(US and Canada) Tracy Daniels, Truist Chief Data Officer, speaks with Robert Lutton, Sandhill Consultants Vice President, in a video interview about the top attributes of future CDOs, delivering value, and a CDO’s culture-building responsibilities. 

Daniels considers herself a business leader, not just a technologist, because the data products and capabilities drive the business.

According to Daniels, the top attributes future CDOs require will include the following:

• Being a great listener and a great partner

• Curiosity to keep up with the industry and make connections within the company

• Technical acumen to make the most efficient decisions

Continuing, Daniels says she focuses on delivering value through enterprise data, analytics, and machine learning and mentions the following key aspects:

• The business case – Explaining business value makes it easier to get funding

• Not being okay with the inability to measure and quantify things

Providing insight into a CDO’s culture-building responsibilities, Daniels describes how Truist laid out a framework for internal communication. She explains that it has both formal and informal structures. The formal structure includes communities of practice, the data and analytics working group around data and analytics activity, and the stakeholder group with more practitioner involvement. Hackathons and data loops are among the informal structure’s activities that bring people together to talk about data.

In conclusion, Daniels says that Truist looks for ways to reinforce culture, community and conversation around data. She tries to participate with industry peers to share ideas and thoughts.

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

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