Minoo Agarwal
Chief Architect
MetLife
I'm a visionary and trusted C-level business partner and strategic thought leader, who is passionate about helping companies digitally transform. I have spent my career leading organizations to be data-driven in their decision making. I am looking forward to UC Berkeley's Chief Digital Officer Certification course.
Learn more about leaders in the Atlantan CDAO community here.
Give us a brief overview of the path that led to your current role.
My journey started as an entrepreneur leading our consulting firm alongside my husband. After a successful decade, I moved to the private sector with Gartner and have followed the path of helping organizations improve their bottom line supported by applications and analytics — always with a data-driven approach. I have been fortunate to have the unique opportunities that straddle the product development/management and data and analytics realms.
I have been incredibly blessed to work, both as a consultant and on the inside, for many great companies. Having worked in numerous verticals, it has given me a unique perspective on what best-in-class performance is and the challenges around implementing it.
In my current role at RTI, I am responsible for the short-term and long-term strategic roadmap for our enterprise data and analytics, along with improving our operations.
What is one of your guiding leadership principles?
A bias for action and accountability are key for me. I hold myself and my teams true to these principles. I advocate for 'being the change we want to see.'
With disruption being a key theme of the past year, where do you see your role as a CDAO going in the next 1-2 years?
In our increasingly digital world, we are generating about 1.7MB of new information per second for every human on the planet (Source: unite.ai)! Hands down, having sophisticated analytics to drive business outcomes will continue to be a key imperative for CDAOs.
Alongside that, CDAOs will need to continue creating a culture, methods and practices to identify and exploit the potential value of their data. Strategically, establishing an information product management function will be important as CDAOs look to improve information agility. Finally, talent development and retention will continue to be a focus area.
What advice would you give to someone just starting out in the CDAO role?
My advice is to quickly identify your key stakeholders — at all levels of the organization — and start establishing good relationships from the outset. One of my favorite questions is to ask, ‘How did you get this role?’ This provides key insights and the ability to make a connection. It is important to understand their vision and determine how as business partners we can work together.
Work with your organization’s leaders to establish a vision and then communicate it. Do this via all-hands meetings with your staff, open communication with your direct reports, and frequent touchpoints with stakeholders outside your organization. Put the right people in the right roles, and don’t forget to formally recognize those change agents within your organization who are performing the hard work to realize your vision.
Tell us 3 fun facts about yourself.
- One of my favorite quotes is from Henry Ford: "If I asked my users what they wanted, they would have said a faster horse."
- My favorite movie is "Shawshank Redemption" — it teaches the value of perseverance.
- I am a first generation immigrant.
What is the value of participating in a professional community through Evanta?
Networking with peers and learning from each other's experiences is invaluable. Technology is growing at an incredible pace, and the time to market needs is getting ever so shorter. These curated peer groups provide a forum to share and learn from the real world experience of others and accelerate and spur your own thinking. After every session, I find myself walking away with creative solutions to challenges I am seeing.
Evanta Governing Body members share their insights and leadership perspectives to shape the agendas and topics that address the top priorities impacting business leaders today.
by CDAOs, for CDAOs
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