[Radar Recap] Building an Enterprise Data Strategy that Puts People First

Cindi Howson is the Chief Data Strategy Officer at ThoughtSpot and host of The Data Chief podcast.

Cindi is an analytics and BI thought leader and expert with a flair for bridging business needs with technology. As Chief Data Strategy Officer at ThoughtSpot, she advises top clients on data strategy and best practices to become data-driven, speaks internationally on top trends such as AI ethics, and influences ThoughtSpot’s product strategy.

Cindi was previously a Gartner research Vice President, as the lead author for the data and analytics maturity model and analytics and BI Magic Quadrant, and a popular keynote speaker. She introduced new research in data and AI for good, NLP/BI Search, and augmented analytics and brought both the BI bake offs and innovation panels to Gartner globally. She’s frequently quoted in MIT,Harvard Business Review, Information Week and is rated a top 12 influencer in big data and analytics by Analytics Insight, Onalytca, Solutions Review, and Humans of Data.

In 2022, CDO Magazine named her a Leading Data Consultant, and Global Data Power Woman. In 2021 she was named data leader of the year by Women in Data and as a finalist for motivator of the year by Women Leaders in Data and AI.

Prior to joining Gartner, she was founder of BI Scorecard, a resource for in-depth product reviews based on exclusive hands-on testing, contributor to Information Week, and the author of several books including: Successful Business Intelligence: Unlock the Value of BI & Big Data, Analytics Interpreted, and SAP BusinessObjects BI 4.0: The Complete Reference.

She served as The Data Warehousing Institute (TDWI) faculty member for more than a decade. She serves on the board for Drexel University’s LeBow Business Analytics program and is a volunteer for Girls Plus Data, Women in Data, and the Mark Cuban Foundation, AI bootcamps.

Prior to founding BI Scorecard, Howson was a manager at Deloitte & Touche and a global BI standards leader for Dow Chemical. She has an MBA from Rice University.

Founding The Data Lodge in 2019, Valerie is committed to data literacy. She believes that in today's digital society, data literacy is a life skill. With advisory services, bootcamps, a resource library and community services at The Data Lodge, Valerie is certifying the world’s first Data Literacy Program Leads and pioneering the path forward in cracking the data culture code.

Previously, Valerie had joined Gartner in 2015 in the Data and Analytics group, where she covered information management strategies, advanced analytics and related change management topics. She was a member of the Office of the CDO research team, where she led Gartner’s Annual CDO Survey, as well as the CDO Circle executive training and networking event. She pioneered research in the area of Data Literacy and nurturing the “speaking of data” by creating Information as a Second Language (ISL). In 2018, she was awarded Gartner’s Top Thought Leadership Award for her leadership in the area of Data Literacy.

Adel is a Data Science educator, speaker, and Evangelist at DataCamp where he has released various courses and live training on data analysis, machine learning, and data engineering. He is passionate about spreading data skills and data literacy throughout organizations and the intersection of technology and society. He has an MSc in Data Science and Business Analytics. In his free time, you can find him hanging out with his cat Louis.