The Top 100 Innovators in Data and Analytics 2018

What would you say most motivates you to do what you do?

Making effective use of data part of every business person's life, so as to not replace conventional decision-making, but augment it

What led you to your current role?

Fell into working with Decision Support Systems, before it was called Business Intelligence... which led to Big Data & Analytics, and now Intelligent Data Hubs

Did you have any key mentors or people who deeply influenced you, can you tell us about them?

many... Steve Millard from Netezza, Lauren Flaherty at IBM (now CA), Marc Lautenbach at IBM (now Pitney Bowes), Geoffrey Squires from Kognitio/Oracle/Veritas

Can you describe to us a current project/transformation you are working on?

Joining together many separate disciplines of Enterprise Information Management into a consolidated whole as a single platform for trusted data

What has this project taught you?

There is a well-understood need for layman business users to interact with data - steward, curate and analyze it for business benefit

What excites you most about the future?

The smart connections of IoT and Master data to make more intelligent data work around us

If you could give 1 piece of advice to someone looking to start a career in data & analytics, what would it be?

Find something within the space that deeply interests you, and reinforce that with where the market is moving - try to be two steps ahead.