Cdo Journey : Insights and Advice for Data Leaders

Let the masters guide you on your Chief Data Officer (CDO) journey!

The CDO is a new business role, and just starting to appear in state, local, and federal governments. Like many new roles, the CDO's responsibilities are continuously evolving and changing. Most institutions are not consistent with assigning CDO responsibilities, and this lack of standardization is of great concern. Also, some say public and private sector CDOs are dramatically different. We don't believe that. We think CDOs are more similar than dissimilar. More importantly, though, we think private and public CDOs can learn from each other. We've created this book to help all CDOs, public and private. This book is about ideas and recommendations which have broad application - on the shop floor, in a conference room, or even in legislative chambers. Apply our advice to smooth your ride during the CDO journey.

Use our ideas and suggestions in ways that work for you, because every organization and data journey is different. These ideas are here to help you avoid some of our frustrations. We hope this can reach executives, managers, legislators, and others leading organizations to help bridge explanations of new vocabulary, ideas, and processes. Ultimately, we think this book will help you create data-centric value for your organization.

Peter Aiken, an acknowledged Data Management (DM) authority, is an Associate Professor at Virginia Commonwealth University, past President DAMA International, and Associate Director of the MIT International Society of Chief Data Officers. For more than 35 years, Peter has learned from working with hundreds of data management practices in 30 countries including some of the world's most important. Among his 10 books are the first on CDOs (the case for data leadership), the first describing the monetization of data for profit/good, and the first on modern strategic data thinking. International recognition has resulted in an intensive schedule of events worldwide. Peter also hosts the longest-running DM webinar series (hosted by dataversity.net). In 1999 (before Google, before data was big, and before data science), he founded Data Blueprint, a consulting firm that has helped more than 150 organizations leverage data for profit, improvement, competitive advantage and operational efficiencies.

Todd Harbour is the Chief Data Officer (CDO) for New York State, where he orchestrates work to design and implement a data management regime. Todd's work includes developing a data governance strategy, framework, and roadmap; defining a unified information architecture; realizing master data; coordinating data sharing; and establishing a state-wide data analytics community of practice.Todd is a certified Project Management Professional (PMP), Program Management Professional (PgMP), Scrum Master (CSM), and Chief Information Officer (CIO) with the Project Management Institute and National Defense University. Todd is also a certified Data Management Professional (CDMP) and Data Governance and Stewardship Professional (DGSP) with the Data Management Association (DAMA). Todd currently holds four graduate degrees in information systems, project management, business administration, and government information leadership.

Ed Kelly has over 30 years of experience in business and information technology. He currently serves as the Statewide Data Coordinator for the Department of Information Resources (DIR). In his role, he works with agencies and institutions of higher education to collaboratively develop data policies, standards, and best practices to improve data governance and integrity statewide. Ed is also responsible for seeking out opportunities for data sharing across government agencies, to increase government transparency, reduce duplicative information collection, and improve data management and analysis. Prior to joining DIR, he held positions with the Texas Department of Agriculture as Chief Administrative Officer and with the Texas Department of Public Safety as Chief Information Officer. Eds experience includes a variety of roles in the private sector including State Street Bank and Trust Company, Fidelity Investments, Dell Computer, Dell Financial Services, and Unisys Corporation.

Burt Walsh brings over 20 years of experience in the IT industry in various technical and management roles. He has extensive knowledge of programming languages, enterprise systems, technology frameworks, data conversion, operating systems, and design methodologies. Prior to joining AST, Burt served as Development LeadCloud Services with Amazon Web Services and Principal Software Engineer with Computer Science Corporation. Some of his earlier roles include Lead Architect with the Office of Early Learning, Lead Architect/Project Manager with the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, as well as various roles with Bank of America. Burt holds a Bachelor of Science in Mathematics from the Florida State University and a Master of Science in Computer Science.

Kathy Walter has a decade of experience managing IT projects, first as a COBOL programmer in the utilities industry, then as an IT Project Manager in a variety of website consulting firms and in the financial services industry. She also worked for nearly a decade in product management and development as Technical Product Manager at Instinet Corporation, Associate Brand Manager at Gillette and Proctor & Gamble, as well as Senior Product Manager for Iron Mountain, before branching into the education industry working as Executive Director, Product Development, for NYC Department of Education. Kathy currently works as an attorney for the State of New York focused on issues of consumer protection and data privacy. Kathy holds a B.S. in Applied Math from Union College, an M.B.A. from NYUs Stern School of Business, and a J.D. with a concentration in Information Law and Intellectual Property from Fordham University School of Law. Kathy also holds a graduate certificate in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL) and has been an ESL educator at Northeastern University and Cambridge Learning Center, an ESL curriculum consultant with the YearUp program in Boston, and a program developer for several teaching projects in Uganda.