Discover the strategies that convert data into insights and action for propelling business value. Acclaimed data analytics leaders will unearth the secrets of success in each episode. Subscribe to stay abreast of the techniques, trends, and technologies driving our fast-paced industry!

Secrets of Data Analytics Leaders Podcasts

In this podcast, Kevin Sonsky reveals the secrets to his success as a business intelligence leader at Citrix Systems. During the past 11 years, he has implemented an enterprise-wide self-service reporting environment that has delivered deeper insights into customer purchasing behavior. At the same time, he has established a grassroots governance program that has successfully standardized on dozens of key enterprise metrics and reports. Kevin is interviewed by Wayne W. Eckerson, long-time thought leader in the business analytics field.

Kevin Sonsky: BI Leadership and Data Governance

Mike Masciandaro is a veteran business intelligence practitioner who recently retired from an illustrious career at Dow Chemical. Mike has seen and done just about everything there is to do in the world of BI, data, and analytics. He is now intent on sharing his hard-won knowledge with others. You will learn the definition and purpose of a BI program, the role of subject matter experts, how to hire and retain talent, keys to delivering value as a BI program, and more.

Mike Masciandaro: Part I - BI Programs and Teams

In this podcast, Dewayne Washington speaks the unadulterated truth about the role of the CIO and discusses keys to success and common pitfalls. Washington is a senior consultant with 20+ years of experience in BI and Analytics in over two dozen verticals. He is the former BI manager at Dallas/Fortworth International Airport and the current CIO at The Business of Intelligence. Washington is also a sought-after speaker and mentor for organizations striving to leverage BI and Analytics to meet business goals, thus earning him the title, BI Pharaoh.

Dewayne Washington: Part I - The Role Of The CIO

Dewayne Washington is back this week for part II of his Secrets of Data Analytics Leaders podcast with Eckerson Group. In part I, Dewayne and I discussed the role of the CIO. In this episode we discuss the keys to IT success.

Washington is a senior consultant with 20+ years of experience in BI and Analytics in over two dozen verticals. He is the former BI manager at Dallas/Fortworth International Airport and the current CIO at The Business of Intelligence. He is also the author of the book Get In The Stream, the ultimate guide to customer adoption, and his Data Warehousing and Mobile Solutions implementations have been featured in CIO Magazine and the Wall Street Journal. Washington is also a sought-after speaker and mentor for organizations striving to leverage BI and Analytics to meet business goals, thus earning him the title, BI Pharaoh.

Dewayne Washington: Part II - Keys to IT Success

In this podcast, Wayne Eckerson and Joe Caserta discuss what constitutes a modern data platform. Caserta is President of a New York City-based consulting firm he founded in 2001 and a longtime data guy. In 2004, Joe teamed up with data warehousing legend, Ralph Kimball to write to write the book The Data Warehouse ETL Toolkit. Today he’s now one of the leading authorities on big data implementations. This makes Joe one of the few individuals with in-the-trenches experience on both sides of the data divide, traditional data warehousing on relational databases and big data implementations on Hadoop and the cloud. His perspectives are always insightful.

Joe Caserta: Exploring Modern Data Platforms

In this episode, Mike Masciandaro and Wayne Eckerson discuss how to partner with the business and ensure high levels of customer satisfaction and adoption. 

Mike is a veteran business intelligence practitioner who recently retired from an illustrious career at Dow Chemical. Mike has seen and done just about everything there is to do in the world of BI, data, and analytics. He is now intent on sharing his hard-won knowledge with others.

Mike Masciandaro: Part II - BI Customer Satisfaction and Adoption

In this podcast, Henry Eckerson and Stephen Smith discuss the movement to operationalize data science.

Smith is a well-respected expert in the fields of data science, predictive analytics and their application in the education, pharmaceutical, healthcare, telecom and finance industries. He co-founded and served as CEO of G7 Research LLC and the Optas Corporation which provided the leading CRM / Marketing Automation solution in the pharmaceutical and healthcare industries.

Smith has published journal articles in the fields of data mining, machine learning, parallel supercomputing, text understanding, and simulated evolution. He has published two books through McGraw-Hill on big data and analytics and holds several patents in the fields of educational technology, big data analytics, and machine learning.  He holds a BS in Electrical Engineering from MIT and an MS in Applied Sciences from Harvard University. He is currently the research director of data science at Eckerson Group.

Stephen Smith: Operationalizing Data Science

In this episode, Wayne Eckerson and Lenin Gali discuss the past and future of the cloud and big data.

Gali is a data analytics practitioner who has always been on the leading edge of where business and technology intersect. He was one of the first to move data analytics to the cloud when he was BI director at ShareThis, a social media based services provider. He was instrumental in defining an enterprise analytics strategy, developing a data platform that brought games and business data together to enable thousands of data users to build better games and services by using Hadoop & Teradata while at Ubisoft. He is now spearheading the creation of a Hadoop-based data analytics platform at Quotient, a digital marketing technology firm in the retail industry.

Lenin Gali: Past and Future of the Cloud and Big Data

In this episode, Wayne Eckerson and Mike Masciandaro discuss keys to creating successful reports that users will love and use. Masciandaro provides in-depth explanations of each key (easy, drill, monitor, accurate, relevant, timely, responsive, and secure).

Masciandaro is a veteran business intelligence practitioner who recently retired from an illustrious career at Dow Chemical as director of BI. During that time, Mike saw and did just about everything there is to do in the world of BI, data, and analytics. He is now intent on sharing his hard-won knowledge with others.

Mike Masciandaro: Part III - Eight Keys For Successful Reporting

In this episode, Wayne Eckerson and Jeff Magnusson discuss a self-service model for data science work and the role of a data platform in that environment. Magnusson also talks about Flotilla, a new open source API that makes it easy for data scientists to execute tasks on the data platform. 

Magnusson is the vice president of data platform at Stitch Fix. He leads a team responsible for building the data platform that supports the company's team of 80+ data scientists, as well as other business users. That platform is designed to facilitate self-service among data scientists and promote velocity and innovation that differentiate Stitch Fix in the marketplace. Before Stitch Fix, Magnusson managed the data platform architecture team at Netflix where he helped design and open source many of the components of the Hadoop-based infrastructure and big data platform.

Jeff Magnusson: How To Create A Self-Service Data Platform For Data Scientists

In this podcast, Henry Eckerson interviews Dave Wells on the current health and future of the data warehouse. Wells acknowledges that data warehouses are struggling, but argues they are still necessary and cannot be replaced by data lakes. He then explains what the role of the modern data warehouse should be, practical steps forward for evolving the data warehouse, and much more.

Wells is an advisory consultant, educator, and industry analyst dedicated to building meaningful connections throughout the path from data to business value. He works at the intersection of information management and business management, driving business impact through analytics, business intelligence, and active data management. More than forty years of information systems experience combined with over ten years of business management give him a unique perspective about the connections among business, information, data, and technology. Knowledge sharing and skill building are Dave’s passions, carried out through consulting, speaking, teaching, and writing. 

He is now the practice director of data management at Eckerson Group, cofounder and director of education at eLearningCurve, and a faculty member at The Data Warehousing Institute.

Dave Wells: Data Lakes Are Cool, But You Still Need A Data Warehouse

In this podcast, Wayne Eckerson and James Serra discuss myths of modern data management. Some of the myths discussed include 'all you need is a data lake', 'the data warehouse is dead', 'we don’t need OLAP cubes anymore', 'cloud is too expensive and latency is too slow', 'you should always use a NoSQL product over a RDBMS.'

Serra is big data and data warehousing solutions architect at Microsoft with over thirty years of IT experience. He is a popular blogger and speaker and has presented at dozens of Microsoft PASS and other events. Prior to Microsoft, Serra was an independent data warehousing and business intelligence architect and developer.

James Serra: Myths of Modern Data Management

In this podcast, Wayne Eckerson and Joe Caserta discuss data migration, compare cloud offerings from Amazon, Google, and Microsoft, and define and explain artificial intelligence.

You can contact Caserta by visiting caserta.com or by sending him an email to joe@caserta.com. Follow him on Twitter @joe_caserta.

Caserta is President of a New York City-based consulting firm he founded in 2001 and a longtime data guy. In 2004, Joe teamed up with data warehousing legend, Ralph Kimball to write to write the book The Data Warehouse ETL Toolkit. Today he’s now one of the leading authorities on big data implementations. This makes Joe one of the few individuals with in-the-trenches experience on both sides of the data divide, traditional data warehousing on relational databases and big data implementations on Hadoop and the cloud.

Joe Caserta: Comparing Cloud Offerings and Understanding AI

In this episode, Wayne Eckerson and Jeff Magnusson discuss the data architecture Stitch Fix created to support its data science workloads, as well as the need to balance man and machine and art and science.

Magnusson is the vice president of data platform at Stitch Fix. He leads a team responsible for building the data platform that supports the company's team of 80+ data scientists, as well as other business users. That platform is designed to facilitate self-service among data scientists and promote velocity and innovation that differentiate Stitch Fix in the marketplace. Before Stitch Fix, Magnusson managed the data platform architecture team at Netflix where he helped design and open source many of the components of the Hadoop-based infrastructure and big data platform.

Jeff Magnusson: Architecting for Data Science And Blending Man And Machine

In this podcast, Carl Gerber and Wayne Eckerson discuss Gerber’s top five data governance best practices: Motivation, Assessment, Data Assets Catalog, CxO Alliance, and Data Quality.
 
Gerber is a long-time chief data officer and data leader at several large, diverse financial services and manufacturing firms, who is now an independent consultant and an Eckerson Group partner. 

He helps large organizations develop data strategies, modernize analytics, and establish enterprise data governance programs that ensure data quality, operational efficiency, regulatory compliance, and business outcomes. He also mentors and coaches Chief Data Officers and fills that role on an interim basis.

Carl Gerber: Best Practices in Enterprise Data Governance

In this episode, Wayne Eckerson and Jen Underwood explore a new era of analytics. Data volumes and complexity have exceeded the limits of current manual drag-and-drop analytics solutions. Data moves at the speed of light while speed-to-insight lags farther and farther behind. It is time to explore intelligent, next generation, machine-powered analytics to retain your competitive edge. It is time to combine the best of the human mind and machine.

Underwood is an analytics expert and founder of Impact Analytic. She is a former product manager at Microsoft who spearheaded the design and development of the reinvigorated version of Power BI, which has since become a market leading BI tool. Underwood is an IBM Analytics Insider, SAS contributor, former Tableau Zen Master, Top 10 Women Influencer and active analytics community member. She is keenly interested in the intersection of data visualization and data science and writes and speaks persuasively about these topics.

Jen Underwood: Exploring the New Era of Analytics

In this episode, Wayne Eckerson and Rich Galan discuss the obstacles to delivering timely analysis, the problems that large volumes of data create, solutions to those issues, and where BI is headed in the near future. Rich is a veteran data analytics leader with 20 years of experience in a variety of data-driven organizations.

Rich Galan: Real-Time Analytics is Necessary and Anomaly Detection is Rad

In this episode, Wayne Eckerson and Rich Fox discuss what differentiates data science from analytics, why and how data science addresses business needs, why balance scorecards are relevant, and why Excel is a problem. Throughout the podcast, Fox shares many real-life examples and personal experiences.

Fox is vice president of Data Science and Analytics at Apex Parks Group, one of the largest entertainment center companies in the United States, which operates amusement parks, water parks, and family entertainment centers.

Rich Fox: Deliver Data Science, Not Reports

The road to AI adoption is far more complex than one can imagine. Building data science models and testing them is only one piece of the puzzle. To understand the roadblocks and best practices, Wayne Eckerson invited Nir Kaldero in our latest episode to learn why organizations need to start paying more attention to people, culture and processes to make data science projects a success and how democratization skills pays off in the long run.

Nir Kaldero is the Head of Data Science, Vice President at Galvanize Inc. and the creator of the GalvanizeU Master’s of Science in Data Science program. A tireless advocate for transforming education and reshaping the field of data science, his vision and mission is to make an impact on a wide variety of communities through education, science, and technology. In addition to his work at some of the world’s largest international corporations, Kaldero serves as a Google expert/mentor and has been named an IBM Analytics Champion 2017 & 2018, a prestigious honor given to leaders in the field of science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM).

Nir Kaldero: Data Science for Executives - Leveraging Machine Intelligence to Drive Business ROI

Being a change agent is hard. It's tough to inspire people and get them motivated to work on a shared vision. To understand the mechanics of digitalization and tactics required to implement them, Wayne Eckerson invited Andrea Ballinger so that she could share her hard-won lessons from her illustrious career as a technology leader.
 
Andrea is currently leading a transformation program at LSU, revamping the university’s information technology resources across multiple campuses. Prior to that, she served as Interim CEO and President for the University of Illinois  Alumni Association and CTO of Illinois State University. She began her data career at the University of Illinois where she earned a reputation as the foremost data warehousing expert in higher education.

Andrea Ballinger: Transformation and Change - What Technology Leaders Need to Do

Listen to data and analytics leaders share the secrets of their success. Wayne Eckerson, long-time global thought leader interviews guests who run data and analytics programs at Fortune 2000 organizations around the world. Tune in to stay abreast of the latest technologies, techniques, and trends in our fast-paced industry.

Secrets of Data Analytics Leaders Podcasts

Secrets of Data & Analytics Leaders