«Leadership is about sowing the common vision and the common way forward, bringing the people with you.»

How can a nuclear physicist transform into a data leader in the industrial sector? Kristiina Tiilas from Finland shares her fascinating journey from leading digitalization programs at Fortum to shaping data-driven organizations at companies like Outokumpu and Kemira. Kristiina provides unique insights into navigating complex data-related projects within traditional industrial environments. With a passion for skydiving and family activities, she balances a demanding career with an active lifestyle, making her an inspiring guest in this episode.

We focus on the importance of data competence at the executive level and discuss how organizations can strengthen data understanding without a formal CDO role. Kristiina shares her experiences in developing innovative digitalization games that engage employees and promote a data-driven culture. Through concrete examples rather than technical jargon, she demonstrates how complex concepts can be made accessible and understandable. This approach not only provides a competitive advantage but also transforms data into an integral part of the company’s decision-making processes.

Here are my key takeaways:

• The AI hype became a wake-up moment for Data professionals in Finland taking the international stage.
•  As a leader in dat you need to balance data domain knowledge and leadership skills. Both are important.
• Leadership is important to provide an arena for your data people to deliver value.
• As a leader you are in a position that requires you to find ways of making tacit knowledge explicit. If not you are nit able too use that knowledge to train other people or a model.

CDO

• The Chief Data Officer is not really present in Nordic organizations.
• An executive role for data is discussed much, but in reality not that widespread.
• Without CDO present, you need to train somebody in the top leadership group to voice data.
• CDO is different in every organization.
• Is CDO an intermediate role, to emphasis Data Literacy, or a permanent focus?
• You can achieve a lot through data focus of other CxOs.
• Make data topics tangible, this is about lingo, narratives, but also about ways of communicating - Kristiina used gamification as a method.
• Creating a game to explain concepts in very basic terms with clear outcomes and structure can help with Data Literacy for the entire organization.

Data in OT vs. IT

• Predictions and views on production should be able to be vision also in Operational Settings on all levels. There should not be any restriction in utilizing analytical data in operational settings.
• Security and timeliness are the big differentiators between OT and IT.
• These are two angles of the same. They need to be connected.
• IoT (Internet of Things) requires more interoperability.
• Extracting data has been a one way process. The influence of Reverse ETL on OT data is interesting to explore further.
• There are possibilities to create data driven feedback loops in operations.

Data Teams

• If you start, start with a team of five:
   
  • One who knows the data (Data Engineering) 
  • One who knows the business
  • One who understands Analytics / AI
  • One who understands the users / UX
  • One to lead the team
• You can improve your capabilities one step at a time - build focus areas that are aligned with business need an overall strategy.
• If you expect innovation from your data team, you need to decouple them from the operational burden.
• Show your value in $$$.