S4 | Ep 31 | Data Evangelism; Selling the North Star with Justin Windle, Head of Data Oversight at First Citizens Bank

Driven by Data: The Podcast

In Episode 31, of Season 4, of Driven by Data: The Podcast, Kyle Winterbottom is joined by Justin Windle, Head of Data Oversight at First Citizens Bank, where they discuss the purpose of data evangelism and how to set the north-star and sell the value, which includes;

• Setting your north star
• Operating in a buzzword-heavy industry
• Understanding your purpose and where you’re heading
• Setting a North star in the absence of a data strategy
• Why too many D&A journeys purely tactical
• Why your D&A strategy may change but your north star shouldn’t
• Why value is the “why”?
• Why your communication around the north-star should be different for different audiences
• Why you should brand your data organisation internally
• The progression of the Data Leader
• Moving from reactive to value-driven
• Building to deliver value quickly but also towards your vision
• The disparity between average tenure and average roadmap
• The need for having different CDOs at different stages of the journey
• Tying value to your north-star
• Creating advocates across your organisation
• How 99% of organisations are not sold on the value of data
• Why the primary role of the CDO is to be evangelist
• The importance of learning to craft the D&A message to the different business functions
• Why you have to sell the benefits and get people excited
• Why the last thing you should do is talk about data
• Why you should give people bragging rights
• Why you should never build your North Star on a business case
• Why value and valuable are 2 different things
• The relationship between culture and evangelism
• Why you may be struggling to build a data culture
• Getting the business stakeholders to help define the north-star
• Why people are the major roadblock to reaching a north-star
• Why it’s easier to sell D&A to executives
• Evangelism will help change the incorrect perception of the industry
• Why most companies don’t understand what the role of the Data Leader is

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