VIDEO | Consumer Financial Protection Bureau CDO: Data Management Is Continuous Improvement

(US and Canada) Ren Essene, Chief Data Officer of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, speaks with Adita Karkera, Chief Data Officer, Government & Public Services at Deloitte, in a video interview about the priorities of the organizational data strategy, operationalizing it, and the approach to data management.

According to Essene, the vision for the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB)'s organizational data strategy is to make full use of data to meet its mission, proactively and securely share quality data and research,  and stay abreast of the changing demands of statutory mandates and the evolving data economy.

She highlights the strategy’s five pillars of priority:

• Increasing external data publication, making it easier for agency partners and the public to access available bureau data resources.

• Building a modern data platform to leverage analytics capabilities to the greatest extent possible.

• Having the right infrastructure, the right people, and the tools to support analysis.

• Increasing data awareness and knowledge. 

• Fostering data literacy.

Essene stresses the need to strengthen the data stewardship role to have more cross-divisional expertise, share knowledge and information about data, and help the CFPB ensure that the staff has the required skills and capacities.

Sharing her approach to operationalizing the strategy, she says her team is focused on having actionable steps. It involves determining who will drive and develop the implementation plans and who will ensure accountability and coordination. Essene says the organization is focused on using a sprint method to generate momentum and show value to leadership by creating small campaigns with some wins and deliverables.

Elaborating on the goal of the sprint campaigns, Essene says data management is an area of continuous improvement, and it is essential to have an overarching theme. For CPFB, data management is about making good on the open data vision and the federal data strategy and working on publishing more data. It also ensures that the organization has a data catalog, a modern environment, and the necessary support systems and infrastructure.

CDO Magazine appreciates Ren Essene for sharing her insights and data success stories with our global community.

See more from Ren Essene

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