Data Masters Podcast

Shopify’s Ella Hilal tells us why effective data leaders need to instill an ‘always learning mindset’ and possess a willingness to reject conventional wisdom. Ella also talks about how the data organization continues to evolve at Shopify, the unique challenges of serving entrepreneurs from all over the world, and how data is being used to power growth and expansion at Shopify.

Kathleen Maley was most recently Head of Consumer and Digital Analytics at KeyBank where she led a large team of analysts who used data and analytics to shape strategies. Before that, she spent more than a decade at Bank of America in a variety of roles that helped the bank use data in areas such as risk management and pricing. Kathleen shares why she stopped using the term data driven, why aligni...

Andy Palmer is a serial entrepreneur who’s helped found or fund more than 50 companies, including Vertica, a pioneer in the database management industry. He’s currently CEO of Tamr, a data mastering platform that uses machine learning to do the heavy lifting around consolidating, cleansing, and categorizing data. Andy’s also served as CIO of Infinity Pharmaceuticals, a biotech startup, and ran dat...

Stefanie Costa Leabo, Chief Data Officer for the City of Boston, talks about her non-linear career path (she considered becoming a political science professor at one point), the tangible connection between her work and what happens outside of city hall, and how sharing data helps Boston’s residents better understand what’s going on in their city.

A key part of data is communicating it to others, and that’s where data visualization comes in. Nick Stepro, senior vice president of product management at Arcadia Healthcare, has made data visualization his career. He talks about how he got into data visualization, why you need empathy in design and how he manages to communicate the value of data without taking away from its meaning.

Data is critical to combating COVID-19. But challenges around COVID-19 data collection and sharing prevent this information from being fully utilized by federal and state governments. That’s the perspective of Paul Balas, who was previously the Chief Advisor Advanced Analytics at mining company Newmont. Paul shares how his analytics background gives him a unique perspective on the topic of COVID-1...

Ido Biger, CDO at El Al Israel Airlines, shares how embedding himself in different El Al departments made him a better leader, what practices he brought to the airline from his previous jobs and what he teaches the next generation of data leaders as an adjunct lecturer.

Data ops has emerged as a way for organizations to better manage their data pipelines. You’ll hear more about this concept from Chris Bergh, head chef, founder and CEO of DataKitchen, a software company that aims to help data professionals regain control of their data pipelines. He’ll talk about how his experiences in the software industry lead him down the data ops path, define what data ops is a...

What’s required to master large numbers of data sources? First, avoid approaches that require writing rules. Then use machine learning and cloud computing to efficiently handle the workload. That advice comes from Mike Stonebraker, a database pioneer who helped create the INGRES relational database system, won the 2014 A.M. Turing Award, and has co-founded several data management startups, includi...

As vice president of data management and operations at Thomson Reuters, Marc Alvarez applies an entrepreneurial approach to data management. During his career, he’s found that treating data less like an IT project and more like a business asset requires fundamental changes around data management. In this episode, Marc talks about what’s driving change around how companies use data, the role techno...

Success as a CDO increasingly means knowing how to use data to drive revenue. But at many organizations, data leaders are still figuring out how to work with their business counterparts. That's one takeaway from a survey of 300 C-suite executives on the topic of data and digital transformation. Conducted by NewVantage Partners since 2012, the survey includes the perspectives of leading Fortune 100...

Once responsible for data governance, companies increasingly want CDOs who use data to drive the business. Someone who not only saw that evolution but experienced it is Mark Ramsey, who held the title of CDO when the role was very new. Mark served as a data leader twice in his 30-year career. First as CDO at Samsung Mobile and then as Chief Data and Analytics Officer at GlaxoSmithKline. In this ep...

When you think about Hollywood, you probably think about movies, actors and scripts. But behind the scenes, tremendous amounts of data power a complex supply chain that shapes the movie trailers you watch and the release date of the next blockbuster. In this episode of Datamasters, Eric Iverson, who was the CIO of Sony Pictures Television and CIO and CTO at top talent agency Creative Artists Agenc...

As deputy CTO in the Obama administration, Nick oversaw the Open Data Initiative, which lead to government data being publicly released for use by the private sector. In this episode of DataMasters, Nick talks about the connection between government data and your favorite mobile apps, the technical challenges agencies faced as they catalogued and listed data sets, and how he created a data culture...