In this episode of Data Wars, hosts Prash Chandramohan and Ash Srivastava sit down with Rudy Ionides— a Senior Data Leader at Walmart with a remarkable journey from Software Engineering to Enterprise Data Strategy.

Rudy breaks down 20+ years of deep experience across RBC, TD, healthcare, and retail — sharing practical, real-world insights that every data leader, engineer, and strategist needs to hear.

⭐ What you’ll learn in this episode:How Rudy navigated a career from Developer → Dev Manager → Senior Data Leader

Why cloud migration fails without culture, governance & literacy

The real mindset shift required to move from on-prem to cloud

How to build high-performance data teams using autonomy & recognitionWhy governance is NOT boring — and how to make it a business growth engine

What regulated industries taught Rudy about data quality, lineage & controls

The role of analytics CoEs, MVP thinking & operationalizing data products

How to influence executives and build org-wide data culture

His honest take on careers, networking, and breaking into new industries

🔥 Key themes

Data governance, AI readiness, data literacy, cloud transformation, leadership, enterprise analytics, customer 360, financial services, privacy, efficiency, and high-impact delivery.

🎧 Listen On: YouTube → https://youtu.be/pks09SubT3U

Spotify → https://open.spotify.com/episode/54uOrSS62LwS9uC74koZi2?si=cTBnAYSUQnCKB4QSte2OIQ

Apple Podcasts → https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/data-leadership-that-works-rudy-ionides-on-governance/id1782784746?i=1000737147699

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