CDO Magazine hosted senior data, analytics, and AI leaders in Chicago for its Executive Boardroom Dinner on September 25 at Prime & Provisions, featuring a dynamic panel on the timely theme “Data Foundation for GenAI.

The speakers highlighted the importance of readying data for AI and GenAI, ensuring ROI-focused investments, streamlining data foundations via hyperscaler innovations, responsibly governing agentic solutions, and leveraging trusted partners to navigate the fast-evolving AI landscape.

The panel of experts were:

• Mir Ali, The Hershey Company Sr. Director, Data Products & Platforms
• Ivana Donevska, BMO US Data, Analytics and AI Risk Head
• Sid Raina, Medline Industries Vice President, AI & Data Analytics
• Adnan Hasan, Google GTM Strategist, Analytics Data Platform for AI

The discussion was moderated by Rajeev Nayyar,Tiger Analytics, VP, Data & AI.

Sharing his experience, speaker Raina says, “The imperative for governed, high-quality data at scale has become even more pronounced in the age of Generative AI and agentic systems. This theme emerged consistently throughout the evening and deeply resonated with me and fellow executives, underscoring its strategic relevance across industries.”

According to panelist Ali, strong data foundations aren’t built by technology alone but by culture, shared accountability, and trust. Ali echoes Raina in his key takeaway from the event: “The real conversation isn’t just about GenAI use cases — it’s about ensuring the data foundations are strong enough to deliver value, trust, and scale.”

Speaker Hasan elaborates,”We highlighted the strategic integration of AI agents to streamline ETL processes and the critical importance of focusing on people and processes to unlock the true value and cost efficiencies of AI.” He adds,“I was thoroughly impressed by the CDO Magazine’s efforts in bringing together such an engaging and meaningful gathering of executives.”

Meera Dugar, JPMorganChase Vice President, observes, “AI’s real power comes from disciplined data accountability—driving both ROI and ROE while giving CISOs confidence in responsibility and CFOs confidence in returns, making innovation both secure and impactful.”

Panelist Donevska adds, “It was great to discuss the future of data and the future of energy sources that will be needed to power its compute needs.”

Anthony Losanno, CDO Magazine SVP, Sales, highlights, “To see so many from our Chicago community come out to network and join the engaging panel discussion was amazing. The group had a lot of insights and provided real-world experiences around justifying investments, expectations, and how the journey has been in their personal experience. Looking forward to more with this quickly growing community.”

Moderator Nayyar points out that the event was a powerful gathering that cut through the Gen AI hype to focus on foundational reality. Summing it up, he says, “With leaders from banking, healthcare, CPG, and beyond, the discussions provided a clear, multi-industry view on the single biggest challenge: how to industrialize the data foundation to finally realize measurable ROI. It was evident that organizations are at varying stages, but the common thread is a strategic pivot toward modernizing data platforms to be inherently Gen AI-ready. The peer-to-peer insights were invaluable, particularly on the shift from ‘data cost’ to ‘data investment’ and the associated ROI.”

Special thanks to Google Cloud and Tiger Analytics for making the CDO Magazine Chicago Executive Boardroom Dinner such a resounding success.

*Meera Dugar is a member of the CDO Magazine Global Editorial Board.

Executives attending the CDO Magazine Chicago Executive Boardroom Dinner included: 

Mir Ali, The Hershey Company Sr. Director, Data Products & Platforms; Ziad Azzi, Google Head, Partner Engineering, Gen AI Center, Excellence; Money Bullock, BMO Financial Group Director, Data & Analytics Governance; Ivana Donevska, BMO US Data, Analytics & AI Risk Head; Meera Dugar, JPMorganChase VP; Adnan Hasan, Google GTM Strategist, Analytics Data Platform for AI; Jason Jones, Sedgwick VP, Analytics; Mohammed Sajid Khan, OSI Group Director & Head, Global Data & Analytics; Joe Liu, James Hardie Chief Technology Officer; Tony Liu, Ecolab Principal Architect, Enterprise AI, ML & Enterprise Data Analytics Architecture; Kevin McGhee, Marillac St. Vincent Family Services Sr. Director; Stacy Trackey Meagher, Google VP, Central Region US; Gokula Mishra, former Direct Supply VP, Data Science; Kedar Pandit, Ulta Beauty VP, Strategic Analytics & Data Science; Sid Raina, Medline Industries VP, AI & Data Analytics; Purvi Savera, Alliant Credit Union Director, Data; Keyuri Shah, GEICO Director, Software Engineering; Frank Sung, Loop Capital Markets VP, Data Management; Jennifer Bejarano, Tiger Analytics Program Manager, Google Cloud Partnership; Rajeev Nayar, Tiger Analytics VP, Data & AI; Kamlesh Singh, Tiger Analytics Regional Sales Head; Jason Weinstein, Tiger Analytics Director, Business Development; Anthony Losanno, CDO Magazine SVP, Sales; Lexy Smith, CDO Magazine Program Director; and John Vulopas, CDO Magazine Strategic Account Director.