
Boston CDAO Community
Inner Circle
October 8, 2019 | University of Massachusetts Club
October 8, 2019
University of Massachusetts Club
Collaborate with your peers
Join Boston's top CDAOs for an intimate networking dinner and facilitated discussion on key business challenges. Enjoy a relaxed evening of dinner and drinks with your peers to share best practices, make new connections and build professional relationships.
Join your peers to discuss the most critical issues impacting CDAOs today:
Adopting D&A strategies and operating models that deliver business value in volatile environments
Generating measurable economic benefits to the business from data assets and advanced analytics
Becoming a master change agent and driving data literacy across the enterprise
Boston CDAO Governing Body
The Governing Body Co-Chairs shape the discussion topics and agenda, ensuring that all content is driven By CDAOs, For CDAOs™.
Governing Body Co-Chairs

Matthew Maher
Raytheon
Manager, Advanced Analytics

Michael McHugh
Biogen
Head of Data Engineering & Analytics

Sears Merritt
MassMutual
VP, Chief Data Scientist
Agenda
October 8, 2019
4:00pm - 5:00pm Executive Networking Reception
5:00pm - 6:30pm Discussion Topics
The New CDO – Gatekeepers for Digital Transformation
Steven DiPietro
VP, Corporate Solution Delivery
TJX Companies
Andrew Jacobus
VP, Insights and Data Science
Virgin Pulse

Heidi Lanford
Vice President, Enterprise Data and Analytics
Red Hat

Matthew Maher
Manager, Advanced Analytics
Raytheon

Laura McElhinney
Chief Data Officer
Horizon Media, Inc.

Michael McHugh
Head of Data Engineering & Analytics
Biogen

Sears Merritt
VP, Chief Data Scientist
MassMutual

Dan Power
Managing Director, Data Governance, Global Markets
State Street
John Pyhtila, Ph.D
Chief Data & Analytics Officer
Partners HealthCare

Srinivasan Sankar
Enterprise Data Leader
The Hanover Insurance Group
Paul Wolmering
VP, Worldwide Solutions Engineering
Actian
While data governance, data quality, and regulatory drivers maintain to be critical areas of business for data and analytics leaders, the new CDO is one who extends beyond these foundational underpinnings of the office to spearhead data-driven organizations. With an increasing dependence on data and insights as enterprises move to a digital-first mindset, it is up to the CDO to create or modernize their data and analytics programs and embrace value creation over risk mitigation. In this dinner discussion, CDOs discuss how to effectively usher their organizations into a digital business environment through stronger data literacy, data integration, and advanced analytics campaigns.
Topic 1: Aligning Your Data Harmony Strategy With Digital Business Demands
- How have digital initiatives impacted your data governance and data sharing strategies? In what ways have these strategies coalesced into a “data hub” strategy (i.e. a hub-and-spoke approach to data integration)?
- What are you doing with your data lake (i.e. data in one system but not necessarily harmonized)? How are you tackling privacy and security concerns for your data lake or data hub?
- What emerging technologies have you implemented to streamline data production and analytic insights?
Topic 2: Moving From Digital Transformation to Intelligence Transformation
- How are you defining advanced analytics in your organization?
- Where is your focus in advanced analytics and why? What best practices can you share in your journey around advanced analytics (e.g. chatbots, recommendation engines, personalization, NLP, etc.)?
- How are you measuring and communicating the confidence in your advanced analytics (e.g. AI models) to the business?
6:30pm - 7:00pm Networking Break
7:00pm - 8:00pm Summary Discussion & Dinner
8:00pm - 9:00pm Social Hour
Apply to Participate
Apply to participate in the Boston CDAO Community Inner Circle.
Gartner facilitates exclusive, C-level communities by personally qualifying and understanding the priorities, challenges and interests of each member.
Our selective approach maintains the high quality of the network and ensures top-level discussions with peers from the world’s leading organizations.
Each application will be reviewed, and once your participation is confirmed, you will have access to year-round community programs.
Location
Community Program Manager
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