First Toronto Summit: North American Data Leaders Talk ROI to AI

A standing-room-only crowd of leading data and analytics executives gathered for the inaugural CDO Magazine Toronto Summit hosted at the Royal Bank of Canada in Toronto, Ontario, on October 30.

“It was thrilling to host our first event outside of the continental United States at the Royal Bank of Canada in Toronto,” says Steve Wanamaker, CDO Magazine Founder and Publisher.

“Gathering data leaders throughout the nation of Canada as well as all North America was just outstanding. Our speakers and participants discussed the most relevant topics facing the enterprise in the global business environment. It was exciting to see the level of engagement and receptiveness," Wanamaker adds.

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The hallmark event for data leadership featured more than 50 industry expert speakers, three executive boardroom sessions, two keynote presentations, and more than 10 panel sessions. The informative discussions focused on an intriguing range of topics, including: 

• Enterprise Data Officer ROI: Building & Sustaining a Business Case for Data

• Data Enablement Journey to Democratization

• Aligning Analytics with Business Strategy

• Ethics: Future of AI & Advanced Analytics

• Emerging Data Trends, Technologies, Tools, Platforms.

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Panel speaker and venue host Rex Davis, Royal Bank of Canada (RBC) Chief Data Officer, valued the chance to share key insights with his peers, saying: “Being a panelist and having the opportunity to share my expertise at the first-ever CDO Magazine Summit in Toronto has been a wonderful experience. It's always great to see data professionals from diverse backgrounds come together to share their insights. This event not only provides a platform for knowledge exchange, but it also fosters the building of a robust network within the data community across Toronto.”

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Wanamaker adds that RBC offering to host the Summit at their Executive Conference Centre “was a great example of corporate leadership impacting the community."

Participants walked away from panel sessions with new insights and best practices to help fuel their data organizations. 

Panelist Sumit Arora, MLSE (Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment Partnership) Vice President, Strategy & Analytics, learned just as much from his colleagues as those who attended.

Arora says, “It's great to be on a panel where you spend as much time as the audience learning from the other panelists. There are a lot of smart people here that have some great perspectives you can learn from on generative AI and what's coming. It's good to learn and think about how we bring generative AI to our business the same way that we do everything else – it's strategy with the right value, the right structure and the right process, and be okay figuring it out as we go along.”

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Toronto Executive Committee member and panelist Aida Tahiri, Apotex Inc. Sr. Director, Enterprise Data and Analysis, sums up the Summit: “It's a safe, open, honest conversation among professionals. Everybody is sharing their ideas and asking tough questions that we are not usually very comfortable doing from a data or IT perspective. But in this forum, it's very interesting to see those conversations and topics come up with honest feedback or opinions that we all can benefit from.”

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The CDO Magazine Toronto Summit was sponsored by eight leading data solution providers:

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Data executives speaking at the CDO Magazine Toronto Summit  included:

Hisham Abu-Abed, RBC  Vice President, Data Strategy and Data Science; Maribeth Achterberg, The Boldt Company CIO; Minoo Agarwal, Conn's Home Plus Sr. Director, Data & Analytics Platforms & Marketing Technologies; Pankaj Agrawal, Aurora Cannabis Director, Business Intelligence & Analytics; Chris Allison, Public Health Agency of Canada Chief Data Officer & Director General-Data Management, Analysis & Innovation; Sumit Arora, MLSE (Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment Partnership) Vice President, Strategy & Analytics; Rohin Bansal, Telus Director, Data Governance; Ido Biger, Delek US Holdings EVP, Chief Technology & Data Officer; Ben Blanquera, FAIR/Rackspace Technology VP, Evangelist & Senior Architect; Mike Branch, Geotab Vice President, Data & Analytics; Julie Champagne, Bank of Canada Managing Director, Corporate Services; Cari Covent, Canadian Tire Corporation Head, Data, Advanced Analytics & Artificial Intelligence; Rex Davis, Royal Bank of Canada (RBC) Chief Data Officer; Joyce Drohan, Ontario Government Chief Technology Officer; Andrew Foster, M&T Bank Chief Data Officer; Peter Geovanes, McGuireWoods Chief Innovation & AI Officer; Jeffrey Giles, Sandhill Consultants Principal Architect; Ujjwal Goel, Loblaw Companies Sr. Director, Data Engineering; Clare Gora, Trinity Life Sciences Vice President, Head of Analytics Client Development; Anna Hannem, Scotiabank Vice President, Data & AI Risk; Doug Harrison, Dataiku Regional VP; Todd Henley, Northwest Bank Chief Data Governance and Privacy Officer; Dimitrije Jankovic, Sanofi Global Director, Data Program Director; Jessica Jolly, Recursion Global Head, Data Strategy & Informatics; Ron Klein, Dynamic Health Collaborative Chief Financial & Data Officer; Michael Krieger, Pure Storage Sales Director; Grace Lee, Scotiabank Chief Data & Analytics Officer; Yuri Levin, Smith School of Business, Queens University Professor of Management Analytics; Shahidul Mannan, Bon Secours Mercy Health Chief Data Officer; Lovisa McCallum, BMO Capital Markets Head of Data & Analytics; Mike Meriton, EDM Council Founder; Luciano Miranda, Medtronic VP, Global Operations & Supply Chain Advanced Analytics; Michael Morris, Global Furniture Group Director, Data and Analytics; Rael Mussell, Portworx Cloud Architect;  Sahar Nezami, Bank of Canada Sr. Director, Analytics & Insights; Ima Okonny, Employment & Social Development Canada (ESDC) Chief Data Officer/Assistant Deputy Minister; Anu Oladele, Flexiti VP, Data Engineering; Carole Piovesan, INQ Law Managing Partner; Adele Pugliese, Bentall Green Oak Vice President, Data Enablement & Analytics; Vishal Puri, Tiger Analytics VP, Data & Insights Engineering; Riaz Raihan, Alida President of Products; Qahir Rajwani, HOOPP (Healthcare of Ontario Pension Plan) Director, Data Science & Analytics Solutions; Salema Rice, CDO Today CEO & Founder; Cal Rosen, SGI Canada Insurance Chief Data Officer; Sanjay Saxena, Bread Financial Head, Data Management, Protection & Governance; Gary Schneider, Mass Mutual Enterprise Data Governance & Privacy Leader; Ferial Sheybani, Colliers International VP, Head of Technology & Data; Karen Stuhlmiller, M&T Bank SVP, Director, Enterprise Data Management & Analytics; Aida Tahiri, Apotex Inc. Sr. Director, Enterprise Data & Analysis; Alex Tait, Bank of Montreal US Chief Data & Analytics Officer; Owen Tak, BMW Group Financial Services Canada Manager, Business Intelligence & Data Management; Palash Thakur, Interac Vice President, Data & Analytics; Murli Thirumale, Portworx VP & General Manager of the Cloud Native Business Unit; Sophiya Varghese, BDC Head, Enterprise Data & Analytics; Kalpana Yendluri, BMO Financial Group Managing Director & Head, Data & Analytics Environments; Valeriya Yesypenko, Manulife Vice President, Enterprise Data Governance; Lana Zhang, AWS Senior AI Solutions Architect.