(Middle East and Africa) Nollie Maoto, CDAO – Merchant Services at FNB South Africa, speaks with Ben Blanquera, VP-Evangelist, Senior Architect of Rackspace, in a video interview about data literacy, the need for upskilling, and the data literacy journey at FNB South Africa.

FNB South Africa is one of four major banks in South Africa. It employs close to 32,000 people across its commercial and retail businesses. Maoto’s team within the commercial space primarily deals with business intelligence, data management, data science, analytics, and pricing.

Sharing her definition of data literacy, Maoto says it is the intersection of working with data, reading it, and then communicating with it. She says organizations today need more people with the ability to interpret data, draw insights from it, and ask the right questions. She further urges individuals to upskill themselves and companies to support their employees, thereby lifting the capabilities to drive change.

She further explains that people need to be able to understand data to be in a position to make decisions. It is not limited to leadership and includes senior, middle, junior, and entry-level management.

Maoto notes that many legacy companies have been operating in silos regarding the data literacy journey. She emphasizes, however, there is no point in data analytics teams creating data products if end users cannot consume them.

As a final note, Maoto says that FNB South Africa has made significant strides in obtaining leadership buy-in, creating training plans, and implementing those plans.

CDO Magazine appreciates Nollie Maoto for sharing her insights and data success stories with our global community.