Leading with Data

How to survive, let alone succeed, in business has been changing slowly for decades. In the last 5 to 10 years, we’ve witnessed a much more radical transformation — a need for modern-day businesses to challenge the status quo. To reject beliefs that are widely and blindly accepted across the industry and create something new.

This is the key to innovation according to our latest guest, Wil Reynolds, VP Innovation at Seer Interactive — a digital marketing agency that specializes in innovation across SEO, PPC, and Analytics.

When Wil founded Seer in 2002, it was a one-person search firm. Today, it’s comprised of a talented team of over 150 people who strive for leadership across the marketing industry. Seer was founded on the belief that when you share your time and talents with the community, everyone benefits. Wil’s vision was to give everyone the flexibility they needed to contribute to the community in meaningful ways. Over a decade later, this still rings true.

In this episode, he joins us to share his unconventional approach to running an agency and his philosophy on innovation.

We also dive deeper into:

• Wil’s entrepreneurial journey

Check out these resources that were mentioned in the show:

• Learn more about Seer Interactive

If you want to hear more, subscribe to Leading with Data onApple Podcasts,Spotify, orhere.

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With so much data all around us, more and more businesses are joining the pursuit of data culture. One may even say it has officially become a buzzword in the analytics community.

But, building a data culture needs to be treated as a strategic priority — not just a buzzword label.

So, what are the building blocks required to create a thriving data culture in your organization?

For the answer, we turned to Ganes Kesari, Co-founder and Chief Decision Scientist at Gramener.

Ganes is an entrepreneur, AI thought leader, author, and TEDx speaker. Ganes advises executives of large organizations on data-driven decision making. His expertise lies in the application of data science to solve business challenges, and in building teams to promote a culture of data.

In this episode, he breaks down the 4 key indicators of a lasting data culture.

We also talked about:

• Why executives need to be the biggest advocates for data-driven change

Check out these resources that were mentioned in the show:

• Check out Ganes’ article on Forbes about this topic

If you want to hear more, subscribe to Leading with Data onApple Podcasts,Spotify, orhere.

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We all know the potential value data can bring to businesses. But the potential to deliver that same data and value to external customers is often left untapped. 

Many companies today feel like they should be doing more with their data in service of their customers. Yet, they often struggle to unlock it and deliver it in a way that accounts for the end user’s experience. 

As Co-Founder & CEO of TopCoat Data, Seth Rosen , sees this every day and believes approaching data with a product mindset can be the key to unlocking this untapped value.  

Seth joins us on the podcast to share how companies can build data products that win over customers and create real advantage over their competitors. 

At TopCoat, Seth and his team help companies and data teams everyday build customer-facing analytics products. Previously, Seth held senior product roles at Drync, Catalina, and LivingSocial. Seth was a co-founder at BuyWithMe.com, a leading social eCommerce company that competed with Groupon and LivingSocial, from January 2009 until it was sold to Gilt Groupe in November 2011. Prior to BuyWithMe, Seth was a consultant at PricewaterhouseCoopers in the System and Process Assurance group, working mainly with large financial institutions.

In the episode, we cover a variety of topics including: 

Check out these resources that were mentioned in the show:

If you want to hear more, subscribe to Leading with Data on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or here.

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Most businesses today are sitting atop an untapped mine of data, and they need a skilled workforce to uncover the real gold. 

Enter the Data Scientist. The Sexiest Job of the 21st Century.

The demand for this role has increased rapidly— gaining significant traction across industries. The spotlight has caused many to wonder “Can I be a data scientist?” What are the skills I would need?”

One need look no further than Harpreet Sahota, Data Scientist at Comet and Host of The Artists of Data Science Podcast — the only personal growth and dev elopment podcast for Data Scientists.

He’s a thought leader in the Data Science space with over a decade of education, experience, and technical chops in the field. By day, he’s working with leadership to define and execute strategies that demonstrate the value of the data at Comet. By night, he’s mentoring and providing technical guidance to nearly 2000 up-and-coming data scientists.

Harpreet is on a mission to help develop today’s data scientists — and not just their technical skills. But their creativity, critical thinking, and ability to actually think like a scientist.

In this episode, he shares his advice for emerging data scientists as well as analytics leaders looking to build their first data team. 

We cover a variety of topics including:

Check out these resources that were mentioned in the show:

If you want to hear more, subscribe to Leading with Data on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or here. 

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It is no news that organizations today are still having challenges with data adoption. 

However, one important factor that often goes undiscussed is the lack of focus on the end user experience while designing and building data products.

But, imagine if every data team had a UX designer. Imagine if we began treating data as any other product. Imagine if we began applying traditional UX design principles to our data in order to create more actionable experiences. 

As UX Design Lead at Visa and former Design Lead of Data Strategy and Transformation at USAA, Ally Margain, knows the impact of this approach better than anyone.

Prior to her new role at Visa, Ally played a role in leading the transformation of internal enterprise data experiences, processes and data literacy products at USAA – making data human and accessible so their employees could make more swift, data-informed decisions. 

Earlier in her career, she exercised a different creative muscle working at a Hispanic market Ad Agency — working on accounts like Yoplait, Totino’s Pizza and Western Union as Art Director. 

In this episode, Ally shares how to re-energize data & analytics experiences and improve adoption through human centered design. 

She also discusses:

If you want to hear more, subscribe to Leading with Data on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or here.

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Chief Data Officers. 

They are the voice of data and the leaders of transformation within an organization. Today, their role is imperative to driving growth and innovation. Over the years the role of the CDO has evolved, gaining significant traction in the industry. 

However, the role’s responsibilities remain pretty undefined. 

Therefore, it is often up to these individuals to define their role, chart their own course, and pave the way for data to be used meaningfully across the company.  

As the first CDO of VMware, Wendy Batchelder, knows this challenge better than anyone. 

As Chief Data Officer, Wendy is responsible for the company’s business insights, analytics solutions and delivering excellence in data management across VMware. 

 Wendy has spent over 15 years in leadership roles at a variety of global companies spanning various industries. Prior to her role at VMware, she held various leadership roles at Wells Fargo, including Head of Enterprise Master & Reference Data and Head of the Corporate Risk Data Office. 

 In this episode, Wendy shares practical tips on how to spearhead a data-driven transformation and succeed in the Chief Data Officer role. 

We also discuss:

Wendy’s career trajectory that led her to VMware

If you want to hear more, subscribe to Leading with Data on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or here.

Listening on a desktop & can’t see the links? Just search for Leading with Data in your favorite podcast player.

Moving toward a more data-driven culture is certainly attainable, and it starts with a data strategy. 

A data strategy is often viewed as a technical exercise, but a modern and comprehensive data strategy addresses more than the data — it is a roadmap that defines how data will address business objectives and generate real value. 

And no one knows how to create that roadmap better than Jason Krantz, Founder & CEO of Strategy Titan, a data analytics company that helps organizations grow their top lines, bottom lines and valuations by "weaponizing" data and transforming it into a competitive advantage.

With over 10 years of business analytics, data science, and strategic leadership experience in public and private equity owned business, Jason specializes in creating award winning analytics strategy, capabilities, teams, and solutions that drive tangible revenue and EBITDA improvements.

He's also co-host of Transformation Nation, a podcast all about personal and professional transformation. With Jordan Morrow by his side, the two share strategies and tactics to maximize your potential and start investing in you.

Jason joins us on the podcast to share his tried & true process for helping companies build a winning data strategy. 

We also discuss:

If you like what you heard, check out Strategy Titan’s new training program (currently in development — private beta coming soon) and sign up to be notified of its launch: https://www.strategytitan.com/training.html

Big Data is overrated. 

We don’t need more volume — we need more diversity

We can do more with less. And someone finally needed to say it.

That someone is Jennifer Prendki, Founder and CEO at Alectio , the world’s first Data Prep Ops platform. Before that she held senior leadership positions in data science and machine learning at Figure Eight, Atlassian, Walmartlabs among others. 

She also has a PhD in particle physics, from Sorbonne in Paris, which greatly influenced her belief that we can move away from the brute force of Big Data into the precision of Smart Data.

In this episode, we discuss:

If you want to hear more, subscribe to Leading with Data on Apple Podcasts , Spotify , or here .

Listening on a desktop & can’t see the links? Just search for Leading with Data in your favorite podcast player.

It seems that everyone is talking about data literacy today. CDOs position literacy among their top priorities and for many organizations, it is one of their most pressing needs. But, how do you actually create data literacy? What’s the best approach? How do you get started?

In this episode, Cassidy chats with Valerie Logan, CEO & Found er at THE DATA LODGE , about her pragmatic approach to teaching and promoting data literacy within your organization.

Valerie is on a mission to train and certify the world’s first data literacy program leads across the globe…from her house in the woods. This mission led her to start THE DATA LODGE — a virtual home for growing data literacy, where she leads bootcamps and keeps a resource library for data literacy advocates.

Before that, Valerie was a VP at Gartner, where she led their Data & Analytics Group and brought to market the idea of Information as a Second Language (ISL). She has also been a leader at companies like HP, Knightsbridge Solutions, and IBM. As a researcher, she focuses on the area of emerging leadership models, including the role of the Chief Data Officer (CDO).

We discuss:

Check out these resources we mentioned during the podcast:

If you want to hear more, subscribe to Leading with Data on Apple Podcasts , Spotify , or here .

Listening on a desktop & can’t see the links? Just search for Leading with Data in your favorite podcast player.

At Narrative Science, we’re super proud of the AI technology we’ve built. Lexio is the world’s only automated data storytelling system and is making its way into the tech stacks of more companies every year. 

When people hear what our tech can do, they often assume that it must be built with some of that newfangled machine learning (ML) or deep learning (DL) that everybody’s talking about. Nope!

For this episode, we wanted to experiment with a shorter format that we’re calling Leading with Data: Short Stories. Our guest guinea pig is our very own Chief Scientist, Nate Nichols, who provides insight into the applications of NLP/ML in our everyday lives and our product, Lexio. 

We also dig deeper on:

Nate also recently wrote a blog on this topic where he provides more detail into why we don’t use deep learning to write data stories in Lexio. 

If you want to hear more, subscribe to Leading with Data on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or here.

Listening on a desktop & can’t see the links? Just search for Leading with Data in your favorite podcast player.