Experian Consumer Services, Chief Data Officer: Data Ethics Is About Always Doing the Right Thing

(US and Canada) Ali Khan, Chief Data Officer, Experian Consumer Services speaks with Michael Fillios, Founder and CEO of IT Ally about his approach to data ethics at Experian and the ideal data strategy for SMBs.

With over 25 years in the industry, Khan spent the first decade as an engineer and an architect. “I really am drawn to data, and Experian has incredibly rich data of about tens of millions of consumers. And the mission here is an incredible one, which is around using data to increase financial access for consumers,” Khan says, regarding his current role as Experian’s first Chief Data Officer. “This is a data company. One of the things that makes my job a lot more fun and a lot easier is the fact that data is being embraced across the board. I've been given an open hand to define the data strategy and an incredibly supportive and in-sync leadership team.”

Khan decided to make data ethics the central tenet for the organization. “We're highly aligned toward protecting data and treating it with the respect that consumers deserve. But data ethics is about going beyond that, it's about always doing the right thing because when someone gives you data, they're really trusting you,” he says, regarding his data ethics approach. “It's about eliminating bias, whether it's in constructing the data sets and the algorithms, and it's usually the former. It's not usually the algorithms that are biased, it's the data set that reflects an unfair collection of data. Even if you've been ethical in the collection of the data and entering the data properly, you still may use it in a way that isn't in your customer's best interest.”

Commenting on the leadership required for a data officer to introduce the use of data to an SMB organization and how they can communicate the benefits to their internal stakeholders, he says that the first key is to not over-engineer. The second key is to be agile in data management and building data products.

“It's particularly relevant for SMBs to build backward,” Khan continues. “So, focus on value and begin with the analytics first. What is the needle you want to move at that firm? Focus on the business and understand what those metrics are, then bring together the data to solve that problem. Think, “How do I need to combine it? How do I need to treat it?” Then think about infrastructure. Don’t lead with that.”