Data Hurdles

[00:00:00] All right. Welcome to Data Hurdles. My name is Michael Burke. And I'm Chris Zel. And today we're gonna talk about data. Yeah, I'm pretty excited about that, aren't you? Absolutely. Welcome to another Data Hurdles. I'm Chris Zel. And I'm Michael Burke. How you doing, Chris? I'm doing really well. I'm really excited about this.

Oh, which Chris were you talking about? Oh shit. Ooh, that was a game changer. Yeah, so a couple of Chriss, normally I ask Chris Zel, but today we've got a special guest, Chris Pardo. Chris, how are you doing? Doing really well. Doing really well. Thank you for having me. Yeah, absolutely. Today we are going to talk about the day in the life of becoming a chief data officer.

But before we do that, this is the last week of June, uh, second to last week of June, and it is a long weekend. Do you guys have any fun plans before we dive into the hot topic? Uh, for me, I'll be [00:01:00] doing some typical running and, uh, and, and I'm gotta get ready for some procedure that I'm not gonna talk about today.

But, uh, um, I'm gonna have my kids for Father's Day and we'll do some father day like stuff. Uh, so that's gonna be really cool. How about you, Pardo? We're excited to have you on, by the way. No, I'm excited to reconnect with old friends, so I'm really happy to be here. Um, yeah, I haven't even thought that far.

Just trying to get through the week. Uh, I'll probably just hang out, maybe binge watch a few episodes of, uh, Ted Lasso finally got the Apple tv Awesome subscription. Um, yeah. Yeah, that's great so far. Yeah. Yeah. And I, you know, I've got, I'm behind on my mileage, Chris, as, as you guys know. We've got, uh, Chris and I have been training for a half marathon coming up in October, and so I have to run, Chris is holding me accountable, Chris Zel to 15 to 20 miles a week, and I didn't run yesterday, so I'm behind.

So I have to go for like a seven mile run this weekend, which I'm not [00:02:00] looking forward to, but it is supposed to be hot. So anyways, let's jump into it. Um, Chris, thank you again for joining. We really appreciate it. The, you know, main topic that we're focusing on here is navigating the journey of becoming a chief data officer.

So, to kick things off, can you share a little bit about your journey and background that led you to your first CDO role? Yeah, absolutely. Uh, and then, uh, it's interesting cuz when we, when we joined Reltio, we, we wrote a journey line, uh, kind of the origin story. So I actually, it was a good, it was a really good exercise to.

Kind of just kind of understand how you got there. Um, and for me, um, Understanding where, like, what, what, what took place for me to become cdo? It wasn't really a line, it was almost like a, the opposite of a straight line. Um, so I would, I would summarize, um, my, my journey and, and I guess three ways. So first 10 years, really technical, uh, worked at ibm, [00:03:00] wrote device drivers, um, programmed down to the metal, uh, eventually, uh, worked in their middleware.

Uh, and then eventually I left ibm went to a company called Pervasive Software, uh, and that that company was almost like Workato before Workato. Uh, basically sourced target and then transformation in between. But that's kind of where I learned about business systems, right? Learned about CRMs, ERPs, and things like that.

Um, and then, you know, while the main thing was integrating the systems, right, the one thing that was common was you're always just making sure that you are, uh, passing data around right records around. Um, so, uh, even if you have garbage in, then you have garbage in your target system, right? Um, So that was a great experience.

Learned about, uh, systems as well as integration. Uh, went to a company called National Instruments after that. Uh, and then I was actually a, uh, a Psql programmer. Um, so one day I was, uh, running a query on customer list. Then I found out about, found out about d and b, always found the Dunn's [00:04:00] number, um, and, and some of the attributes that returned back from my queries.

And, you know, I was like, what's the Dunn's number? And then after that, Uh, and it kind of led down a rabbit hole of why, why it's really important to have reference data, like really good reference data. Um, and we had gotten, um, d b data from a flat file, um, which was good. You know, we got data in bulk, uh, but it wasn't real time.

Uh, and then eventually found an opportunity at d and b. Uh, and then that opportunity was being, uh, API product manager for Hoover's api. Uh, they eventually wanted me to work on DB Direct, which was the, um, the Enterprise api. Uh, but from there it was great. Uh, it was a great way to see, uh, why it's important to get data, uh, real time or on demand, uh, and then the different types of things you could do, right?

You get a record, you could do a lookup on the record, and you know that you have the right data at the right, at the right time. Um, and then you can do things like analytics on top of that as well. Um, but [00:05:00] time at d b was great, worked on the api, uh, worked on partnerships because APIs provi give you the ability to actually create different forms of, uh, distribution.

Um, so worked on partnerships with Salesforce, Oracle, Microsoft, uh, eventually led innovation, uh, at d and b, uh, for the sales and marketing business unit. Uh, and then thought about a lot of innovation strategies. So, Was there for about 10 years. Uh, met Manish during that time. Manish was starting off, uh, ret I think in 20 13, 20 12.

Uh, and then he was one of our partners. So it was really good to see his view on, uh, cloud, cloud Master data management. That's really cool. Uh, left. Um, yeah, it was pretty cool. Pretty cool. It was, um, you know, he had I think maybe five or 10 employees and, you know, you, you heard him talk about his vision and, you know, I.

He sold me on day one and that was back in 2013. Yeah. D DMV is such a funny company to me too. Like, you [00:06:00] know, they're like a thousand years old. Didn't they start off doing like paper master data? No. Wasn't that like their initial thing, like they'd go door to door to collect information about people and keep logs like 300 years ago, right?

Or something ridiculous. Yeah, that's absolutely right. It's absolute right. Yeah. They go to, yeah, so it's, no, this is like a real thing. Yeah, that's real thing. Yeah. 300 years ago. Come on. So 180 years. So, so, so we had four presidents that, that's crazy. Were were DB employees, right? Uh, so Abraham Lincoln and three other presidents.

I can't remember. I should remember it. Um, uh, but what they did was, yeah, Abe Lincoln, man. Yeah. Yeah. Oh God. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Uh, keep going. Sorry. I'm just shocked. Yeah. So what's interesting is you, you could see kind of the evolution of the business, right? In a lot of different ways, right? Obviously it's 180 years, 180 years old.

Um, but um, it started off as, you know, if I'm gonna [00:07:00] buy from a company or sell to a company, what is their credit? Right. You know, are they gonna be around, you know, do they had people working there? So people would actually go door to door knocking and then see whether or not, you know, it's a viable business, right?

And then they would, you know, take down their notes on in paper, and then that's effectively. What, you know, the credit, right? The business credit. Uh, and eventually fast forward, you know, that's still their core competency. You know, uh, if I, you know, if I buy from a business or sell to a business, are they gonna be able to, you know, you know, pay me, right?

Um, yeah. So what's interesting is that when you sign up for d and b, um, you know, you want your business credit rated just like your own personal credit. Yeah. Um, and then in doing so, you could say, yes, I wanna be marketed to you. Uh, and then that's how they built their database to 500 a million companies over, over time.

Right? And then because you have a data asset that's that big, uh, the idea is you can move to adjacent areas. So that's very fascinating. So I see a lot of companies that have a very unique way of sourcing data. They source it and they collect it, and [00:08:00] they can move to these adjacent markets. Yeah. Yeah. I didn't, I didn't mean to sidetrack too much, but that's really cool.

But, but, but I think it's, go ahead, Chris. No, Chris, you should say Deel. Or Pardo. Yeah, go ahead, Zel. Yeah. This is only one great, by the way. That's how I would do it. This is how I do it. I just have a thought. Or, or, or just a. A statement because this is really cool. So, uh, I get to go to a lot of, or some of the Gartner events and Forster events.

Every single time I see DMV or when I talk to DMV on some of my, I call 'em community shows or webinars, they, they say, Hey, how's Pardo doing? And I'm like, I don't know. It doesn't work here anymore. You know, but, you know, I'm sure he is really good. He's, he's doing really well. He's a CDO now and everything else.

So, I just, yeah, sorry to make those conversations awkward. Sorry about that. No, it's, I think that's awesome because what you've done there is people highly respect you because people are like, yep, part O was awesome. You know what I mean? Like, [00:09:00] I, you probably haven't, I'm sure you've heard that about yourself before, but I've heard it when, when I'm just hanging out with uh, D M B people, you know?

So, anyways, go ahead, Michael. Thought you should know that. No. Yeah, I was just appreciate that. I appreciate that. I was gonna say the same thing, like DMV is such a cool company. I think in every data professional's career, at some point you start to realize that you're peaking maturity when you know about D M B, all these other big providers, how they work, how to mix data and, and the stories of how they came to be.

It's just incredible. Like 180 years is just that kind of history. It doesn't happen, you know, to every company. It doesn't happen to a small fraction of companies. Um, and just how they've maintained. Control on this niche market is just incredible. And they're so valuable today. Like every, every large business uses them.

For those that don't work in the data space, they are probably one of the biggest data providers in the world. Um, and an incredible company. Yeah. And it's the most, uh, fundamental thing, right? If you're transacting with a company, tell me, tell me information [00:10:00] about that company. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And Chris, I Zel, uh, you know, I really appreciate that.

I mean, it was, it was a great experience there and. You know, when I was there I just worked hard and, you know, uh, tried to be a nice person. So I think that's kind of the impression I left there. So I think so it was a very good impression, but yeah. We digress a little bit. Go ahead Michael. Yeah, let's move on.

So Chris, uh, after d m b, what was next in your career? I, I'd love to hear the journey line to where we get to cdo. That's great. Yeah, so that's kind of where, you know, the line is becoming more squiggly. Um, so, um, yeah, I went to Microsoft, uh, always wanted to, to work at Microsoft and then when I, when I went there, you know, my parents are very happy cuz they know about Microsoft.

Right. Um, um, So what I did was it was a, um, uh, it was a combination of finance and operations. So, the idea was, you know, how do we make, um, all of [00:11:00] office, so that's office, uh, SharePoint, uh, teams, how do we make the, those programs more efficient? Right? So basically driving down cost. Um, and then you would do things like you work with engineering teams to.

You know, see whether or not their programs are inefficient. So maybe a program's constantly pulling for a resource, uh, when it really should be more event driven. Right? Or you might be using a component on Azure, um, that, um, uh, that might be using s s D as opposed to, you know, a different type of storage, right?

Yeah. So there's different ways of optimizing things and that it seems like really small things, but at the scale of Microsoft, that could be very big, right? So, Um, so that was great. It was great to, you know, really work with engineering teams, understand SharePoint teams and also, um, outlook. Um, yeah, that was a really good experience.

And then, um, you know, went to Azure briefly working on purview. Um, you know, well I was going to work on purview, but then Manish uh, gave me a call and he said, Hey, would love you to join. Um, [00:12:00] you know, it'd be great if you focused on ecosystem strategy. Um, you know, I think with my background with d and b working with all these different companies, right?

Every time you transact with a company, it's good to actually do a lookup through d and b. Uh, and then when you're doing integration, having that Dunn's number as the identifier is really good. Right. It helps with the, uh, the matching. Yeah. Um, and then even before that, my integration experience at Pervasive Software was good.

Um, so he wanted me to work on ecosystem strategy. So, you know, what are some of the companies we could work with, uh, you know, MDM or realty's, best of breed mdm, right? But then you need stuff that happens before it gets to MDM or happens after. Right. So how do we think about some of those partnerships?

How do you think about making those partnerships more strategic? Um, Yeah, so that was a really good experience. Uh, I learned a lot from an niche. Um, yeah. And then, and then created a partnership with d and b. Um, I'm not sure if all the details have been released yet, but I, I'm really hopeful that, [00:13:00] you know, that partnership will be pretty large for rt.

Um, around the same time, um, I had been talking to this company, apex Analytics. Uh, since 2018. So kept in touch with 'em. Yeah. Yeah. So it's always, so I guess the other takeaway is, you know, always have a conversation, right? So I met, I met the exec team at Apex, um, 2018. Uh, they were starting their api. Uh, they had saw, they saw that I was API product manager at d and b.

Uh, we exchanged some ideas, um, and then that led to, well, how do you think about partnerships? Uh, and it was always kind of a informal, um, relationship. And then around the same time, uh, their former CIO retired, um, and then eventually they wanted me to, you know, take over some of his duties. Right. Uh, so he was a cio.

And then, you know, part of the CEO CIO job is data governance. Um, so my role, which is chief data Officer, [00:14:00] is data governance. In addition to data monetization. So it's kind of a dual role, uh, where you need to, you know, work with all these data providers in addition to the data assets that we source, uh, and then unlock the business value, right?

Make sense of all the data, unlock the business value, and then open it up to the rest of the world, right? Not normal for a cdo, but I think it will be trending that way, right? Once you have a data asset, how do you monetize it? So that's kinda what you're seeing with all these marketplaces like Snowflake and Databricks.

They're all having these. Data offerings, right? Because if you're spending all this time and energy creating this data set, you might as well have everybody reap the benefits too. Yeah. So it, you know, I think it's so interesting that company in, in the same way that D M B involved, even though it's, you know, not as old, right.

It also evolved from paper records. Is that right? Yeah, that's right. That's right. Yeah. So, you know, uh, the history as, as far as I know it, uh, just walking in the halls of Apex, um, Start off [00:15:00] as, um, you know, people looking at paper invoices, right? So let's say that, you know, we start a company tomorrow, you know, Michael, Chris and Chris.

I'll be the, I'll be the second Chris. Um, you know, let's say that, let's say that, um, Uh, you know, we, we wanna run the business, right? So to do that we gotta buy stuff, right? Um, so we might double pay the companies that we buy from, right? Uh, so the company started off looking at paper invoices to find those double payments, right?

And then that, that's when they would actually charge, right? Uh, it may not be a big deal if you know it's a company that we start, right? Maybe eventually it'll be a big, you know, big company. Um, but if you're a Walmart or Disney and you find a double payment, and then that, that could be millions of dollars, right?

So it kind of makes sense to work with us because the ROI is almost infinite, right? Once you find that double payment, uh, then, then, you know, that's kind of when Apex gets paid, right? Um, And then, uh, the other part of that, [00:16:00] and they created software to basically digitize that process. They created software to look for signals before a double payment is made, right?

Um, so it kind of makes sense, right? If you're one of these big companies who have all these systems, who have all these moving parts, it makes sense to work with us, right? Um, and then the other part is, um, Uh, so, uh, our executive team was out at Disney. Disney was the audit client, uh, and then they had a, they wanted to solve for supplier onboarding, right?

So if I buy from a company, You know, are they who they say they are? Um, are they on OFAC watch list? You know, can I trust them? Ultimately, can I trust them? And then once I onboard 'em, once I get them in my system, and once I start buying from them, can I continue to trust them? Right. You know, how's their credit, right?

Are they, you know, are they, are they still who they say they are? Uh, and things like that. So we have kind of this interesting product continuum where it's, you know, work with us for free, we'll find you a double payment or prevent it. That's kind of when we get paid. And then, you know, if you [00:17:00] find a double payment, we're effectively returning millions of dollars to you.

Why don't you use some of that money to actually buy our supplier software, right? So we can help you, uh, manage your ongoing risk. Um, so. Yeah, that's kind of the, the, the, the business. So it's very interesting. Uh, again, like there's a lot of data, uh, sourcing. Uh, so my job is to make sense of all that data.

And then the other part is, you know, once we source all this data and create a really good data asset, uh, how do we actually expose it to the rest, the rest of the world? So, yeah. So it's, it's so interesting to me that you have this company that has kind of evolved and transformed their business strategy.

Um, similar to D N B is, you know, and I don't know if this is a trend, Chris, of working for older companies that are kind of, uh, in this process of transforming. Right. Rothco is too new. Rothco is too new. Yeah. Yeah. Um, but it is, it is incredible to me. Um, you know, as a CDO stepping into that, I'm sure you've got a lot of [00:18:00] people who are kind of stuck in the traditional way of doing things and, you know, maybe another group that's seeing the light of this future.

How do you drive and manage expectations in an environment like that? Um, and, and really like stepping into that, what was your experience like on day one as a new cdo? Right? Yeah, that's, uh, it's a very, uh, it's a very hard question to answer. Um, what I would say is constantly evangelize, right? This is the vision.

Uh, you know, um, we, we have this asset that we have built over time and it could be the future of the business, right? Um, But yeah, to your point, it's, it's a, it's a older company and then, you know, the things that made sense to do back then, it may, there's room for improvement. Right. Uh, and again, like it's one of those things where you wanna deliver slices of value, right?

As opposed to having these big, these big projects. Right. Um, So I think it's evangelizing, getting mind share, getting and eventually [00:19:00] getting alignment once you have the minds share. Uh, and then delivering the slices of data, uh, slices of value, right? Not having these big, you know, these big replatforming projects.

Just start with one domain, one problem, and then go after it. Um, That's what I would say. Yeah. And then you have all the tactical things like, okay, there's on-premise stuff, there's cloud stuff. How do you, how, how do those things talk to each other? But I think in principle, um, really evangelizing the vision, uh, getting, uh, or delivering slices of value early and often.

Uh, and then everything else will follow. Really interesting. So I, I know that a lot of the people on this call are. Probably younger, earlier in their career. Uh, hopefully we have some of the CDOs that we've, uh, reached out to listening as well. But, you know, for those that are looking to step into a CDO role, um, what advice can you give them?

And also maybe if you can share some of the stories of, you know, your first 90 days, if there was anything interesting, uh, stepping into this role that you had to learn quickly.[00:20:00]

Yeah, I mean, CDO is, uh, a very interesting role, right? It's a combination of several disciplines, right? It's understanding of data, right? Understanding of systems, right? Uh, understanding of the older technology and how that works with newer technology. Um, but I think the overall thing, it's, it's a people, it's a people.

Um, like understanding people is the, the most important thing, right? Yeah. Uh, the people that you're working with, right? In terms of technology, the domain owners, and what's, what's valuable to them. Um, Uh, making sure everybody gets in a room and gets aligned, right? So it's cross discipline as with everything, right?

Um, I think that's kind of, uh, the, the main things, uh, when I think about being cdo and then for me, the first 90 days, uh, really understanding the people that, uh, you know, I'll be working with, understanding the products, understanding how data flows from source to target. Uh, and then the normal things, right, data quality, and then even before you get to data quality, you [00:21:00] know, uh, provenance or lineage or observability are very important.

Um, but yeah, I think in principle, like really just understanding the lay of the land, understanding the people, understanding the value or what's valuable to the business owners. Um, Yeah, I think those are very important. And again, like cdo, um, yeah, I think the CDO position will evolve to, okay, now that I have this, you know, curated data asset, how do I monetize it?

Uh, and then that's like a whole nother component where it's more of a GTM thing, right? Yeah. So, yeah. Yeah. And, and your previous experience, you know, working at Microsoft, dun and Bradstreet Rel. How did these roles prepare you to take on this leadership role? Cause you have a lot more direct reports now too than you've had previously as well and I'm, I'm su assuming a lot more responsibility Right.

And driving this change across the business. Yeah. You know, I'm still trying to figure out if I could somehow get more hours in a day.[00:22:00]

Let me know if you have any solutions to that. Um, And, and I had, uh, several direct reports at, at D N V. So it's, uh, it's, you know, it's, it's very similar. Um, yeah. Um, I was very lucky that when, um, uh, when CIO retired, he had a really great team, uh, almost self-functioning, right? Um, so I could focus on strategy.

Um, you know, so really building up the team, making sure that they're self-sufficient, making sure that everybody has swim lanes, right? You don't want a lot of collisions, right? Uh, I think the team is really number one, and I believe in service leadership where, you know, it's the inverter pyramid and then the leader sits at the bottom it, and basically just enables everybody, right?

Yep. Um, yeah, so I'm very, I'm very fortunate to have a really good team. Um, yeah. Yeah. And you know, How is this experience so far? Because, you know, you're fairly new in the tenure of taking on this role as a cdo. [00:23:00] How do you feel like it's impacted your, um, career, but also your thought process? Right. Uh, you know, I'm sure that there's a lot of learnings that you've already had to step into.

Um, has it changed the way that you think about anything within, uh, the data sphere and driving change? Um, What's interesting is that, you know, even though I look young, I'm really old. I'm not gonna tell you the age, but, uh, there's patterns, right? Everywhere you go, there's patterns. So, uh, there's patterns when it comes to the organization of data, there's patterns when it comes to technology.

There's patterns when it, when it comes to building product and also go to market. Uh, so. I would say it's very experiential, right? Uh, stepping into the role, I'm like, oh, like this is what we did at, this is what we did at d b, this is what we did at ibm. Right. Um, so I guess really just, you know, when you have those experiences, you know, connect them to what you're doing right now and not, that's, that shouldn't mean that you dictate that [00:24:00] your experiences should not dictate what you should do, but it should give you some type of perspective.

Right. Um, yeah, that's what I would say. Yeah. And, and so far, can you share any success stories that you've had in this role? Um, I know that we talked about it, uh, a little bit earlier, but like notable achievements that resulted, um, in this current business. Right. Um, because I, I, I do think that, you know, there probably is, uh, some differences, right?

That you're experiencing with the type of reporting and, and maybe not, maybe you've had these experiences. All this is kind of, you know, a smooth trajectory from a lot of the people that. I've talked to in the past, when they step into that role, there is kind of this, um, you know, giving up of, of what they thought the power and control they had on things.

And it sounds like you've already, you know, um, touched upon that a little bit by managing from the bottom up. Um, can you describe that to, to our listeners a little bit, especially those that haven't had [00:25:00] those experiences, what is it like leading from the bottom up? Right? Uh, how do you keep people in those swim lanes and.

What do you do when there is a point of contention or you need to realign things? Uh, how do you manage those situations? I. Yeah, that's a good question. Um, you know, it's constantly evolving. Uh, I think number one is trust, right? Trust are the people that, that are on your team, right? And then that trust will kind of bubble down.

Um, and it's hard, right? Cuz you gotta blend trust with accountability, right? You, you don't wanna trust 'em too much to where they don't deliver, right? Um, so I think that could be done with proper goal setting and things like OKRs and stuff like that. Um, but yeah, I mean, I think there, there are two things, right?

Uh, you know, Providing the psychological safety is very important when building a team. Um, you know, if they feel, if people don't feel safe at work, they're not gonna perform. Um, and then, you know, making sure it's fun as well. Right. So one of my, one of my, uh, former [00:26:00] bosses at DMV was a, a guy named Michael Byrd.

Still keep in touch with him, but he was the c e o of net prospects. Uh, when we acquired them, he became my boss. Um, he was like, yeah, it's all about, you know, what you're doing and who you're doing it with, right? Yeah. So for me, that's kind of a core principle. And then for me, and then hope, hopefully the team will see that as well if, if the work is meaningful and fun, and then if the people around them are great to work with, then I think that that'll build, build a really good culture.

Um, and then more important things for me are, Another important thing for me is diversity, right? So you have the normal vectors of diversity, you have, you know, gender and race and things like that. Uh, so definitely very important to have a diverse team, but also div diversity in terms of experience, right?

So, you know, I might have somebody who's brand new to data science or somebody that's brand new to integration or somebody that's came from a, a liberal arts background that wants to be technical, right? Or have, you know, people that are very tenured. I think having that mix is kind of where innovation happens.

I couldn't [00:27:00] agree more. And, you know, leading data teams, the most successful data teams I've ever had are when you have a strong diversity of, of culture, personalities, backgrounds, education, everybody brings a different view to a complex problem. And inherently that helps you resolve as many of those blind spots as possible ahead of time, which you wouldn't have otherwise seen.

Um, Chris, Pardo, thank you so much for your time. This was an incredibly helpful and insightful podcast. Really appreciate you joining us, especially when you're this busy. You know, we'll try to work on finding you more hours in the day. My recommendation is Coffee and Red Bull, but not everybody can digest but much caffeine.

So, uh, thank you again though. We really appreciate it.

Yeah, this is, this is really good. Uh, Chris and appreciate uh, you coming on and, you know, thank you everyone for coming on or listening to another data hurdles. Please rate and review [00:28:00] us. My name is Chris Deel. And I'm Michael Burke. Thanks for tuning in. Thanks Bardo. Thank you everyone.