Yannis Kotziagkiaouridis, global chief data and analytics officer, Edelman Data and Intelligence

What has been your path to power? 

I have based my 20+ year career on the fundamental principle that data can help brands build stronger relationships with people. As Edelman’s Global Chief Data & AI Officer, I use this belief as well as the power of data and AI to enable brands to behave and communicate like humans–to see, to hear, to understand, to build trust, to act and ultimately, to create a more empathetic world.  

At Edelman, I am driving enterprise digitization by linking Trust to language and third-party data leveraging NLP & ML to activate it across business models, content, audiences, and journeys. In my previous role at Wunderman Thompson, I was instrumental in the development of “Collision,” the strategic method and toolbox that brought together data and creativity for a global network of 20,000 people. Prior to that, I was at Merkle for almost a decade as a practitioner of data and advanced analytics methods across industries.  

Today, I am proud to lead a global team of over 460 people at Edelman, focusing on empowering bold decisions to build a better world. We are a team of not just data scientists and engineers; we are thinkers and dreamers. We just don’t utilize data to do math; we apply empathy and breathe culture into all that we do. 

I am passionate about fostering an environment of constant curiosity and the promotion of diverse ideas. I do believe that although Data is not human, how we use it and what we do with it has immense implications for humanity.