Cara Dailey, VP and Head of Data Strategy at Early Warning (the parent company of Zelle), joins High Signal to discuss the evolution of high-stakes data leadership and governance. From her early work in online advertising at DoubleClick to shaping data strategy at Nike and holding Chief Data Officer roles at Bank of the West and T. Rowe Price, Cara has seen every iteration of the data leader’s role. Now, she’s navigating her 'product era'—shaping the data strategy for Early Warning's Decisions Intelligence business, where she leverages rich financial data and data science to drive fraud monitoring and modeling.
In this episode, Cara shares her pragmatic 'progress over perfection' approach to governance, why she’s abandoning monolithic platforms in favor of incremental data products, and her 80/20 rule for balancing operational rigor with innovation. We also discuss why 'loving' data isn't enough—you have to actually 'take care' of it—and why AI is finally shining a spotlight on the often-neglected fundamentals of data stewardship and conversational BI.
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