Julia Bardmesser, SVP, Head of Data, Architecture, and Salesforce Development at Voya Financial, speaks with Peter Ku, VP and Chief Industry Strategist at Informatica, about the importance of data as a business driver and pursuing a career in data today.

Bardmesser begins the discussion by highlighting data governance strategies that drive business in the present scenario and factors that drive new investments in data management for digital transformation.

She focuses on ROI as a prime driver, stating, "ROI is still a question, especially when you introduce a new program or  new concepts such as data management, data governance, or digital transformation.”

During her initial years at Voya, she was trying to define the value of data programs in business terms. She approaches the data aspect from the business driver perspective, starting with empowering the customer, improving customer experience, enhancing decision-making, and driving business strategy. These factors determine the direction of the business.

She says, "How do you improve your customer experience? You need data for that. How do you make good decisions about which products do well and which products don’t do well? How do you make any type of business decisions? We need data." 

Highlighting the business strategy angle, she urges understanding which strategy would resonate in the market. She notes that although the cloud enables “failing fast,” the business would require data to learn the success and failure parameters.  

Bardmesser emphasizes the need for data in all aspects, including data integration, data management,  and data quality. "You need an easy-to-use interface. Find the data in the business terms. Next, go to where it lives physically and technologically and see how that connects,” she says.

Regarding privacy factors, she notes that ESG is one of the most critical topics.  "It’s the 80-point rule; 80% of the time, people are looking for data; If the data is there and they can find it and understand the quality, it’s not 80 points. Now they spend 80% of the time analyzing, providing decision-making reports, doing analytics, predictive modeling, and 20% of the time looking at the data." 

The latter, she affirms, leads to more data generation out of the resources, and the reusable capabilities are a huge driver of the data platform and data governance value. However, there is no need for rebuilding; a company can do it according to its strategy. "I don’t think there are many companies today with a business strategy that’s not dependent on data." 

Addressing the younger generation of data enthusiasts, Bardmesser advises them to go for a career in data. There are multiple rooms for talent in the data realm, she emphasizes. "If somebody is incredibly technical and wants to get into the deepest nuts-and-bolts, there is so much data that you can get into and have a huge career doing this. Also, if you are more interested in solving business problems, there is a huge room for that.” She also invites people who understand both business and technology aspects of data to choose the field because AI and ML solve many technical problems. 

In conclusion, Bardmesser states that as data drives the business, data operators are no longer in the background or invisible. "There are many business strategies that rely on data analytics. About 10 years ago, it was a much more technical discipline with little interaction with the business. I think that’s changed dramatically within the last five years, and I think it will  continue changing."