Headline Partner

Matt Giunipero, Global Head of Data, Analytics, and Insights, Foot Locker, Inc.

Describe your career to date

I have worked across many different industries and in many different roles, but data and analytics has been the common thread throughout my career. Along the way, I have been incredibly fortunate to have learned and worked with some amazing mentors, colleagues, and teams.

Having a growth mind set, being collaborative, and a natural curiosity to understand how things work have served me well throughout my career and qualities we look for in people on our team. During my tenure at Foot Locker, we have spent a considerable amount of time transforming every aspect of our data, analytics, and insights capability (people, process, and technology). We are now in the early stages of transforming our business. We believe our team and data capabilities are well positioned to be a key strategic enabler and competitive differentiator for Foot Locker’s transformation.

How are you developing the data literacy of your organization, including the skills of your data teams and of your business stakeholders?

Developing data literacy is a challenging problem for every organization and, in my experience, there is no single answer or solution. At Foot Locker, we have a dedicated team focused on business enablement. Their primary objective is to ensure we’re driving adoption and getting value from our portfolio of products and services. We accomplish this through training, change management, and measurement.

Additionally, we take a persona-based approach to democratizing data and improving data literacy, recognizing the needs of a C-level executive are very different than a business analyst. Within our team, leveling-up our data storytelling and presentation skills is a top priority. We are addressing this through training, adopting, and highlighting best practices of key leaders on our team, and creating opportunities for everyone on the team to practice and hone their skills.

What role do you play in building and delivering conventional artificial intelligence solutions, including machine learning models? Are you also involved in your organization’s adoption of generative AI?

First, it’s refreshing to see the distinction made between conventional artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML), and generative AI (genAI). We have been using conventional AI and ML across the organization for several years in areas forecasting, personalization of customer experiences, and optimization problems. Our team of Data Scientists is responsible for building any custom AI and ML models.

Regarding genAI, our team is part of a cross functional task force to help evaluate and assess applications and risks of genAI for the enterprise. We are just beginning to see genAI capabilities emerge in existing applications and tools we use within the organization.

Have you set out a vision for data? If so, what is it aiming for and does it embrace the whole organization or just the data function?

Our vision is to make Foot Locker truly a data driven enterprise. We believe data should answer questions, spark ideas, and drive actions across every line of business within the organization. To accomplish this, data must be trusted, easily accessible, and understood.

Matt Giunipero
has been included in:

100 Brands 2024 (USA)
No.10 100 Brands 2023 (USA)

Enabling data and AI leaders to drive impact

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