The Data Chief

Gen-AI, Gen-AI, Gen-AI. The transformative technology has captured the imagination of everyone in the tech industry. Industries are shifting before our eyes, and the roles and responsibilities of data practitioners everywhere are going to shift again. The question is not whether an impact will be made, but what will the impact be? In this episode, Cindi sits down with 3 industry leaders to discuss how AI will impact our work and our personal lives in 2024. Sandy Carter shares how a severe injury in Brazil impacted her outlook on data sharing, and data verification in a world where AI can convince millions that the Pope wears puffy jackets. Jai Das sees a gap in educating technical workers if AI is too widely adopted. Prab Pritchandi shares how the financial industries will modernize in a heavily regulated environment.  Industry Predictions: There will be an intersection of AI Privacy and blockchain technology that will be poised to reshape the entire landscape of proof of ownership. And therefore, also revolutionize data sharing practices. We will go and move into a decentralized proof of ownership because of the increasing use of Gen AI and the fear of deep fakes. (34:15) - Sandy CarterGenerative AI is going to get rid of a lot of the grunt work that we have day to day. Including some of the groundwork in data prep, some of the groundwork that analysts have to do, or even understanding reports and dashboards. I think the fear about [AI] getting really smart and destroying the world is really far-fetched. All of the LLMs and all of these GPT 5 and all of these models, they're great [but] they're not really reasoning. They're not right. They're great at getting some information and putting it in a new form. They don't come up with anything original. So I'm not actually fearful of [AI] replacing humans. (14:30) - Jai Das90 percent of the data available in the world has been created in the last one year.And every year the amount of data is actually increasing. I could say data is really a good digital twin of your business [but] that itself is not a value unless you're able to convert this data to insights and then convert the insights to actionable insights. (1:06:00)- Prab Pitchandi Key MomentsJai observes 2023 AI startups are missing profitable business models  (10:55)Jai identifies a gap in education. Developers are trained through repetition. But what happens when repetition is replaced by AI (24:53)Sandy breaks her femur and surgery is delayed by 48 hours due to data (34:54)Sandy says, Taylor Swift is Web 3.0 (46:30)Prab compares banking data and analytics to cricket (51:27)Prab wonders if Formula 1 can be driverless (1:07:00) Mentions: Microsoft CoPilotGoogle GeminiMidjourneyOpenAITop 10 data and analytics trends 2024The Year GenAI Comes to Fruition: 10 Enterprise Tech Trends Set to Define 2024  Hear more from Cindi Howson here. Sponsored by ThoughtSpot.

The world's top data and analytics leaders share their stories on the The Data Chief. New episodes return in January 2024. Until then, take a look at some of the previous episodes and hear case studies, industry insights, and personal lessons from the executives leading the data revolution. Hear more from Cindi Howson here. Sponsored by ThoughtSpot.

Benn Stancil, Co-Founder of Mode Analytics and Field CTO at Thoughtspot, discusses the importance of data excellence, centralized data infrastructure, natural language search, and the impact of large language models. He highlights the risks of shadow tools, the need for visibility into business context, and the role of ambition in selecting data tools within organizations.

Diana Schildhouse, Chief Analytics and Insights Officer at Colgate-Palmolive, discusses driving business value through analytics, ensuring executives are data fluent, innovating with AI, and her career path through iconic brands like Mattel and Disney.

Sebastien Rozanes, CDAO at Carrefour, shares how data maturity was accelerated and data monetization was achieved. Selling data to CPGs, reducing friction in collaboration, and leveraging generative AI are discussed. The role of imagination in identifying AI opportunities and transforming the shopping experience using ChatGPT is explored.

Dr. Barb Wixom, Vin Vashishta, and Asha Saxena discuss their must-read data and analytics books. Topics include organizational leaders, creating value from data, value-based approach, driving culture change, Women Leaders in Data and AI, deploying AI, ethical use of AI, and a case study on leveraging AI in an animal shelter.

Geraldine Wong, CDO of GXS Bank in Singapore shares how they established data literacy at the bank, the formation of GXS Bank and their focus on financial inclusion, the potential of generative AI to accelerate data literacy, challenges in operationalizing machine learning models in banking, Singapore's leadership in data privacy standards and AI ethics, the importance of financial services, education, and infrastructure in Singapore, and closing segment on travel and networking.

Sumathi Thiyagarajan, VP of Business Strategy and Analytics for the Milwaukee Bucks, discusses building a data team, personalized fan experiences, increasing team visibility in the marketplace, and finding strong data team talent through a successful hackathon.

Alex Viana, VP of Data at Vercel, shares insights on leading data teams at different fast-growing tech companies, building scalable data platforms, delivering value through stakeholder engagement, and balancing long-term vision with short-term action. Topics include his data journey with the Hubble Space Telescope, transitioning from growth-stage to mature companies, creating synchronicity across departments, and the growth of generative AI in data.

Each day, valuable patient data collected by healthcare systems. When used properly as part of healthcare analytics, this can help drive better outcomes for both patients and providers. However, when data management is not effectively implemented, organizations lose out on these benefits. Terry Myerson, CEO of Truveta, saw the need to unlock data’s potential while still ensuring privacy and security. In this episode, he discusses his company’s unique approach,  the urgent need for better data insights for treatment protocols, and how AI is creating both efficiencies and concerns when making sense of data.Tune in to learn:The origin of Truveta [6:28]Pulling data from the provider, not the patient [9:47]Fragmentation, privacy, and unstructured data [11:58]Healthcare data trends [15:50]Population-level data [17:49]Bringing in data from multiple systems [23:08]Why transparency earns trust [26:10]Language models and generative AI [28:10]Terry’s career journey [35:29]Mentions: Providence HealthcareCNNRogaineOzempicBoston ScientificNational Library of MedicineBloombergMicrosoftWorld Health OrganizationCommon SpiritTrinity HealthThe Emperor of All MaladiesMacklemoreGet even more insights from data and analytics leaders like Terry on The Data Chief.  Mission.org is a media studio producing content for world-class clients. Learn more at mission.org. Hear more from Cindi Howson here. Sponsored by ThoughtSpot.