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Cindi Howson

Cindi Howson, Chief Data Strategy Officer, ThoughtSpot

Describe your career to date

I have a unique flair for bridging technology with business and a proven track record of industry-firsts, spanning 30 years in data and analytics. As Chief Data Strategy Officer at ThoughtSpot, I advise top customers on aligning data strategy to business strategy, building a data fluent culture, and deploying ethical artificial intelligence (AI).  

I host the award-winning The Data Chief podcast to bring best practices on data mesh, generative AI (genAI), and CDAO leadership to listeners from around the world. I exec sponsor our partnership with the Mark Cuban Foundation AI bootcamps to educate and empower high school students.  

I was previously a Gartner Research VP, leading the analytics and BI MQ, ITScore maturity model, and data for good research. While running my own business BI Scorecard, I educated a generation of CDAOs and BI leaders on measuring value, secrets to bigger impact from data, and ran the BI bake offs for 15 years for TDWI.  

I started my career in data 30 years ago as a report developer at Dow Chemical in Switzerland, later leading the BI team as Dow implemented the world’s first global data warehouse. As part of the executive team at ThoughtSpot, I influence the company’s strategy on bringing AI-driven analytics to the masses. 

I have authored and co-authored seven books and numerous articles. 

What challenges do you see for data in the year ahead that will have an impact on your clients and on the industry as a whole?  

GenAI has the potential to unlock incredible business value and human creativity. But this potential is only available to organizations who have invested in a solid data foundation, with a culture of ethics, innovation, and data and AI fluency. Laggards will take a risk-averse approach in the hopes that innovation will slow but will delay at their peril.  

AI regulation will not keep pace with potential harms to society, both from malicious actors and biases in training data sets. Organizations that have moved beyond data literacy to AI literacy will be better poised to take advantage of the benefits and will benefit from first-mover advantage. 

How are you developing the data literacy of a) your own organization and b) your clients? 

Data and AI literacy requires making data more accessible to business people and citizens. Just as the printing press enabled the masses to read, ThoughtSpot Sage enables a fact-driven world by enabling non-technical people to ask sophisticated questions via natural language and crowd-sourced synonyms and business terms. Our patented search layer ensures GenAI is processed through a trusted layer with human-in-the-loop.  

How are you preparing your organization and your clients for AI adoption and change management?  

AI adoption requires understanding, ideation, and business value alignment. My team and I provide workshops, strategy sessions, podcasts, and tools to educate executive teams and CDAO teams to prioritize use cases based on data readiness, value, and cultural fortitude.  

Aligning the data and AI strategy to the business strategy is a key ingredient to our change management framework that includes communication, incentives, skills, and community. Companies of all sizes are eager to become genAI-powered, and require governance, transparency, and trust. 

Cindi Howson
Cindi Howson
has been included in:
  • 100 Enablers 2023 (USA)
  • 100 Enablers 2024 (USA)

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