VIDEO | Fifth Third Bank CDO: Data Literacy and Democracy Are Cultural Movements

(US and Canada) Nate Murray, Chief Data Officer of Fifth Third Bank, speaks with Diane Saucier, Financial Services Director at Pure Storage, in a video interview about positioning data literacy as a cultural movement, data virtualization, and embracing cloud technologies while maintaining security measures.

At the onset, Murray states that organizations must not treat data literacy and data democracy as mere strategies but as cultural movements. He suggests that they should be incorporated into the roles and responsibilities of people as a part of their job, regardless of their profession. He further urges organizations to educate individuals on the business value of data and the techniques for democratizing disparate data sets. He maintains this will help them understand the importance of accumulating data to form curated data sets. These initiatives are part of a cultural movement that has to be at the center of making progress, he adds.

Next, Murray reflects on witnessing people wanting to move away from relying on him for data and instead create self-service ways to access it. He looks back to previous roles when it was difficult to get people to accept the idea of data being the ‘new oil,’ and now, it is widely accepted, and people want him to “get it to them.” He highlights the importance of controlling and managing the data to support this new quick thinking.

Moving forward, Murray points out the importance of data virtualization and highlights its advantages. He discusses how virtualization eliminates the tedious processes of managing workloads, such as service management, waiting periods, and warehouse actions. However, he maintains that deploying the virtualization capability comes with a learning curve and a price tag. Therefore, users need to be cautious when retrieving data from multiple sources. He affirms that in the future, where there is no distinct center of gravity for data, virtualization may become a game-changer.

In addition, he states that streamlining data and event-driven architecture can ensure a more efficient user experience. It is becoming increasingly easier to use cloud-based native services that Azure, GCP, and AWS offer, he shares. However, it is essential to carefully control and manage the security measures and levels of access provided.

As a result, there is a talent gap in terms of someone who can run Platforms-as-a-Service (PaaS) and Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) skilfully, states Murray. He maintains that banks are now facing the challenge of embracing and implementing this technology, as it provides a challenging problem.

Next, Murray contends that the opportunity to manage costs effectively, speed to market, and experimentation increases when the CTO team does not have to build a warehouse. Therefore, he suggests using cloud technology. With the cloud, a new schema can be swiftly established and shared with business partners, says Murray. He reckons this enables the iterations to happen faster and takes no more than two days to achieve the desired outcome.

Furthermore, he emphasizes the need for additional security measures and controls when using this paradigm. In conclusion, Murray maintains that there are faster and more efficient ways to approach cost management, speed to market, and experimentation, provided the appropriate security protocols are in place.

CDO Magazine appreciates Nate Murray for sharing his insights and data success stories with our global community.

See more from Nate Murray

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Data Movement Must Be Use Case Driven