Look around and you will realize most companies – big or small – are working towards using data to build a competitive advantage. At Atlan, we have always believed that data-driven teams will be behind the most amazing human achievements in the next decade, from curing cancer to developing self-driving cars to putting people on Mars.
Over the last few years, we have been fortunate to work with amazing data humans, compassionate leaders and inspiring data practitioners doing great work.
From leveraging digital technologies to improve farmer profitability to redefining how the world builds, from developing the modern-day technology workforce to building the open source stack for search-powered solutions… we could go on about how the data people behind these revolutionary companies continue to inspire us.
Today we’re so proud to announce our DataOps Leaders Program, an immersive, invite-only program to help amazing data leaders come together and win with DataOps. 💙
The “why” behind the DataOps Leadership Program
At its core, DataOps is about helping data teams work together, better. It takes inspiration from Agile, DevOps, and Lean Manufacturing to create practices that improve quality, speed, and collaboration and promote a culture of continuous improvement.
When we think about how our journey started, it wasn’t easy. Creating a great data culture is not easy. Navigating this universe of data is not easy. Building a dream data team isn’t easy. Helping a team become agile and collaborative isn’t easy.
And most importantly… doing it all alone as a data leader isn’t easy.
Today, the conversation needs to shift from the need for better tooling to the next “delta” that will finally help us create dream data teams —  the modern data culture stack.
Every data team is searching for the right practices and innovations to make everyday work better. Airbnb created an internal Data University, and Netflix measures its Productivity Engineering. When we were a data team ourselves, we created our own DataOps Culture Code with the core principles that helped our team collaborate better.
We’ve also seen great innovations from data people in the companies we work with — getting diverse data users together, articulating the value of data initiatives, building a data product mindset, finding and nurturing data talent, training and onboarding new people inside teams, setting up the DataOps function (team, roles, and responsibilities), incubating a data community, and a lot more!
But these innovations often remain limited to these organizations. Data leaders continue to reinvent the wheel, struggling with the same problems over and over again.
This six-week program is designed to help these data leaders to come together, learn from each other, innovate through shared experiences, and share best practices and innovation from their data teams — and, in the process, build great data dream teams.
With actionable workshops and no-fluff content, this cohort will together work towards implementing the core principles of DataOps to supercharge their productivity, efficiency, and innovation.
Meet the inaugural cohort of 20+ data pioneers
- Ainslie Eck: Data Governance Manager at Indigo Ag
- Anne Fajkus: Manager of Data Governance at ZoomInfo
- Hendrik Brackmann: VP Data at Tide
- Kenza Zanzouri: Data Governance Strategist at Contentsquare
- Levi Dantzinger: Analytics Manager at Bestow
- Lizeth Alexandra Verano LeĂłn: Senior Manager Business Intelligence at Belcorp
- Martina Coad: Data Governance Analyst at Bestow
- Michal Szymanski: Data Governance Lead at Tide
- Olivia Maquar: Senior Data Analyst at Elastic
- Otávio Leite Bastos: Global Data Governance Lead at Contentsquare
- Robert Griswold: Manager of Business Intelligence at Tokyo Electron U.S.
- Sandy Crossman: Manager, DataOps & Enablement at Suffolk Construction
- Sara Baker: Senior Manager, Enterprise Data Analytics at ZoomInfo
- Sean Rober: Head of Data, Avenue One
- Steven Hloros: Senior Software Engineer at Crown Asset Management, LLC
- Tyler Vera: Data Steward at Pluralsight
They are joined by seven more data leaders from companies like Generate Capital, Cars.com, and Elastic.
Learn more about this inaugural cohort in our DataOps Leaders Program Directory.
Taking inspiration from fictional characters
At the beginning of the program, we asked these data leaders about their favorite fictional characters. Here are some of their responses:
- Iron Man (Tony Stark): He was my inspiration as a kid to become an engineer later on.
- Velma from Scooby-Doo: Like her, I can’t see without my glasses and I love solving a mystery.
- James Kirk: For his ingenuity to get out of tricky situations.
- Harley Quinn: Because of her superpower, she finds really nice solutions to her problems.
- Terminator (T-800): Because of his stoic character, reliability, a great cadre of closest “friends”, and determination in pursuing goals.
- Don Draper (Mad Men): He demonstrates how perception can be a reality in business.
- Wonder Woman: She’s smart, fierce, and has great accessories.
- Michael Scott: The greatest boss there ever was.
- Stitch: Because he’s different but also so loved for being strange and himself.
- George P. Burdell: If you know, you know! He can do anything he sets his mind to.
It’s no surprise these people decided to work in data with their love of problem-solving, determination, and ingenuity!
We’ll be sharing more updates from the program and this group’s journey, who are already showing off some real data superpowers of their own. Stay tuned on LinkedIn and Twitter.
