Leading Analytics Podcast

In the 30th episode of IIA’s Leading Analytics podcast, IIA CEO Jack Phillips chats with Inderpal Bhandari, Global Chief Data Officer for IBM, a company deeply rooted in the data, analytics, and technology world. When Bhandari started at IBM six years ago, the role of AI from an enterprise standpoint was not clear to many B2B companies. IBM set out to infuse AI into its own business processes and then use what they learned to showcase to customers, be a voice of experience, and help customers avoid pitfalls. Bhandari observes that to infuse AI into an enterprise, it requires a holistic transformation that involves technology, data, IT, and business processes.

What could be at all analytical about an elegant kitchen or bathroom faucet? Actually lots. As the name suggests, the Delta Faucet Company is synonymous with products for showering, bathing, sinks, toilets, and steam showers. In this episode I visit with Liz Kershner who recently joined the company as Senior Director for Strategy, Insights and Advanced Analytics. We cover the hybrid organizing model that Liz has implemented, and the various roles that analytics plays including market forecasting and monitoring of consumer behavior and trends. We finish up with a few book recommendations that you won’t want to miss.

The power of a healthy smile defines Colgate’s global mission. In this episode, you’ll hear about the central role that data, insights and analytics play in driving that mission forward. Diana Schildhouse joins the Leading Analytics Podcast for an episode filled with wisdom based on her experience leading analytics and insights efforts at Colgate. You’ll hear a clear and consistent description of how value is generated through the use of data and advanced analytics at Colgate, and some timely advice for what makes an analytics professional successful these days. And if you listen carefully, you’ll be the proud owner of a new book from the IIA library.

In this episode, I sit down with Sammi Li who leads analytics for the Community Bank side of Flagstar Bank. We talk about a range of banking application areas including hyper-personalization—how the bank can bring stronger and better digital and AI capabilities to deliver personalization to Flagstar customers through their bankers in the branches. Sammi’s great advice for aspiring analytics professionals include, be curious, keep learning, have a growth mindset, and figure out how to become a more helpful person. This simple, but universal behaviors, have all played a big role in her success in the analytics field, and financial services.

Cara Dailey joins Season 3 of the Leading Analytics Podcast to share some of her early experiences as Chief Data Officer at LPL Financial. In this far-ranging conversation, you’ll hear about the areas the data and analytics team at LPL Financial is having the most impact. Hint, it’s all about the customer. We dive into talent retention, data governance, AI and team culture. Cara also shares a few of her top influencers and advice for folks just joining the analytics movement as professionals!

To kick off Season 3 of the Leading Analytics Podcast, I sit down with Callum Staff who leads food analytics at the global retail brand Marks & Spencer based in London. Sitting beneath the in-store customer experience and the rich product offerings, sits a growing analytics capability crucial to growing the enterprise in the future. Callum also mentions a few must read book titles that you won’t want to miss.

We close out Season 2 with a conversion with Helena Yin Koeppl of Bayer. Like many of our guests over the first two seasons, Helena has held analytics leadership roles at some of the world’s most recognized consumer and healthcare brands. Helena now oversees building the strategic vision as well as the analytics portfolio and roadmap for a brand-new function in Bayer’s Pharmaceutical division. She has designed a growing organization that enables advanced analytics, artificial intelligence, and machine learning to drive business outcomes across therapeutic areas and markets at Bayer.

How about an inspiring conversation with John Kahan of the technology giant, Microsoft. Of course, data and analytics are at the center of Microsoft’s business, but John acts as Chief Data Analytics Officer, and the global lead of “AI for Health” for the company. In this episode, John shares his (and Microsoft’s) world view of the possibilities for AI, ML and data science to help meet the global challenges such as sustainability, health and human rights, and disaster response. For one, I came away from the episode with renewed hope for how technology and analytics can help change the world.

Danone is among the most iconic food manufacturing companies in the world with brands like Evian and Volvic waters, and Aktiva and Silk soymilk in the dairy area. And, it’s hard to find a more diverse guest than the company’s analytics leader Elena Alikhachkina. Elena started her career in the news and information industry, and has since held senior analytics roles in healthcare and biotech, and now food and nutrition. If you’re looking for some universal truths drawn from years of cross-industry experience, this is your episode.

Coca-cola is among the world’s most iconic brands. In this episode, I sit down with Saurabh Parikh who leads data and innovation at CONA Services, which supports the largest Coke bottlers in North America. Saurabh describes how the firm delivers analytics solutions against today’s opportunities, while also keeping a sharp eye on all of the areas to improve and innovate for the future. He shares a well-tested organizational model that balances the needs of both data management and analytics, and keeps new ideas flowing through the organization.

It’s not often that I speak with an analytics leader from a company whose roots go back to America’s founding fathers. Yatish Uchil of BNY Mellon joins me on this episode to discuss his new role leading an analytics team supporting the firm’s shared services technology organization. Yatish shares some great anecdotes and soundbites he’s developed over the years leading analytics, and compares his experience in both business-facing teams and now technology teams.

If you’re into technology, pride yourself on owning the most cutting edge tech toys, you have undoubtedly spent time at Best Buy. And lurking in the background, and often driving the customer experience is growing data and analytics capability led by Nicole Nelson, the company’s Chief Analytics Officer. You’ll hear about the group’s recent transition to a centralized model (COE), and a few nuggets from Nicole around makes for a high-performing analytics leader.

Zoetis may not be a recognizable brand to many, but If you work or live around animals or livestock, Zoetis will be a familiar name. Zoetis serves veterinarians, livestock producers and people who raise and care for farm and companion animals in more than 100 countries. Krishna Cheriath leads digital, data and analytics at Zoetis, and he walks us through how the company organizes the data and analytics effort around the globe and across business lines.

In this episode, Tarun Kataria of Mars takes us through his experience leading analytics efforts at a series of prominent global companies including Coca-Cola, Georgia Pacific and now Mars. You will walk away from this episode with a handful of very useful frameworks that Tarun uses with his team and company leaders to stay focused on the right things, and always drive the company’s global mission across all of the business lines. Mars remains a private, family-owned company with a serious mission including climate change, food shortages, gender and racial equality, and other social issues. Behind the company’s multiple priorities lies a very robust, highly intentional analytics capability that is a model for others to pay attention to.

Amazon Web Services (AWS) has become synonymous with cloud analytics and data tools, and Amazon the e-commerce giant continually ranks at the top of IIA’s analytics maturity index. In this episode, I sit down with Rahul Pathak to talk about the evolution of AWS and the impact is has had (and will continue to have) on data science and analytics that are practiced and delivered at enterprises of all shapes and sizes around the world. You will hear quotes from Amazon’s founder Jeff Bezos about the company’s maniacal customer focus, and Rahul gives us a glimpse into the future of how cloud analytics will impact the the data science role going forward.

Scott Zoldi is the first CAO we spoken with on the podcast whose company’s product is actually data and analytics. Today, FICO is a household name among consumers, but is also critical to the way enterprises of all sizes conduct business. Over 19 years at FICO, Scott has built a truly world-class data and analytics organization grounded in science and ethics. Yes, ethics. In our conversation, Scott shares the essentials of how analytics is organized at FICO, but also shares how important the proper and ethical use of the data they control is to the company.

Cameron Davies has been at Yum! Brands under a year, but seems to be building (and acquiring) world-class analytics capabilities the way he has at other companies, but in a way that is unique to Yum! If you don’t recognize the Yum! Name, you’ll surely recognize KFC, Pizza Hut and Taco Bell which are all part of the Yum! Family of companies. In this far-reaching conversation, Cameron shares a unique list of attributes that make for a strong analytics leader, and he even references World War II history for inspiration when describing analytics projects. You’ll also want to pay attention to how Cameron is applying lessons from his past to current challenges at Yum! Without question an inspiring episode.

In this episode I sit down with Erika McBride who looks after all things analytics at the giant material science company, Dow, Inc. Like many of my prior guests, Erika manages the analytics and data science function, but doesn't actually have a data science background. Instead, her main focus is on how analytics translates to business outcomes. You'll hear some great slogans in this episode like, "translating data into profit," and "ringing the cash register at Dow." Erika shares how leadership viewed analytics when she first joined the company, much like a science experiment, and how she has been able to turn the culture around to a highly successful venture inside Dow today.

We’re kicking off Season 2 of the Leading Analytics Podcast with Bob Darin who holds both an chief analytics officer role and chief data officer role at CVS Health, which recently merged with the insurance giant Aetna. The combination of these two giant companies holds great promise in healthcare to bring together retail and pharmacy operations with health insurance services to produce a powerful end-to-end solution for patients and consumers. Bob shares a few selected approaches to how the data and analytics teams are organized, and specifically the expectations the organization has for the data and analytics capabilities. The bar is high for advanced technologies like AI at CVS/Aetna, and this episode walks you through the vision and tactics being employed step-by-step.

We end our first season with one of IIA’s 2020 Excellence in Analytics (ANNY) winners, Cleveland Clinic. Chris Donovan joins me to describe the world-class team and capabilities they have assembled at Cleveland Clinic, but also to retrace for us this dreadful COVID year from a disease management and clinical perspective. Like John Phytilla in episode 7, Chris and his team could never have predicted (no pun intended), how central their team would become to the day-to-day operations as they took on COVID. But, the team, the data, and the models were up to the challenge, and will see it through to the very end