The CDO Midwest Summit 2022, hosted by CDO Magazine and Comspark, brings together industry leaders to share best data practices and grow as a community. In the keynote address, “Insights to the Success of a CDAO,” Vipin Gopal, Chief Data and Analytics Officer at Eli Lilly and Company, discusses the C-suite and its key strategies to transform organizations. Stephen Gatchell, Big ID’s Director of DataAdvisory, moderates the keynote discussion.

In his introductory remarks, Gopal says that each organization evolves uniquely in its data journey. Further exploring the data journey aspect, he notes that CDOs used to manage regulatory risk, which he calls defense.

With time, the function changed into what he calls offense, where the focus is more on revenue-generating and cost-saving opportunities. According to Gopal, the second part of a CDO’s job is to help businesses derive value. However, in the third phase, organizations strive to reach the point where data analytics is the business.

Handling data feeds and analytics collectively benefits organizations, he continues. Therefore, CDO and CDAO paths must naturally intertwine.

Gopal observes, however, that with the increase in positions and titles in the C-suite, each leader must have defined responsibilities with a clear collaborative understanding. “There should be no ambiguity concerning the leadership responsibilities of the C-suite,” he explains.

From the business standpoint, Goyal says that a CDO is at the center of the data ecosystem and drives beneficial transformation by partnering with business leaders. “One of the things that I have found very useful is to have people from the data organization and the business organization working together on common problems,” he adds.

Goyal advises organizations to form teams from their organization and the business side to push change from a technological standpoint.

He then cites the following two characteristics of a great team:

• The team must be multidisciplinary.
• There must be a solid balance between internal and external talent.

Next, Goyal emphasizes hiring and retaining employees. He affirms that meaningful work motivates people; therefore, firms must prioritize job quality to attract and keep talent. He believes that since COVID, employee demands have dramatically changed.

Highlighting the responsible use of data, he stresses the need for firms to follow sound governance principles, starting with rudimentary data analysis and moving to artificial intelligence.

Goyal concludes the discussion by saying CDOs have the privilege of being change agents and influencing organizations to improve the world.

Watch other CDO Midwest Summit 2022 sessions HERE