topics such as Machine Learning, Data & Analytics, and Emerging Operating Models for organizations taking on transformations in the D&A space. Prior to joining Estee Lauder as their Chief Analytics Officer, Sol was the Chief Data & Analytics Officer for Merck, EVP and CDO for Sony Music, and Chief Data & Cognitive officer for Royal Caribbean.Goal oriented and a team player, Sol believes in uncomplicating the complicated and cultivating environments that are innovative, driven, and collaborative. Sol has a unique ability in bridging the gap between Business and IT, her deep understanding of multiple functional disciplines (i.e. change management, enterprise data, application architecture, process re-engineering, sales, etc.) enables her to drive change by articulate the need for change in organizations that otherwise wouldn’t evolve.Sol played NCAA Water Polo and Rugby for Cal on the Women’s National Rugby Team for several years, and completed the Ironman.--The Data Chief is presented by our friends at ThoughtSpot. Searching through your company’s data for insights doesn’t have to be complicated. With ThoughtSpot, anyone in your organization can easily answer their own data questions, find the facts, and make better, faster decisions. Learn more at thoughtspot.com.  Hear more from Cindi Howson here. Sponsored by ThoughtSpot.

Data governance. It’s a “dirty word” in business often associated with being told “no,” but from the perspective of the CDO it’s a crucial part of managing data quality and trust. How are employees being held accountable? Do people have the right access to insights? And is your own business’ data infrastructure and governance policies fostering innovation or stifling it? Ameet Shetty is Chief Data and Analytics Officer at Pilot Flying J, a company that serves more than 1.3 million consumers daily while operating more than 750 locations stateside. On this episode of The Data Chief, Ameet joins Cindi for a conversation on data governance and how to organize your analytics team. Ameet explains why governance gets a bad rap while also touching on the importance of balancing accountability with innovation, having the right technology foundation in place, and the most successful CDOs are natural connectors.Main TakeawaysLean on data as a driver for customer insights and intimacy: Data is key to creating unique personalized touchpoints for your customers. By allowing customers to willingly provide information across all the business touchpoints, this creates a chance to drive insights and move the organizations forward. Companies can use this information to create a stickier connection with the user by providing more personalized experiences in-store or across its apps, but this also gives the business a chance to enhance every touch point and provide a consistent user experience.Building a holistic team pushes you forward: A single individual cannot pull the boat forward, but a team rowing together can get the boat to where it needs to go. When building teams, make sure you are taking a holistic approach and bringing in members from different fields of expertise and backgrounds to close the gap in areas where you are not as strongOver-governing stifles innovation: The term governance is a dirty word for a lot of enterprises, but it’s more important to think about governance not as a burden or regulatory issue but more as data management. It’s important always to maintain data quality, but you must have a balance because you don’t want to govern your data to the point that it stifles innovation.About AmeetAmeet Sheet is the Chief Data Officer at Pilot Flying J. Prior to joining Pilot, Ameet served as McDonald’s first Chief Data Officer. Ameet is helping to define and infuse data across the global enterprise.  He is creating the roadmap to identify the technology, team, process and culture change required for enabling enterprise data transformation and establish best-in-class processes for data strategy and governance and evangelizing these changes throughout McDonald’s.Prior to McDonald’s, Ameet was the Chief Data & Analytics Officer for SunTrust Banks, Inc.  In this role, he led the Enterprise Data & Analytics office, with responsibility for driving the strategic vision and effective deployment of data and business intelligence capabilities to improve efficiency, reduce risk, and enable strategic business growth.Ameet earned an MBA in Marketing from Georgia State University and a Bachelor’s degree in Finance from the University of Georgia.  --The Data Chief is presented by our friends at ThoughtSpot. Searching through your company’s data for insights doesn’t have to be complicated. With ThoughtSpot, anyone in your organization can easily answer their own data questions, find the facts, and make better, faster decisions. Learn more at thoughtspot.com.  Hear more from Cindi Howson here. Sponsored by ThoughtSpot.

No journey to the cloud is the same. While some will encounter similar obstacles, each journey has its own unique challenges. But what happens when a company born in the midst of a crisis and changing technology, has to innovate just as fast as the changing landscape to keep up?Ryan Graciano is the co-founder and CTO of Credit Karma, a company that is aligning technology and data to help bring transparency to the credit lending process. On this episode of The Data Chief, Ryan explains how Credit Karma survived early struggles such as the financial crisis of 2008. Ryan also touches on how Credit Karma navigated it’s journey to the cloud, stepping away from the comfort of on-premises data centers to the elasticity of the cloud, and the importance of grooming outside data sources to keep insights consistent. That and more on today’s episode with Ryan Graciano.Main TakeawaysExplainable algorithms drive success: As third party datasets become more readily available, there is an evolving need for data professionals to understand where that data is coming from and how it will affect your models. While these datasets can make it easier for models to be spun up quickly, you must be able to account for how and why those algorithms are generating particular answers.Clean data leads to reliable answers: Data analysts must spend time making sure the data they are using is not only clean, but reliable. When an analyst uses dirty or untrustworthy data, algorithms will have a tendency to run in an undefined manner, which will lead to high variance in answer quality and consistency.Keep data fluency a priority: Even for organizations that believe they are data literate, the process of understanding data at an organizational level is an ongoing one. A best practice for maintaining data literacy is to create a standardized set of how data is recorded and reported internally. When practices like this are standardized, organizations can avoid issues like data bias.About RyanAs a co-founder of Credit Karma and Chief Technical Officer, Ryan Graciano has grown the company’s engineering department from a one-man band into a team of hundreds, developing a technical framework to support the company’s rapid growth. His expertise and innovation has helped bring new levels of usability and sophistication to financial services technologies.Today, Ryan runs an ever-expanding group of engineers tasked with building out new products at pace while stressing a culture of agility and experimentation, even as Credit Karma reaches new levels of scale. As a leader, he serves as a constructive agitator, looking to break down traditional workplace hierarchies and empowering each member of his department with real influence over the future of the product.Ryan has a Bachelor's degree in Computer Science from the Georgia Institute of Technology and spent five years at IBM before joining Credit Karma.--The Data Chief is presented by our friends at ThoughtSpot. Searching through your company’s data for insights doesn’t have to be complicated. With ThoughtSpot, anyone in your organization can easily answer their own data questions, find the facts, and make better, faster decisions. Learn more at thoughtspot.com.  Hear more from Cindi Howson here. Sponsored by ThoughtSpot.

The role of the Chief Data Officer is an evolving one. Today, data professionals are expected to be champions for their business  – aligning data goals with business values – while also leading their company’s digital transformation. It’s a position best suited for visionaries, advocates, and change agents.  Darren Pedroza is the Vice President of Enterprise Data and Analytics at First Command Financial Services, with a mission of helping military families reach their financial goals. In addition to being a data and analytics savant, a major part of his success in this role is his acute understanding of how to transform a data strategy to keep pace with changing times and business needs. On this episode of The Data Chief, Darren explains how First Command transformed its data and cloud strategy to be more flexible, agile, and democratized. Darren also touches on a host of topics, including Databricks, what routinely leads to bad data, and leadership best practices.Main TakeawaysFuture-proof your cloud strategy: Your cloud data strategy shouldn’t end at scale. Focus on flexibility, agility, and democratization by adopting as many cloud-native tools as needed and consistently upskilling non-technical business users. Additionally, you want to be intentional about your build vs. buy strategies and make sure the vendors you partner with become allies.Remember that good data doesn’t just happen: All data has a lifecycle, but there are two unique challenges that plague companies when it comes to their data collection: silos and poor user experiences. The best data collection applications are the ones that have a simple workflow, and a clear and pleasant user experience.Align your team to your tech stack: When going through digital transformation it’s important to make sure that not only are you partnering with vendors that can integrate across multiple platforms, but also compliment the skillset of your team at hand.--The Data Chief is presented by our friends at ThoughtSpot. Searching through your company’s data for insights doesn’t have to be complicated. With ThoughtSpot, anyone in your organization can easily answer their own data questions, find the facts, and make better, faster decisions. Learn more at thoughtspot.com. -- For full show notes and more, go to thedatachief.com.  Hear more from Cindi Howson here. Sponsored by ThoughtSpot.

In the age of data-driven decision making, an adage still bears true: People are a company's most valuable asset. No matter how technologically advanced and forward thinking your company is, it cannot operate without the individuals that make the organization go. So how are companies using data and analytics to not only make better decisions at the company level, but also improve the employee experience? And how are data and analytics predicting trends for the future of work that includes employee well-being and greater inclusivity?Serena Huang is the Global Head of People Analytics at the Kraft Heinz Company. On this episode of The Data Chief she shares insights into her work and why companies are turning to this important function to design more thoughtful employee experiences. Enjoy!Main TakeawaysStart with the problem, not the data: When solving a problem, don’t start with your data. Instead, understand what solution you are trying to solve for and then design your experiments around that problem. Once that’s in place, you can start gathering directional data that will lead to a solution. Share your progress and momentum: Transparency is key, so when you are conducting your analysis make sure the data you are collecting from employees not only benefits the company, but also the employee itself. If your employee feels as if the line of questioning does not benefit them, they are less likely to participate. Your data gathering process must be a two-way street that shows results both for the employees and the company.Create value beyond the obvious: Data and analytics should always be on the lookout for new ways to bring value to the business. For Kraft Heinz, this meant measuring different scenarios such as exit interviews, engagement surveys, and understanding why employees left, to create a more holistic view of the employee experience.About SerenaDr. Serena Huang is currently the Global Head of People Analytics at the Kraft Heinz Company. Serena is a thought leader in people analytics, HR technology, future of work, and employee experience with deep expertise spanning large multinationals including GE and Deloitte. Her recent interviews appeared on Workforce.com and Rallyware. Dr. Huang is also a long-time practitioner of mindfulness and leads guided meditations in corporate settings to boost employee well-being.As a data analytics executive, Dr. Huang is passionate about leading change, building high-performing global teams, and helping business leaders see data as an asset in large organizations. She excels at showing executives the “art of the possible” through both 1-on-1 dialogues and facilitated hands-on workshops, and co-creating customizable, scalable solutions in predictive analytics in HR, Workplace Strategy, Supply Chain and Litigation domains. Dr. Huang has built and led on-shore/off-shore analytics teams and capabilities from the ground up in highly matrixes multi-national corporations over the past 10 years. She welcomes global opportunities outside the U.S. or U.S. companies with significant global footprint.--The Data Chief is presented by our friends at ThoughtSpot. Searching through your company’s data for insights doesn’t have to be complicated. With ThoughtSpot, anyone in your organization can easily answer their own data questions, find the facts, and make better, faster decisions. Learn more at thoughtspot.com. -- For full show notes and more, go to thedatachief.com. Hear more from Cindi Howson here. Sponsored by ThoughtSpot.

The restaurant industry has been one of the hardest hit industries over the last year. Amid countless closures and reopenings, restaurants have overcome many obstacles in an effort to survive. Through these struggles, restaurant professionals have turned to data to optimize everything from takeout orders to new layouts, all the way to analyzing market recovery. Grant Parsamyan is the Senior Vice President for Data and Analytics at OpenTable, an online restaurant reservation service that is empowering restaurants of all sizes to operate more efficiently through the use of technology. On this episode of The Data Chief, Grant dives into OpenTable’s State of the Industry site, designed to illustrate how COVID-19 has impacted restaurants through powerful data storytelling. Grant and Cindi also discuss the importance of data literacy, and picking the right analytics tools to match business use cases. Enjoy!Main TakeawaysMeasuring success and proving value: Measuring success or measuring value from data and analytics is a difficult proposition. A recent study suggests less than 14% of businesses go back to do an ROI study, so it’s incumbent on data professionals to continuously be capturing anecdotes of the businesses benefits to prove value over time. A best practice for measuring value is to set a baseline and make sure that you pick the right tool to advance your use case and then measure that baseline to provide the value of those investments to gain the credibility to advance your analytics.Decline of the dashboard: The role of data professionals is becoming less about developing dashboards and more about creating tools that empower users to answer their own questions. Because data flows at such a quick pace, predetermined views and dashboards are often outdated as soon as they’re created.Data sharing leads to quicker results: Data sharing is enabling customers to monetize data without the messiness of manual file transfers. By being able to share data from one platform to another, data professionals are not constrained by time and volume.About GrantGrant Parsamyan serves as the Vice President - Data Engineering and Analytics of OpenTable. Grant started at OpenTable in March of 2017. Grant currently resides in the Greater Los Angeles area.--The Data Chief is presented by our friends at ThoughtSpot. Searching through your company’s data for insights doesn’t have to be complicated. With ThoughtSpot, anyone in your organization can easily answer their own data questions, find the facts, and make better, faster decisions. Learn more at thoughtspot.com. -- For full show notes and more, go to thedatachief.com.  Hear more from Cindi Howson here. Sponsored by ThoughtSpot.

Data and the power it wields has made its way into every industry over the last decade. From entertainment to real estate, all the way to the fashion industry, companies leading their industries are using data to create uniquely personalized digital experiences.Brad Klingenberg is the Chief Algorithms Officer at Daily Harvest, the direct-to-consumer brand that helps stock your home with fresh, plant-based foods. Brad leads the data team and is charged with using data and algorithms to create meals Daily Harvest customers will enjoy and keep coming back for. On this episode of The Data Chief, Brad and Cindi discuss the importance of aligning your customers’ wants with business value to create unique experiences, and how to go about sourcing data to get the desired outcomes. Brad also dives into his previous work at Stitch Fix, and provides insights on how to scale data teams and foster a data culture. Enjoy!Main TakeawaysThe personalization promise to customers: Customers aren’t giving you their data for free. They’re doing it so your business can get to know them in ways that make sense, and to use that information to create more personalized experiences for them. When the customer trusts what you’re going to use their information for, you have an opportunity - and obligation - to create a unique experience that is both beneficial for the customer and the business.Tools to solve data bias: It’s quite easy for biases to be introduced into your algorithms through the data that is used. While there is an emerging set of tools to help diagnose and evaluate data bias, it’s a hard problem to solve, and one that requires getting to the root - the data itself. Everything starts with the data you have. Data teams need to put an emphasis on the diversity in their data to recognize gaps and biases.Building a data-driven culture: Never before has it been more important for companies to champion a data-driven culture. Leaders need to lead by example in this shift. At the same time, data functions have a special role to play in helping companies reason with uncertainty, understand measurement and experimentation.About BradBrad Klingenberg is the Chief Algorithms Officer at Daily Harvest, the direct-to-consumer brand that helps you stock your home with clean, delicious food built on real fruit + vegetables and ready in minutes. Brad leads the data team and is charged with using data and algorithms to tailor the Daily Harvest experience to individual food values and taste preferences through the co-creation of food and digital personalization.Prior to Daily Harvest, Brad was the Chief Algorithm Officer at Stitch Fix, where he oversaw a team of more than 140 data scientists and engineers. As the leader of the Algorithms team, Brad was responsible for developing and improving the core algorithmic capabilities that leverage data to power Stitch Fix.Brad has also served as an advisor/consultant for Candidate Labs, Udacity, Opendoor.com, and Netflix. He currently lives in Boulder, CO with his family and holds a PhD from Stanford University, as well as a Bachelor of Science - Master of Science dual degree from University of Colorado at Boulder.--The Data Chief is presented by our friends at ThoughtSpot. Searching through your company’s data for insights doesn’t have to be complicated. With ThoughtSpot, anyone in your organization can easily answer their own data questions, find the facts, and make better, faster decisions. Learn more at thoughtspot.com. -- For full show notes and more, go to thedatachief.com. Hear more from Cindi Howson here. Sponsored by ThoughtSpot.

“Garbage in, garbage out.” It’s a philosophy every data leader is familiar with. Your algorithms and models are only as good as the data you put in them -- so how do you ensure the data you are leveraging is reliable and trustworthy? Joining Cindi today is Opendoor Co-founder and CTO, Ian Wong. Opendoor is on a mission to remove the guesswork from homebuying, and in this episode, Ian details how the company’s algorithms provide future homebuyers peace of mind about getting the best possible offer for their home. Ian explains how the team harnesses multiple data sources and uses machine learning to maintain a competitive advantage. Plus, Ian and Cindi discuss how to turn those valuable data insights into measurable business results. All that and more on today’s episode with Opendoor’s Ian Wong.Main TakeawaysTrust in the numbers: All great algorithms start with great data, but having a high fidelity of data is one of the key differentiators for any high-performing model. When you’re mixing first-party data with third-party data, be intentional about how you create strategic data models that fit your business. Data scientists need to hone business skills: As a data professional, it’s not enough to have a breadth of technical skills, coding, algorithms, statistics, and mathematics -- you must also have a firm grasp of business needs with solid communication skills. Remember: your research is not helpful if it does not meet the immediate needs of the business. Being able to find that balance is an integral skill for any young data scientist looking to break into the field.Fail fast and experiment: When it comes to machine learning, there's a lot of opportunity for failure. Launching a prototype quickly and iterating as you go  is the name of the game. It shouldn’t take a quarter to make and deploy a new algorithm. The more time between inception and deployment, the less likely you will be able to use the insights gathered. Stay agile, move quickly, and follow the data.About IanIan Wong is the co-founder and Chief Technology Officer of Opendoor, where he is responsible for the development of product and technology. Ian is building a team of engineers, data scientists, product managers and designers to modernize the real estate industry. He was previously pursuing his PhD in electrical engineering at Stanford when he left to join Square as their first data scientist. At Square, Ian developed tools and algorithms to handle risk. He has earned Masters degrees in electrical engineering and statistics from Stanford University. As a mission-driven real estate marketplace that radically simplifies home buying and selling, Opendoor has been used by over 85,000 customers in more than 25 metros nationwide.--The Data Chief is presented by our friends at ThoughtSpot. Searching through your company’s data for insights doesn’t have to be complicated. With ThoughtSpot, anyone in your organization can easily answer their own data questions, find the facts, and make better, faster decisions. Learn more at thoughtspot.com.  Hear more from Cindi Howson here. Sponsored by ThoughtSpot.

Ajeet Singh is a risk taker. There’s no other way to describe someone who's done the things he has and accomplished so much in such a short amount of time. An immigrant, entrepreneur, and and most importantly a disruptor, Singh has constructed two multi-billion dollar entities from the ground up. Throughout his journey, he’s been guided by two principles: his out-of-the-box thinking and curiosity about how he can improve people’s lives.As a young entrepreneur working in Silicon Valley during the big data days, Singh noticed the data and analytics space was ripe for disruption. So he did something about it. First with Nutranix and now with ThoughtSpot, where he's working to solve some of the world's biggest problems by democratizing data for all. On this episode of The Data Chief, Singh, Co-founder and Executive Chairman at ThoughtSpot, dives into some of the biggest challenges facing CDOs in 2021, why organizations must empower their leadership teams to drive meaningful change, and how big tech can be utilized for good moving forward.Main Takeaways:- The cloud is here to stay: Large enterprises are increasingly moving their data to the cloud. The challenge now for CEOs and CDOs is not “if” they will adopt cloud but “when,” and how quickly they can get there while maintaining their current momentum.- Empower your leaders to drive change: It’s easy to create new C-level positions, but real innovation and transformation starts with empowering your leadership with the required mandates and resources to empower their teams.- Build your culture with intention: Every organization inherently has a culture and you must be deliberate about how you build that culture. Every department should reflect your core principles and create a space for individuals and teams to thrive.About AjeetAjeet Singh is the co-founder and Executive Chairman at ThoughtSpot, a company revolutionizing analytics with search and AI. Driven by his passion for creation, Ajeet has built two multi-billion dollar technology companies from the ground up - ThoughtSpot and Nutanix. Prior to starting ThoughtSpot, he was a co-founder and Chief Products Officer at Nutanix, the leader in the enterprise cloud industry and largest tech IPO of 2016. Prior to Nutanix, Ajeet learned the ropes of enterprise technology startups as the Senior Director of Product Management at Aster Data, later acquired by Teradata for $300M. Ajeet has also held business and technical roles at Oracle, where he was part of the team that first launched Oracle Database to the Amazon EC2 cloud. Ajeet holds an MBA from the Indian Institute of Management, Calcutta, and a Bachelor of Science in Chemical Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur, where he graduated at the top of his class.--The Data Chief is presented by our friends at ThoughtSpot. Searching through your company’s data for insights doesn’t have to be complicated. With ThoughtSpot, anyone in your organization can easily answer their own data questions, find the facts, and make better, faster decisions. Learn more at thoughtspot.com.  Hear more from Cindi Howson here. Sponsored by ThoughtSpot.

Much like a roller coaster, 2020 was full of many loops, twists, and turns. From accelerated digital transformations to expedited migrations to the cloud, you were asked to do it all— often with far less time and resources. Through it all, The Data Chief was right there with you, along for the unprecedented ride. From the beginning this podcast had a vision: To bring you learnings and best practices from the brightest minds in our industry to help you all become better data stewards. On this episode of The Data Chief, we look back at some of the key themes from season one, including the rise of the CDO, the intricacies of aligning your department’s goals with that of the businesses, and how you coped with accelerated timelines. While we relive these important conversations, we also discuss why culture and data fluency continue to be the biggest hurdles to becoming a truly data-driven business.Main TakeawaysThe Rise of the Data Chief: The role of the CDO now goes beyond getting your data house in order. You must become a true analytics leader and business partner by developing a deep understanding of how to properly build a team and nurture strategic partnerships.Aligning with Your Business Values: Data is the lifeline of every organization but in order to achieve buy-in from your stakeholders, your data and analytic investments have to be aligned with the goals of your company. This means asking what projects are right for your team to pursue and which ones make the most sense for the overall direction of the organization.Rapid Technical Innovation and the Shift to Cloud: How we store and manage our data is changing rapidly. Many companies are moving their data to the cloud and their vendors are often the ones helping drive this change.Technology Reflects Culture: Technology and culture are two sides of the same coin. A culture of fear, protecting the status quo, and settling for “good enough” often engenders legacy tech saddled by inefficient processes. At the other end of the spectrum, organizations who are embracing cloud and augmented analytics are empowering new decision makers at the speed business demands.Assessing your Data Fluency: Investing in data fluency and partnering with business stakeholders to build these skills across your organization is part of your mandate as a Data Chief. As an industry, we need to flip the emphasis from technical training to using data in a business context.About CindiCindi Howson is an analytics and BI expert with 20-plus years’ experience and a flair for bridging business needs with technology. Cindi was previously a Gartner Vice President in data and analytics, lead author of the Analytics and BI Magic Quadrant, data and analytics maturity model, as well as research in data and AI for good, NLP/BI Search, and augmented analytics. She introduced the BI bake-offs and innovation panels at Gartner events globally and is a popular keynote speaker. Prior to this, she was the founder of BI Scorecard, a resource for in-depth product reviews based on exclusive hands-on testing, a contributor to Information Week, and the author of several books including Successful Business Intelligence: Unlock the Value of BI & Big Data and SAP BusinessObjects BI 4.0: The Complete Reference. She served as The Data Warehousing Institute (TDWI) faculty member for more than a decade. Prior to founding BI Scorecard, Howson was a manager at Deloitte & Touche and a BI standards leader for Dow Chemical. She has an MBA from Rice University and a BA from the University of Maryland.--The Data Chief is presented by our friends at ThoughtSpot. Searching through your company’s data for insights doesn’t have to be complicated. With ThoughtSpot, anyone in your organization can easily answer their own data questions, find the facts, and make better, faster decisions. Learn more at thoughtspot.com. -- For full show notes and more, go to thedatachief.com. Hear more from Cindi Howson here. Sponsored by ThoughtSpot.

Joining Cindi today is Ruha Benjamin, a professor of African American Studies at Princeton University and the founding director of the IDA B. WELLS Just Data Lab. She has studied the social dimensions of science, technology, and medicine for over 15 years and speaks widely on issues of innovation, equity, health, and justice in the U.S. and globally. Ruha is the author of Race After Technology: Abolitionist Tools for the New Jim Code and People's Science: Bodies and Rights on the Stem Cell Frontier, and the editor of Captivating Technology: Race, Carceral Technoscience, and Liberatory Imagination in Everyday Life.In this episode, Ruha and Cindi discuss how flawed data can have disastrous, real-world consequences for women and people of color. Ruha also describes a multidisciplinary approach to recognizing and refurbishing the processes for gathering and governing data.Key Takeaways:The least apparent bias is often the most dangerous. We can't prevent the consequences of bias or even take it seriously if we're not aware of it — or worse, choose to ignore its less obvious manifestations.Widen the lens and don't settle for 'happy talk.' Diversity is not the status quo for most organizations, therefore it should make us uncomfortable. If it’s not, it may be a sign that you’re stopping the conversation short.Focus on building the right team before you start building AI systems. Diversity needs to start from the groundwork that happens before the foundation is poured."Big me up." Surround yourself with role models and people who build you up rather than tear you down — and be a support system for them as well. More About Ruha:Ruha Benjamin is a professor of African American Studies at Princeton University and the founding director of the IDA B. WELLS Just Data Lab. She has studied the social dimensions of science, technology, and medicine for over fifteen years and speaks widely on issues of innovation, equity, health, and justice in the U.S. and globally.Ruha's second book, Race After Technology: Abolitionist Tools for the New Jim Code, examines the relationship between machine bias and systemic racism, analyzing specific cases of “discriminatory design,” and offering tools for a socially-conscious approach to tech development. She is also the editor of Captivating Technology.Ruha also recommends the workbook, Advancing Racial Literacy in Tech.--The Data Chief is presented by our friends at ThoughtSpot. Searching through your company’s data for insights doesn’t have to be complicated. With ThoughtSpot, anyone in your organization can easily answer their own data questions, find the facts, and make better, faster decisions. Learn more at thoughtspot.com. -- For full show notes and more, go to thedatachief.com. Hear more from Cindi Howson here. Sponsored by ThoughtSpot.

Joining Cindi today is Radha Sankaran, the Executive Director of Advanced Analytics/AI and ML at Verizon. Radha is a technology executive with more than 24 years of hands-on leadership experience with a proven track record in fast-paced and quality-driven product delivery. She has led and managed high-performance teams in the telecom and wireless industry for 4G LTE, IoT, and 5G technologies.Today, Radha and Cindi discuss the benefits of personalizing customer experience - including why personalization is Verizon's number one priority moving forward. Radha also shares her strategies for empowering frontline decision makers with data in a way that helps rather than overwhelms, how to protect customers’ privacy while putting their data to best use, and what women in tech aspiring to excel in this field should know to succeed and break the glass ceiling. Key Takeaways:Get personal. Leverage data to view your customer’s journey from their perspective. Whether it’s email, SMS, chatbots, in store visits, or interacting with a call center, tie cross-channel experiences together seamlessly to create a positive and personalized experience. But not too personal. Protecting customers’ data is at the core of everything Verizon does. When building personalized journeys, you have to find the balance between providing a valuable experience for your customer, while not overstepping their privacy in a way that feels invasive. Empowering frontline employees with data. Compiling and sharing every data point with your team is not helpful. Rather than overwhelming frontline decision makers with mountains of data, distill need-to-know data in a way that’s easy to consume. For Radha, this means equipping her team with only the data needed to determine the next best actions (NBX) for serving customers.Advice for girls and women in tech. “To all of those women and girls out there wanting to get into STEM, be bold. Don't let anything hold you back."More About Radha:Radha Sankaran is the Executive Director of Advanced Analytics/AI and ML at Verizon. She's a technology executive with 24+ years of hands-on leadership experience and a proven track record in fast-paced and quality-driven product delivery, leading and managing high-performance teams in the telecom and wireless industry for 4G LTE, IoT, and 5G technologies. Radha has a strong foundation of strategic thinking, operational excellence, people, and culture development, all anchored in integrity.  She has spent 12.5 years with Verizon and currently serves as the Exec Director of the Systems of Insights portfolio leading Advanced Analytics and AI-Driven Customer Experience Strategy and Development within the Customer Experience Organization for the Consumer Verizon Business. Before assuming her current position, she was the Executive Director spearheading omnichannel customer experience for all wireless assisted channels in addition to the overarching responsibilities for strategy, architecture, development, analytics, and quality assurance in Verizon IT resulting in annual revenues of $5B to $8B.Prior to Verizon, Radha spent 13 years at AT&T/Lucent/Avaya until 2007, where she did some pioneering work in the field of HDTV and Synchronous Optical Network (SONET) and CRM technologies. In her last responsibility at Avaya, she was in a technology architect role for implementing the Sales Module in SAP as well as Avaya's multimedia contact center application integrated into Siebel's service management module.Radha holds a Master's degree in Electrical Engineering from SUNY, Stony Brook.--The Data Chief is presented by our friends at ThoughtSpot. Searching through your company’s data for insights doesn’t have to be complicated. With ThoughtSpot, anyone in your organization can easily answer their own data questions, find the facts, and make better, faster decisions. Learn more at thoughtspot.com. -- For full show notes and more, go to thedatachief.com. Hear more from Cindi Howson here. Sponsored by ThoughtSpot.

This week we have a very special episode featuring insights from three data and analytics leaders on what to expect in 2021. You’ll hear from:Donald Farmer, a principal at TreeHive StrategyWayne Eckerson, the Founder and Principal Consultant at Eckerson GroupTom Davenport, Distinguished Professor of Information Technology and Management at Babson College They discuss everything from how to remain relevant in the rapidly evolving data and analytics industry, what technologies will have the biggest impact on our lives, and what the future of the workplace will look like and what those changes mean for your business. Enjoy the lightning rounds on Super Bowl predictions, snow, and best books to read! --The Data Chief is presented by our friends at ThoughtSpot. Searching through your company’s data for insights doesn’t have to be complicated. With ThoughtSpot, anyone in your organization can easily answer their own data questions, find the facts, and make better, faster decisions. Learn more at thoughtspot.com. -- For full show notes and more, go to thedatachief.com. Hear more from Cindi Howson here. Sponsored by ThoughtSpot.

Joining Cindi today is Chris Powers, Senior Vice President and Global Product Manager of Business Data Analytics & Digital Innovations at Citigroup.On this episode, Chris and Cindi discuss data literacy as a thought process that is nurtured by a good old-fashioned willingness to take things apart and put them back together again, what common data sense is and how it can be taught to people without shaming them, and why "the five whys" are an invaluable technique for solving almost any problem.They also examine the real -- and counterintuitive -- purpose of self-service analytics. Plus, Cindi and Chris explain why data's role as the new oil is only as good as knowing what engine can use it.Key Takeaways:If data is the new oil, you need to make sure it gets to the engine that can use it. Data, like oil, doesn't do anything on its own. In order for it to be of use, you need to have processes in place to contextualize that data and ensure it gets to the right experts and business decision-makers.Business users often know what they want, but not how to reach it. Your job is to connect the dots between them and their goal, while challenging false assumptions that obscure the path to that goal. For this (and many other problems you'll encounter), the five whys can prove to be an indispensable technique.The success of self-service analytics relies on data literacy. The "sink or swim" strategy will only drown prospective users faced with an overwhelming ocean of data they don't know how to process. The good news: anyone can learn the basics if they just start small.Data literacy is a thought process, not a formula. Cultivate an inquisitive mind that seeks to understand how pieces fit together to make a functional whole. It will serve you and business users better than pointing to a graph that tells you something you both already know.More About Chris:Chris Powers has been at Citigroup for the last 24 years. In his current role working with client experience data, he focuses on providing the tools and insights to interpret the data so people can be empowered to make the best decisions for their clients. But for him, it is not just about the data. People tell stories with their data, and to do that effectively, they need to be able to understand what their data is telling them. Chris works to create a community of people that can effectively work and communicate with their data in order to build a data-driven culture. He doesn’t just do this inside Citi.Chris is one of the founding members of the Tampa ThoughtSpot user group and is also a 2020 Qlik Data Luminary, creator, and co-organizer of the Tampa Qlik Meetup group. Since his childhood, he has had quite the journey to get where he is today. Learning how to overcome his own data anxiety, navigating through a rollercoaster of education decisions, and putting his sometimes exhausting questioning of "But why?” to good use. He spent more than 10 years in customer service before finally joining Citi. Now Chris uses the unique experiences from his journey to help people with common data sense.--The Data Chief is presented by our friends at ThoughtSpot. Searching through your company’s data for insights doesn’t have to be complicated. With ThoughtSpot, anyone in your organization can easily answer their own data questions, find the facts, and make better, faster decisions. Learn more at thoughtspot.com. -- For full show notes and more, go to thedatachief.com. Hear more from Cindi Howson here. Sponsored by ThoughtSpot.

Joining Cindi today is Jim Tyo, CDO at investment management firm Invesco, and the former CDO at Nationwide, where he was responsible for overall strategic vision, planning, execution, and management of all activities related to the operation of the Enterprise Data Office (EDO).On this episode, Jim and Cindi discuss best practices and the evolution of data governance and information quality over the past decade, taking the 'digital twin' approach from the world of manufacturing and applying it to the world of data, the ethical nuances of navigating privacy laws and nontraditional inputs for complete datasets without introducing undue biases, advice for people aspiring to pursue a career in data, and much more.  Key Takeaways:Strategies Jim has leveraged to properly balance data governance and information quality (for which his team has won awards), and how the conversation around data governance has changed during his decade in the field.How the concept of the digital twin transitioned from the world of manufacturing to the world of data, and how organizations can use it to get an even more complete picture of their organization.How Nationwide created an internal data marketplace for people to more easily find all the data available within the company.The ethical considerations of navigating privacy laws and using nontraditional data inputs like fitness wearable devices and social media to ensure fair coverage without bias.Why good teamwork is critical in analytics, a world where nobody knows everything. About JimJim Tyo is CDO at investment management firm Invesco, and the former CDO at Nationwide, where he was responsible for overall strategic vision, planning, execution, and management of all activities related to the operation of the Enterprise Data Office (EDO).With more than a decade under his belt as a senior executive in the data field, Jim has envisioned, championed, and built data analytics organizations, processes, and technologies from concept to design in implementation and through execution. His vision has created significant culture changes while shifting information delivery methodologies — including innovative agile execution approaches — ensuring appropriate controls and governance focused on a data-driven experience and empowering business outcomes.--The Data Chief is brought to you by ThoughtSpot. For more on how the most successful data leaders are driving value in their organizations, join Cindi and the ThoughtSpot team at Beyond 2020, the leading data & analytics event of the year. Go to www.thoughtspot.com/beyond2020 for more information.-- For full show notes and more, go to thedatachief.com. Hear more from Cindi Howson here. Sponsored by ThoughtSpot.

Joining Cindi today is Suzette Kent, the former US Federal Chief Information Officer. Suzette joined the Federal Government in 2018 from the financial services industry with two key goals: drive IT modernization and overcome the challenges in federal IT budgeting and funding alignment.On this episode, Suzette and Cindi discuss the creative friction between the public and private sector, the pros and cons of how the public and private sectors operate and what they can gain by collaborating with one another, and the challenges of avoiding minutiae and focusing on the big picture when working with massive datasets. Plus, Suzette shares the origin story of the federal data strategy and how she hopes it can be used to solve the problems we face today.Key Takeaways & Discussion Points:Creative friction happens when private and public sectors collaborate and each side benefits from the experience.You can't drive change only from a technology side; people need to be involved in the process, and this requires adaptation to the pace necessary for the task at hand.Why striking a balance between indexing details and focusing on outcomes can be particularly challenging when you're dealing with the overwhelming number of datasets available to the public sector, the laws that govern their use, and the sometimes conflicting purposes of multiple agencies within that structure.How the federal data strategy came about, what it strives to accomplish, what private sector CDOs can learn about it at strategy.data.gov, and how they can utilize the resources available at resources.data.gov.The outcome-driven approach to getting students truly interested in pursuing careers in data.More About Suzette:Suzette Kent served from 2018 to 2020 as US Federal Chief Information Officer, spearheading a wide range of technology and workforce initiatives. Her tenure was devoted to setting governmentwide standards while also giving agencies the freedom to tailor efforts in mission-appropriate ways.Suzette was selected from the financial services industry to replace outgoing Federal CIO Tony Scott. She was a principal with Ernst & Young and had been a managing partner at Accenture and worked in other capacities at JP Morgan and the Carreker Corp. This background allowed her to see the challenges in federal IT budgeting and funding alignment and its IT modernization.--The Data Chief is brought to you by ThoughtSpot. For more on how the most successful data leaders are driving value in their organizations, join Cindi and the ThoughtSpot team at Beyond 2020, the leading data & analytics event of the year. Go to www.thoughtspot.com/beyond2020 for more information.-- For full show notes and more, go to thedatachief.com. Hear more from Cindi Howson here. Sponsored by ThoughtSpot.

Joining Cindi today are two guests: Jon Osborn, Software Technology Executive and former SVP, Chief Technical and Data Officer at Ensemble Health Partners, and Todd Crosslin, the Global Head of Healthcare and Life Sciences at Snowflake.On this episode, Jon, Todd, and Cindi discuss how people in the healthcare chain of command can collaborate with one another more freely than ever before thanks to cloud innovations that make sensitive data safely and instantly available to all parties, why the countless benefits of moving to the cloud far outweigh the seemingly hefty upfront price tag (provided you adapt your strategy to fit your budget), and how a data chief can build a case to make these points evident to the stakeholders and higher-ups responsible for paying the bills.Key Takeaways:Experiment with internal and external stakeholders. The level of collaboration between people involved in the chain of providing healthcare is enhanced by the cloud in ways that have only recently become possible.Choose based on value. The price tag for moving to the cloud is real, but the benefits are too substantial to pass up - and there are hacks  to adapt your strategy to align with your budget.Be brave. The ROI for innovation pays back with interest, but you need the courage to make a case for all your various stakeholders.More About Jon:Jon Osborn is a Software Technology Executive and the former SVP, Chief Technical and Data Officer at Ensemble Health Partners, with a proven ability at the executive level to build technical organizations, direct and manage technical projects and architecture, manage agile software development teams, and work with business owners to deliver value and modernize technology.More About Todd:Todd Crosslin is the Global Head of Healthcare and Life Sciences at Snowflake, with a history of success in start-up and high-growth/complex environments. He specializes in strategic business planning, agile lifecycle management, liaison and mediator activities, team building and leadership, key contract negotiations, and software development lifecycles. --The Data Chief is brought to you by ThoughtSpot. For more on how the most successful data leaders are driving value in their organizations, join Cindi and the ThoughtSpot team at Beyond 2020, the leading data & analytics event of the year. Go to www.thoughtspot.com/beyond2020 for more information.-- For full show notes and more, go to thedatachief.com. Hear more from Cindi Howson here. Sponsored by ThoughtSpot.

Today's guest is Craig Rowlands, the General Manager of Medibank. Craig is an ambitious leader with a proven track record for delivering major projects including data management, production, and business intelligence solutions. On this episode, Craig and Cindi discuss the life- and cost-saving benefits of leveraging data to improve decision making in healthcare, how moving from financial services to healthcare has given Craig a more holistic view of what's possible with data, why an individual should never stop learning and broadening their skills at any age, and establishing beneficial relationships with vendors that make you partners in each others' success.  Key Takeaways: There's nothing like a life-changing event to demonstrate how data from the patient's perspective can be used. Craig demonstrated how he was able to research options for his own heart bypass surgery informed by the available data. Always broaden your skills. In Craig's case, this has meant moving across industries -- from banking to the medical field -- to maximize his knowledge of what's being done versus what can be done with data. Establish a two-way partnership with vendors. Ensure they understand the value of being a partner invested in the welfare of both sides rather than merely filling the traditional, transactional vendor role, and that you're invested in keeping that relationship ongoing as well. Have a clear strategy when starting a new role. Look at the outcomes that you want and make sure that they align with your business goals. More About Craig: Craig Rowlands is the General Manager of Medibank. He is an ambitious leader with a proven track record for delivering major projects and managing data management, production, and business intelligence solutions, enabling optimal performance via leading-edge warehousing infrastructure, improved functionality, and best in class data quality controls and checks. Leading a large, multi-site team that constantly exceeds business expectations and thrives in a testing, team-focused environment that drives improved individuals' performance and career progression. Craig remains a highly experienced and technical analyst with a clear understanding of the strategic importance of data warehousing, business intelligence, and analytical software within an information-dependent business. -- The Data Chief is presented by our friends at ThoughtSpot. Searching through your company’s data for insights doesn’t have to be complicated. With ThoughtSpot, anyone in your organization can easily answer their own data questions, find the facts, and make better, faster decisions. Learn more at thoughtspot.com.  --  For full show notes and more, go to thedatachief.com. Hear more from Cindi Howson here. Sponsored by ThoughtSpot.

Joining Cindi today is Bernard Marr, internationally bestselling author, futurist, and keynote speaker. He advises and coaches many of the world’s best-known organizations and was voted by LinkedIn as one of the top five business influencers in the world and the number-one influencer in the UK. On this episode, Bernard and Cindi discuss why businesses should treat AI as a focused strategy rather than a resource-draining experiment, five ways to determine how to implement AI as a strategy that addresses the needs of your business, and overcoming a company culture's resistance to change. They also talk about how to ensure that AI augments rather than replaces humans and what it means to nowcast versus forecast in a post-pandemic world. Key Takeaways: Use AI as a strategy, not an experiment. AI should be applied strategically to the needs of your business, not treated as an experiment. Here, Bernard presents five lenses that will help you determine how AI can be focused appropriately. Don't reinvent the wheel. Chances are pretty good there's an existing AI tool -- from Salesforce, Oracle, Amazon, Microsoft, IBM, etc. -- that will suit the needs of your company without having to invest the time, energy, and money to start from scratch. Overcoming a company culture's resistance to change. What it takes to get the top levels of your organization aware of what AI is capable of doing for the business, and communicating to all levels that it's a tool for augmenting -- not replacing -- human staff. More About Bernard: Bernard Marr is a futurist, big data expert, storyteller, visionary, keynote speaker, and strategic business and technology advisor to companies and governments. He advises and coaches many of the world’s best-known organizations, helping them improve their business performance, use data more intelligently, and understand the implications of new technologies such as artificial intelligence, big data, blockchains, and the Internet of Things. LinkedIn has ranked Bernard as one of the world’s top five business influencers. He is a frequent contributor to the World Economic Forum and writes a regular column for Forbes. Every day Bernard actively engages his 1.5 million social media followers and shares content that reaches millions of readers. -- The Data Chief is presented by our friends at ThoughtSpot. Searching through your company’s data for insights doesn’t have to be complicated. With ThoughtSpot, anyone in your organization can easily answer their own data questions, find the facts, and make better, faster decisions. Learn more at thoughtspot.com.  --  For full show notes and more, go to thedatachief.com. Hear more from Cindi Howson here. Sponsored by ThoughtSpot.

Joining Cindi today is Chad Hawkinson, the Chief Product and Data Officer at Vertafore, the leader in creating modern insurance technology. A seasoned data and analytics guru, Chad has seen first-hand the profound impact data-driven insights can have on customers’ success.  On this episode, Chad and Cindi discuss how the cloud makes it safer to use sensitive data, when it was long-feared it might do just the opposite. They cover everything from alleviating client concerns about the use of this data and securing this data from cyberattacks, to the value of streamlining data collection into everyday workflows rather than making it an additional headache for the client to manage. Plus, Chad shares the three components responsible for the 38 percent failure rate of analytics investments in insurance and what can be done to fix them. Key Discussion Points: The cloud gives us more power over our data, not less. Qualified availability unlocks a level of control over that data that would be impossible on a purely local level. Having a clear direction where data can be brought to bear. The three problems most responsible for a high failure rate in analytics investment and how to solve them. The value of insights in context. Data is most useful when streamlined into the everyday workflow rather than existing as a number of separate processes that bring that workflow to a grinding halt.   More About Chad: Chad Hawkinson is the Chief Product and Data Officer at Vertafore, the leader in creating modern insurance technology. A seasoned data and analytics guru, Chad has seen first-hand the profound impact data-driven insights can have on customers’ success. He brings deep experience with AI and ML technologies in the energy, aerospace, defense, automotive, and construction industries to help agencies and carriers discover new opportunities to drive dramatic business growth by leveraging insights previously hidden deep within their data. Prior to Vertafore, Chad spent seven years as Senior Vice President and General Manager for the Engineering & Product Design division at IHS Markit. An experienced go-to-market strategist in both the software and data analytics industries, Chad also held leadership roles at Progress Software, PTC, and Intel. He earned a BA in Mechanical Engineering at Virginia Tech, as well as an MBA at the MIT Sloan School of Management. -- The Data Chief is presented by our friends at ThoughtSpot. Searching through your company’s data for insights doesn’t have to be complicated. With ThoughtSpot, anyone in your organization can easily answer their own data questions, find the facts, and make better, faster decisions. Learn more at thoughtspot.com.  --  For full show notes and more, go to thedatachief.com. Hear more from Cindi Howson here. Sponsored by ThoughtSpot.

This is Part 2 of our interview with Jason Lally, the Chief Data Officer for the City and County of San Francisco. [Listen to Part 1 here.] In Part 1, Cindi and Jason talked about the kindness of data clarity and the power of a declarative mission statement. In this episode, Jason discusses making the government's data work for the people it serves, the key gateway to better communication, and how to turn problems into opportunities. Key Takeaways: Improving communication. Part of becoming a better communicator is just listening to what people don't understand and then figuring out a different way to explain it. And if you're trying to turn problems into opportunities, communicating one on one or in smaller groups allows everyone present to contribute to solving the problem which builds trust between them for the success of future efforts. Making data work for the people: Government data has the power to transform the services citizens experience, and can improve numerous facets of the lives of citizens. -- The Data Chief is presented by our friends at ThoughtSpot. Searching through your company’s data for insights doesn’t have to be complicated. With ThoughtSpot, anyone in your organization can easily answer their own data questions, find the facts, and make better, faster decisions. Learn more at thoughtspot.com.  --  For full show notes and more, go to thedatachief.com. Hear more from Cindi Howson here. Sponsored by ThoughtSpot.

This is Part 2 of Cindi's interview with Michelle Jacobs, President and co-founder of marketing measurement agency Alight Analytics. In Part 1, Michelle shared tips for keeping up with the rapid pace of change in the industry and explained in what ways data can transform marketing departments for the better. In this episode, Michelle and Cindi discuss how to bring more women into analytics, why messy data tends to be directionally accurate, and what Michelle predicts for the future of analytics.” Key Discussion Points: Avoid the Data Death March. Like single-use plastics, individually prepping massive amounts of data using yesterday's methods (like Excel and PowerPoint) for each and every meeting, presentation, and report is wasteful. The right technology can free up time and resources by centralizing this data and allowing it to be multi-purposed on-demand across all departments. Form top-to-down best practices. Think about the question you want to answer first, then look for the data that can find that answer. Data turns marketing from an expense into an investment. With the right data to trace factors that go into lead generation, clients can quantify exactly how their marketing dollars make a difference beyond black-and-white sales figures. Messy data vs. clean data vs. no data. Data quality is good enough when it's directionally accurate. Consolidation is your friend. If you're a marketer and you're looking to make educated decisions, get your marketing data in one place so that you can look at it holistically and understand how your entire ecosystem is performing. More about Michelle: Michelle Jacobs is the president and co-founder of Alight Analytics, and she’s on a personal mission to revolutionize how marketers use data. Before co-founding Alight, Michelle drove marketing, advertising, and Web analytics strategies for leading companies such as H&R Block, American Century Investments, Saatchi & Saatchi, and Toyota. Michelle is a sought-after speaker and panelist with a unique perspective both on marketing analytics generally and being a woman in data and MarTech specifically. -- Listen to Part 1 of this interview here. -- The Data Chief is presented by our friends at ThoughtSpot. Searching through your company’s data for insights doesn’t have to be complicated. With ThoughtSpot, anyone in your organization can easily answer their own data questions, find the facts, and make better, faster decisions. Learn more at thoughtspot.com.  --  For full show notes and more, go to thedatachief.com. Hear more from Cindi Howson here. Sponsored by ThoughtSpot.

This is Part 1 of Cindi's interview with Michelle Jacobs, President and co-founder of marketing measurement agency Alight Analytics. On this episode, Michelle and Cindi discuss how data can turn marketing from a regretful expense to a worthwhile investment, the benefits of learning to ask the right questions of your data, and how to determine a customer's wants and needs without invading their privacy. Plus, they talk about how to flip the 80 percent of the time we spend preparing data with the 20 percent of the time we spend analyzing it, share tips for adapting to the rapid pace of change in technology, and much more. Key Discussion Points: Avoid the Data Death March. Like single-use plastics, individually prepping massive amounts of data using yesterday's methods (like Excel and PowerPoint) for each and every meeting, presentation, and report is wasteful. The right technology can free up time and resources by centralizing this data and allowing it to be multi-purposed on-demand across all departments. Form top-to-down best practices. Think about the question you want to answer first, then look for the data that can find that answer. Data turns marketing from an expense into an investment. With the right data to trace factors that go into lead generation, clients can quantify exactly how their marketing dollars make a difference beyond black-and-white sales figures. Messy data vs. clean data vs. no data. Data quality is good enough when it's directionally accurate. Consolidation is your friend. If you're a marketer and you're looking to make educated decisions, get your marketing data in one place so that you can look at it holistically and understand how your entire ecosystem is performing. More about Michelle: Michelle Jacobs is the president and co-founder of Alight Analytics, and she’s on a personal mission to revolutionize how marketers use data. Before co-founding Alight, Michelle drove marketing, advertising, and Web analytics strategies for leading companies such as H&R Block, American Century Investments, Saatchi & Saatchi, and Toyota. Michelle is a sought-after speaker and panelist with a unique perspective both on marketing analytics generally and being a woman in data and MarTech specifically. -- Listen to Part 2 of this interview here. -- The Data Chief is presented by our friends at ThoughtSpot. Searching through your company’s data for insights doesn’t have to be complicated. With ThoughtSpot, anyone in your organization can easily answer their own data questions, find the facts, and make better, faster decisions. Learn more at thoughtspot.com.  --  For full show notes and more, go to thedatachief.com. Hear more from Cindi Howson here. Sponsored by ThoughtSpot.

This is Part 2 of Cindi's interview with Alberto Rey Villaverde, the Chief Data Officer at British online food order and delivery service Just Eat. Listen to Part 1 of their interview here. On this episode, Alberto and Cindi discuss how machine learning allows data to speak for itself, why artificial intelligence is more effective when it's led with the guiding hand of a human than without, three components crucial to the success of data products and services, adjusting business practices and expectations during pandemics and economic downturns, the talent gap versus the imagination gap in the data industry from a European perspective, data lakes versus data warehouses, and much more. Key Takeaways: AI allows the data to speak for itself. Alberto's application of simple neural networking algorithms to massive sets of data efficiently and consistently optimized price points and saved his company money, justifying an expanded budget for AI adoption and development. AI + humans is better than AI alone. AI augments human abilities, but it doesn't replace them. In unprecedented times (as we're experiencing on multiple fronts in 2020), algorithms especially rely on human imagination to fill in the blanks where there's no historical data to inform an outcome. Three components crucial to the success of your data products and services. How Alberto sees access, model, and delivery fitting together to justify the cost of innovation necessary to implement new technologies and methodologies for handling data. More about Alberto: Alberto Rey Villaverde is the Chief Data Officer at British online food order and delivery service Just Eat. He is a pricing and revenue management professional with extensive experience within the data science field, particularly on BI and advanced analytics, data mining, machine learning techniques, and scenario modeling. Alberto started his career in advanced analytics as a member of the pricing and revenue management team at easyJet, working in the development of one of the most advanced pricing engines within the industry, where his team pioneered the implementation of machine learning techniques to drive pricing. He holds an MSc in data mining and an MBA from Cranfield University. -- The Data Chief is presented by our friends at ThoughtSpot. Searching through your company’s data for insights doesn’t have to be complicated. With ThoughtSpot, anyone in your organization can easily answer their own data questions, find the facts, and make better, faster decisions. Learn more at thoughtspot.com.  --  For full show notes and more, go to thedatachief.com. Hear more from Cindi Howson here. Sponsored by ThoughtSpot.

This is Part 1 of Cindi's interview with Alberto Rey Villaverde, the Chief Data Officer at British online food order and delivery service Just Eat. On this episode, Alberto and Cindi discuss how machine learning allows data to speak for itself, why artificial intelligence is more effective when it's led with the guiding hand of a human than without, three components crucial to the success of data products and services, adjusting business practices and expectations during pandemics and economic downturns, the talent gap versus the imagination gap in the data industry from a European perspective, data lakes versus data warehouses, and much more. Key Takeaways: AI allows the data to speak for itself. Alberto's application of simple neural networking algorithms to massive sets of data efficiently and consistently optimized price points and saved his company money, justifying an expanded budget for AI adoption and development. AI + humans is better than AI alone. AI augments human abilities, but it doesn't replace them. In unprecedented times (as we're experiencing on multiple fronts in 2020), algorithms especially rely on human imagination to fill in the blanks where there's no historical data to inform an outcome. Three components crucial to the success of your data products and services. How Alberto sees access, model, and delivery fitting together to justify the cost of innovation necessary to implement new technologies and methodologies for handling data. More about Alberto: Alberto Rey Villaverde is the Chief Data Officer at British online food order and delivery service Just Eat. He is a pricing and revenue management professional with extensive experience within the data science field, particularly on BI and advanced analytics, data mining, machine learning techniques, and scenario modeling. Alberto started his career in advanced analytics as a member of the pricing and revenue management team at easyJet, working in the development of one of the most advanced pricing engines within the industry, where his team pioneered the implementation of machine learning techniques to drive pricing. He holds an MSc in data mining and an MBA from Cranfield University. -- Listen to Part 2 of Cindi's interview with Alberto here. -- The Data Chief is presented by our friends at ThoughtSpot. Searching through your company’s data for insights doesn’t have to be complicated. With ThoughtSpot, anyone in your organization can easily answer their own data questions, find the facts, and make better, faster decisions. Learn more at thoughtspot.com.  --  For full show notes and more, go to thedatachief.com. Hear more from Cindi Howson here. Sponsored by ThoughtSpot.

Joining Cindi today is Dr. Dana Rollison, Vice President, Chief Data Officer, and Associate Center Director of Data Science at Moffitt Cancer Center. Dana has been with Moffitt for over 16 years in varying capacities since earning her PhD in Epidemiology from Johns Hopkins University in 2004. In this episode, she and Cindi discuss her work at Moffitt, how data is accelerating scientific discovery, and what leveraging data from the lab to the clinic looks like in practice. Key Discussion Points: What makes Moffitt Cancer Center unique? Moffitt is the only National Cancer Institute-designated comprehensive cancer center in the state of Florida, and its level of data and analytics maturity leads in healthcare, a field that traditionally lags. Moffitt's Total Cancer Care protocol seeks to enroll every one of the center's patients in a research study to find new prevention and treatment strategies through collection of unique data sets.  Trust matters. Dana's win/win approach to data collection earns trust from patients with privacy concerns. This helps her gather the most complete and useful set of information for doctors and researchers to arm themselves in the battle against cancer. Data has a place in every department. Leveraging data to work in the best, practical interests of all departments and partners provides better integration for everything from clinical effectiveness to operational logistics. More About Dana: She was promoted to Associate Professor with tenure in 2010, and became a Senior Member in 2017. Her independent research focuses on the application of data science techniques to enhance cancer surveillance and etiologic studies of cutaneous viral infections, environmental exposures, and immune function.  Building upon her experience with linking Cancer Registry data to other administrative, research, and clinical data, Dr. Rollison began serving as Moffitt’s Vice President, Chief Data Officer (CDO) in 2010, setting an executive vision for Moffitt’s enterprise-wide data warehouse and analytics strategy to support team science, clinical pathways, accountable care analytics, data sharing partnerships and the practice of personalized medicine. As CDO, she oversees three Departments within Health Data Services, including the Cancer Registry, Data Quality, and Business Intelligence, and Health Informatics. Current initiatives within Health Data Services include the use of artificial intelligence for mining text within the electronic health record, platform-agnostic curation of molecular data, and migration of enterprise analytics to the cloud.  Recognizing the need to grow intellectual capital in parallel with technical infrastructure, Dr. Rollison expanded her leadership portfolio in 2017 by becoming Moffitt’s first Associate Center Director (ACD) of Data Science and Division Chief for Quantitative Science, overseeing the academic departments of Integrated Mathematical Oncology and Biostatistics and Bioinformatics, as well as two data-related Shared Resources. To better facilitate the development of novel quantitative methods and foster team science, Dr. Rollison pioneered the creation of a new academic track, the Integrated Scientist track, and established a new, third Department of Machine Learning, focused on advancing cancer research through the analysis of complex data sets, including imaging and the IoT.  Leveraging her dual role as CDO and ACD, Dr. Rollison seeks to optimize Moffitt’s extensive data assets across clinical and research areas of the organization, thus accelerating scientific discovery and translational research across the cancer continuum, and ultimately advancing the prevention and cure of cancer. -- The Data Chief is presented by our friends at ThoughtSpot. Searching through your company’s data for insights doesn’t have to be complicated. With ThoughtSpot, anyone in your organization can easily answer their own data questions, find the facts, and make better, faster decisions. Learn more at thoughtspot.com.  --  For full show notes and more, go to thedatachief.com. Hear more from Cindi Howson here. Sponsored by ThoughtSpot.

Sully McConnell serves as the Chief Data Officer of The Hartford, where he has been since 2018. In this episode, Sully discusses the challenges he faced as a new data chief trying to innovate the infrastructure of an established company. He shares what worked, what hasn’t, and how he’s helped shift the team’s mindset so they can all make the changes needed to modernize the company. Key Discussion Points: How an established company stays modern. The challenges a 21st-century data chief faces when trying to innovate and modernize the infrastructure of a 210-year-old insurance company that tends to err on the side of risk-aversion. Countering one big reason transformation efforts fail. Tips for getting an entrenched team on board with the changes that need to be made in order to move forward. Is the cost of cloud worth it? Weighing the cost of cloud versus the agility it brings, and the ethics of AI technology when it adds unintentional bias to the results. More About Sully: Sully McConnell serves as the Chief Data Officer of The Hartford, where he has been since 2018. He is an innovative technology executive and change agent with deep subject matter expertise in business intelligence, big data, and analytics domains. Sully has an unusual blend of technical depth, a strong orientation towards customer and employee satisfaction, excellent motivational skills, and broad experience implementing and scaling agile delivery principles in large, complex organizations. -- The Data Chief is presented by our friends at ThoughtSpot. Searching through your company’s data for insights doesn’t have to be complicated. With ThoughtSpot, anyone in your organization can easily answer their own data questions, find the facts, and make better, faster decisions. Learn more at thoughtspot.com.  --  For full show notes and more, go to thedatachief.com. Hear more from Cindi Howson here. Sponsored by ThoughtSpot.

Joining Cindi today is Jacques van Niekerk, the Global CEO of Wunderman Thompson Data. On this episode, Jacques and Cindi discuss why data is not the new oil, as many in the industry have proclaimed, but instead should be thought of as ‘the new oxygen’ for businesses. They also explore what it means to focus on your customers' terms over your own, how fostering a culture of curiosity inspires innovation and keeps you ahead of competition, and how encouraging diversity of thought within your organization can lead to unexplored and untapped markets. Key Takeaways: Data is not the new oil -- it's oxygen. If you don't take your first-party customer data seriously, your organization runs the risk of asphyxiating before you're even aware of the danger.  Foster diversity of thought and a culture of curiosity. You never know what potential markets you're leaving untapped by excluding unexplored, overlooked, and neglected demographics you could otherwise be serving, or the new ways you can examine and expand upon existing data by viewing it through a new lens. Want to stay personally relevant? Focus on your customers' terms, not yours, and you'll build experiences that generate a lifetime of loyalty. More About Jacques Jacques van Niekerk is the Global CEO of Wunderman Thompson Data, where he is responsible for leveraging his unique experience building global marketing, media, data, and technology businesses to develop and expand the agency’s vision for delivering comprehensive global data platforms, products, analytics, data sciences, and consulting solutions. Prior to Wunderman Thompson, Jacques was the CEO of Wunderman Data. He has always been considered a pioneer in the digital marketing space, as one of the founders of Acceleration, the premier marketing technology consultancy that helps brands harness the power of marketing technology to maximize growth and enhance the consumer brand experience. Acceleration became part of WPP Digital in 2012 and Wunderman in 2016. -- The Data Chief is presented by our friends at ThoughtSpot. Searching through your company’s data for insights doesn’t have to be complicated. With ThoughtSpot, anyone in your organization can easily answer their own data questions, find the facts, and make better, faster decisions. Learn more at thoughtspot.com.  --  For full show notes and more, go to thedatachief.com. Hear more from Cindi Howson here. Sponsored by ThoughtSpot.

On this episode of The Data Chief, Cindi is joined by Grace Epperson, the Chief Analytics Officer at 14 West, an Agora Company. They discuss what Grace's learned in that role, and how her and her team’s mindsets have evolved over the years. Grace also shares her take on why a liberal arts education is valuable in technology industries, plus how data can help marketers create personalized and impactful customer experiences. Key Takeaways: Include your customers in the design process. Changing the design process to be consultative, collaborative, and more of a conversation with the customer ensures that the end result meets their needs. Such a minor mindset shift can lead to exceptional results. Critical thinking matters. In such a rapidly changing field as marketing, being able to intuitively bridge the gap between knowledge and expertise has become an even more valuable skill. With some simple tips, you can cultivate that type of thinking in your team. How art complements technology. Approaching a career in tech with an education in the liberal arts is an asset, not a hindrance to success. More About Grace Grace Epperson is the Chief Analytics Officer at 14 West, an Agora Company. With over 20 years in data, analytics, marketing, and people leadership, she helps folks get value out of data that enable insights, stronger business decisions, and more powerful actions. Over the years, Grace has held many marketing and operational leadership roles. Since 2011, she has had the privilege of leading 14 West's Business Intelligence team in working with 700+ users across 30+ publishing affiliates worldwide. Whether it's a conversation, an Excel report, a dashboard, an ad hoc question, a data feed, a predictive model, or a means of automated marketing activation, Grace and her team will be there to help affiliates leverage the value of their data. -- The Data Chief is presented by our friends at ThoughtSpot. Searching through your company’s data for insights doesn’t have to be complicated. With ThoughtSpot, anyone in your organization can easily answer their own data questions, find the facts, and make better, faster decisions. Learn more at thoughtspot.com.  --  For full show notes and more, go to thedatachief.com. Hear more from Cindi Howson here. Sponsored by ThoughtSpot.