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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 Takeaways
The 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 JoAnn
JoAnn 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.
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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.
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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 Takeaways
Future-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.
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For full show notes and more, go to thedatachief.com.
Hear more from Cindi Howson here. Sponsored by ThoughtSpot.
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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 Takeaways
Explainable 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 Ryan
As 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.
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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.
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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 Takeaways
Lean 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 Ameet
Ameet 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.
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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.
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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 Takeaways
Competition 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 Sol
Sol 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.
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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.
