Technology Executive | Entrepreneur | Data Catalog Software Creator
What attracted you to data management or IT, and why did you choose to pursue this career?
Before entering the data field in 2013, I was working in IT. Around that time, I became aware of the rapid growth of tech companies like Google and Amazon and discovered that this unprecedented expansion was fueled by data.
This realization encouraged me to change the direction of my career and focus on data technologies.
What has been your greatest career accomplishment so far, and why has it been important to your career?
Without a doubt, the highlight of my career has been founding a data governance company and scaling it to the exciting stage we are at today. I get tremendous joy from seeing our collective vision translated into a working application that thousands of data professionals use every day.
What are the two or three biggest challenges you face as a data management professional / CDO and how can we address them?
Although data management professionals face many challenges, the one that I see most regularly is building a business case that justifies the existence of their role.
Still today, many business leaders appear unaware of the potential value of the data in their organizations and data management is often dismissed as a non-essential business practice.
Another significant challenge for data professionals is the absence of a clear mandate. As data management is a relatively new sector, there is a crossover with IT because many data management responsibilities were traditionally adopted by IT professionals.
As a result, it can be difficult to know which responsibilities to transfer to a data management group and which to keep within the IT department.
How do you see data management / the role of the CDO / IT changing in the next 2 – 3 years?
Today, data management teams have a hard time defining roles and responsibilities and convincing users to adopt them.
In the next 2-3 years, I believe these responsibilities will be standardized industrywide, and data management professionals will instead focus on data literacy, data quality improvement, and data security.
Do you have any planned next steps for your career?
As a founder and CEO, my role is to promote data governance through my organization. We are continuing to create various tools and algorithms that will help data professionals implement data governance initiatives with ease.
What is the single best piece of advice you have received in your data management / IT career so far? Why has it been so important to you?
One of my mentors once advised me not to lose focus on business value. The trouble is, when you delve too much into technology, business value can easily be neglected.
The key is finding a balance. You can never achieve flawless data quality or data literacy. Instead, start by aiming to solve 80% of your customer’s problems and take it from there. Don’t get lost in the quest for perfection.
Can you share something about yourself as a person that people wouldn’t know about you?
In the workplace, I often find myself telling everyone what to do and how to do it. But personally, I am a great believer in logical and rational thinking.
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