Boston Data Chiefs Assess Data Quality’s Impact on Data Culture at CDO Magazine Dinner

Top Boston area data, analytics, and AI executives got together to discuss and exchange ideas on “The Impact of Data Reliability and Data Quality Issues on Achieving a Data-Driven Culture” at CDO Magazine’s Executive Boardroom Dinner on July 16.

“The city of Boston holds a special place in CDO Magazine’s history. It was our company’s first regional community,” says CDO Magazine Founder and Publisher Steve Wanamaker. “We are honored to bring together the top data, analytics, and AI executives to discuss their challenges and foster collaboration. We’re also excited to be hosting our inaugural CDO Magazine Summit – Boston in 2025. We hope everyone who attended this dinner will participate.”

Sharing his takeaways from the dinner event, Venkata Chirravuri, Fidelity VP, Enterprise Data Architecture Strategy, says that enterprises have the opportunity to leverage reliable and quality data assets to increase their competitive advantages by:

• Enhancing consistency in data interpretation

• Reducing total resources spent on data verification

• Increasing overall trust in their own data assets

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When asked about the biggest focus areas in data quality that need attention, Brent Mahan of Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, explains: “Data quality is often in the eyes of the beholder. Given its context-driven and perspective-based nature, tools are only part of the solution. We need to view this as a team sport with success being derived from intentional collaboration and purposeful investment in elevating data fluency across the enterprise.”

In a similar vein, Tarun Sood, American Century Investments Chief Data Officer, says, "Data quality is inherently context-driven; its significance is dictated by the specific context in which it is used."

What resonated most with Jennifer McGhee, MFS Investment Management VP, Senior Director of Data Strategy and Governance, was the emphasis on the critical role of data literacy and the importance of contextualizing data usage.

“It was great to once again network with like-minded data professionals in the Boston area. The conversation on how data quality and reliability foster a data-driven culture sparked a lot of discussion and rumination. As a community, we agreed that enhancing data understanding and accessibility is essential for improving decision-making processes,” McGhee adds.

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Pantomath Founder and CEO Somesh Saxena thanks CDO Magazine for hosting an “amazing” executive boardroom dinner. “We had a great conversation about the role of data reliability and data quality in driving a data-driven culture and the impact of bad data. It was very insightful to hear different perspectives from data leaders across different industries and diverse experiences.”

Special thanks to the Pantomath for making the CDO Magazine Executive Boardroom Dinner such a resounding success.

Tarun Sood and Jennifer McGhee are members of the CDO Magazine Global Editorial Board.

Executives attending the Boston Executive Boardroom Dinner Event included:

Jordan Alcott, Moderna Associate Director, Advanced Analytics & Data Automation; Kishore Aradhya, Northeastern University Adjunct Faculty, College of Engineering - GenAI/LLM Impact on Data Engineering and Knowledge Graphs; Alex Aronov, Vertex Pharmaceuticals Executive Director, Head of Data Science; Jane Chen, Analog Devices Senior Director, Growth Analytics, Revenue Strategy and Operations; Snimar Chhabra, Eversource Energy Director, Enterprise Data and Advanced Analytics; Venkata Chirravuri, Fidelity Investments Vice President, Enterprise Data Architecture Strategy; Veronika Durgin, Saks VP of Data; Brian Finn, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute Associate Director, Clinical Operations and Business Analytics; Ashwini Ghogare, MilliporeSigma CEO & Head, AI & Automation in Drug Discovery; Joshua Glastein, Berkshire Chief Information Technology Officer; Ben Joseph, United States Postal Service Office of Inspector General Chief Data Officer; Sravan Kasarla, former Thrivent Financial Chief Data Officer; Kiran Kodali, Sanofi Head, R&D Data Strategy & Governance & Data Foundations; Brent Mahan, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute VP Enterprise Analytics & Business Intelligence; Jennifer McGhee, MFS Investment Management Vice President, Sr. Director of Data Strategy & Governance; Raj Nimmagadda, Sanofi Chief Data Officer R&D Data & Data Sciences; Carlos Peralta, WHOOP Director of Data Engineering and ML Ops Platform; Kenneth Rispoli, Analog Devices Manager of Data Science & Digital Innovation; Prashant Shah, Intel Corporation Chief Technology Officer, Federated Machine Learning & Confidential Computing Products; Tarun Sood, American Century Investments Chief Data Officer; Prem Swaroop, Dover Corporation Chief Data & Analytics Officer; Bharat Tripathi, National Grid Global Head, Data Platforms, Analytics and Data Engineering; Renato Umeton, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute Director, Artificial Intelligence Operations and Data Science Services; Krishna Valluru, Fidelity Investments Vice President/Team Leader Advanced Data Analytics Tech; Connor Glazier, Pantomath Account Executive; Somesh Saxena, Pantomath Founder & CEO; Paul Walker, Pantomath Head of Sales, Dmitri Adler, Data Society Group Chief Revenue Officer; Steve Wanamaker, CDO Magazine Founder & Publisher; Franklin Kessler, CDO Magazine SVP, Program Management; Camille Prado, CDO Magazine Global Editor.