(US and Canada) Anish Gandhi, Director of Analytics and Sales Operations, Glassdoor, speaks with Daniel Gray, VP Sales Engineering, AtScale, about the qualities of data and analytic leaders, driving a data-driven culture, prioritizing investments, and the need for building trust.

Speaking on the ideal qualities he looks for in data and analytic leaders, he says that overall, the person has to be a leader who can build trust and empower the team while also having problem-solving abilities.

Sharing tips for creating a data-driven culture, Gandhi says it is not an easy journey, and leaders need to have short-term, medium-term, and long-term strategies.

A short-term strategy involves the “low-hanging fruit” a business can address quickly. In contrast, a long-term strategy involves getting top executives on board and having cross-function alignment across various stakeholders.

Regarding prioritizing investment in tools, people and processes, Gandhi notes that he always puts people first because they define and implement the process. Tools are second because they capture all the information implemented as a part of the processes.

Gandhi emphasizes that a data and analytics leader’s most important responsibility is building credibility and trust. Once people build confidence in the outcomes of analytics and data, they recognize the data leaders and look to them for everything from the data perspective.