 and welcome to Data Diversity Talks, a podcast where we discuss with industry leaders and experts how they have built their careers around data. I'm your host, Shannon Kemp, and today we're talking to Darren Hook, the Director of Data Governance and Management at American Express. Ready to share your knowledge and network with your data peers? Join us in San Diego this June for the Data Governance and Information Quality Conference, five days packed full of new perspectives, new colleagues, and new approaches are yours when you register at dgiq 2023 west dot dataversity dot net. Lock in early bird savings when you register by May 5th. We'll see you there. Hello and welcome. My name is Shannon Kemp, and I'm the Chief Digital Officer at Data Diversity, and this is my career in data, a Data Diversity Talks podcast dedicated to learning from those who have careers in data management to understand how they got there and to be talking with people who help make those careers a little bit easier. To keep up to date in the latest in data management education, go to dataversity dot net forward slash subscribe. And today we are joined by Darren Hook, the Director of Data Governance and Management at American Express. And normally this is where a podcast host would read a short bio of the guest, but in this podcast, your bio is what we're here to talk about. Darren, hello and welcome. Thank you, Shannon. Glad to be on. Appreciate it. So you're the Director of Data Governance and Management at American Express, and you know, I have to ask just in case somebody doesn't know what American Express is, what is American Express and what is it that you do? Yeah, so American Express is a global company. We mainly do credit cards, but we're in a lot of financial services. We help with travel, loyalty points, really doing anything that helps support people to achieve their financial goals. And what I do at American Express is being the Director of Data Governance, I'm actually part of a particular business unit. So we have a federated data governance model where we have an enterprise data governance and I'm in one of the business units that deals with merchants and network. And so I'm in the GMNS space or the global merchant and network services team. So I have my own team there. We are, you know, building up data governance based off of the policies that enterprise data governance puts together, and we're having fun doing it. Nice, I love it. So tell me, Darren, so when you were just very young in elementary school, you know, was this the dream like, I'm going to grow up to be a Director of Data Governance? No, not exactly. The dream was actually to become a baseball player. And I've loved baseball and since, you know, looking back on it, one of the great things about baseball is that there's a lot of statistics. There's a lot of numbers involved. I've always loved numbers. I've always loved, you know, strategy and, you know, looking back on my childhood and how I loved playing games like, you know, monopoly or risk or, you know, things that had a strategy and, you know, you're moving towards certain milestones and progressing to then, you know, complete a goal via numbers and, you know, working with other people to influence that strategy. Very nice. So then, okay, so your dream of baseball, so I love it. It's great. And it is such a one of the, what do I want to say, the sports with most data? I think of, of any of the sports, there's more data tracking in baseball than any. Yeah, so actually as a child, so I would, you know, look at the baseball players, I would write down, you know, their statistics, I would look at the newspaper every morning, you know, look at the batting average leaders and things like that. I've just always loved numbers and rankings and even going into, you know, my high school years, you know, fantasy football and I looked at it in a different way. I saw it as, you know, more of a portfolio of assets and, you know, nobody else sees it now or not many, I should say. But yeah, I've always loved numbers and games and that strategy part of it. Oh, very nice. So then, so as you went through high school and then where did you go? How did you, what did you study? Yeah, so always being a numbers guy in high school, I took both statistics and calculus, you know, just wanted to take as much math courses as I could. Going into college, I looked at a number of different majors. I looked at mathematics, obviously, statistics, but I was also interested in business and seeing myself eventually getting an MBA. I also liked the technical, you know, side of things. In college for about a year, I thought, oh, maybe I'll be an accountant and I took some account classes until I was like, oh, this actually isn't really about numbers. It's more about the laws and, you know, the computers are doing the counting. So I actually went into economics as my major because I really liked how it formed, you know, why people make the decisions that they do into that mathematical framework that explained a lot of benefits, costs, for example, efficiencies. I loved, again, learning about that and how I could apply that to the business world. So then after I graduated with my economics major, later on, I did go and get my MBA at Purdue and, you know, concentrated in data analytics and, you know, before that, I worked at Hewlett-Packard for a number of years as well and, you know, there got into more of the data information systems, you know, how relational databases work and kind of that technology standpoint. And I still say this when I'm recruiting four people. I like people who like to bridge those gaps between the technology, the math, the business side of things and kind of dabble in all of those but, you know, working with people and I really love working with people. When I started going to my MBA classes, then I thought, okay, this is an opportunity for me to be exposed to a lot of, you know, parts of the business. I know the value and importance of data and so therefore I think I can, you know, become like a data scientist or something. That was kind of the goal. But as I went more into that as well as, you know, I then transitioned into, well, kind of stumbled upon, which I think a lot of us do, a data governance role. I was like, I don't know what data governance is, but I want to get closer to the data, being a business analyst, going, you know, wanting to go into the data field. I learned about data governance and was like, actually I want to do data governance more than be a data scientist because of that aspect of bridging the gap, helping, you know, knowing the value of data and then being able to bring people together and align on, you know, how we can improve the value of our data and capture and realize that value. So I want to come back to the data governance aspect in a bit, but so you, you know, you worked at Hewlett Packard, you got your MBA, you know, how, what were those jobs and what were you doing that led into that data governance role? Yeah, yeah, good question. So as I was graduating from college, then I was looking at, okay, should I become a business analyst or a financial analyst or something like that? I knew I wanted to, yeah, get more into, you know, researching, you know, about the business and using data along with that. So I became a business analyst, again, for Hewlett Packard, actually I got introduced into the credit card space there. Not many people knew, know that Hewlett Packard does credit processing for Australia and New Zealand at least. And as I learned more about that and knew that, you know, I was still, you know, a numbers guy and always have been, then, you know, realizing that there's different opportunities in the data field, you know, that opened my eyes to, oh, okay, I could, you know, use some of my skills to then be a part of that. And again, I said I stumbled upon it because I, you know, was able to move closer to Purdue. So I moved from Ohio to Indiana. And as I did so, I was looking for jobs, you know, just as a business analyst and, you know, or maybe a data analyst or something like that. And I saw that it was data governance analysts didn't really know what that meant. But I said, hey, let's jump into it. And like I said, as I progressed through, you know, that career path and saying, okay, what is data governance? The more and more I learned about it, the more I found that I enjoyed that more than I thought I was going to enjoy a different field like data science. Fascinating. You got into data governance pretty early, just almost right away. Yeah. Yep. Yeah, it was definitely a blessing to stumble upon it, if you will, because as I, you know, then learned about data governance and the influence that I could have, if you think back to like the data management book of knowledge, the Dumbock Wheel, you know, you have data governance in the center of it. And I like to dabble in, you know, a little bit of data architecture, a little bit of metadata management, a little bit of data quality, a little bit of data security, and know, you know, all the things that are going together. And then back to that strategy piece, having a strategy for how you can improve really all of those aspects through bringing people together, aligning on, you know, whether it be business definitions or having a central repository for metadata or curating that data into, you know, a place where analytics can then, you know, bring forth the insights that businesses need today. I like it. So, you know, so it just sounds like a natural progression to move up into a director of data governance. It's just kind of been your career path. Yeah. Well, back to your point of, you know, getting into data governance early. It was kind of a blue ocean opportunity of, as I was getting my MBA and as I was getting experience at the same time, then, you know, as I was taking some of the issues that we were having and bringing them to resolution and explaining and training, you know, people in the organization, hey, this is what data governance is. This is what we can do to help out. It got more and more attention to the point where, you know, as I was graduating and, you know, my, there was a lot of transition, you know, at the company that I was at at that time. And so my boss at the time who was, you know, pretty new to having me and my team under him, he asked me, you know, so who's leading data governance? I mean, you are, and so I was able to actually get a director role pretty quickly after that because I was already doing the things that the director level, you know, was expected to do. I was driving a lot of outcomes and deliverables and things that were providing a lot of that value. More and more companies are considering investing in data literacy education, but still have questions about its value, purpose, and how to get the ball rolling. Introducing the newest monthly webinar series from Dataversity, Elevating Enterprise Data Literacy, where we discuss the landscape of data literacy and answer your burning questions. Learn more about this new series and register for free at dataversity.net. So let me ask you, Darren, I mean, since you have such a passion around data governance, you know, we run into a lot of people here at Dataversity who ask for help to solicit to their management and getting data governance implemented at all. Because sometimes it seems like it's viewed as a dirty word. It's like that people think it's all about the laws. But tell me, so what do you do in your role of data governance and how is that helping American Express? And what is the specific passions that you have that just fuel that? Yeah. So I think that first of all, I'll say at different companies, data governance means different things, right? Because it depends on the culture. It depends on really the struggles of, you know, the company, the industry, etc. Everybody needs data. We know that. But what are the specific struggles? Is it that we're not being efficient? Is it that we're not being able to, you know, put things out to market? Is it that there's confusion in reporting, which was actually the case at that small insurance company that I was working at? You know, people were rolling up products in different ways, and particularly in the financial services industry, you know, where you're not producing widgets and there isn't, you know, that tangible product, then it made sense that different silos within the organization were defining things differently, which then led to discrepancies in reporting, which then led to data brawls, if you will. You go to a meeting and somebody has one number that says everything's going great, and somebody has a different number that says it's not going so great. And then you start digging into, well, where did you get this information, the data lineage? You know, what's the quality of this information? Well, we don't measure it. You know, what's your definition of this product? And it was different. And so those meetings need to be more about, you know, the revenue and, you know, the costs and being able to be more efficient and drive forth, you know, profitability. You can't do that if you don't have data governance in place. And so I found very early in this, you know, career change, you know, kind of coming into data governance that there is a lot of opportunity out there because there is a lot of data. A lot of people are used to the olden days where you have one system, you know, one mainframe that, you know, crunches the numbers and spits out, you know, what is needed. But nowadays, there's so many specializations in software and, you know, being able to increase the quality of your data, you know, you need to have APIs, you need to have the integrations with things that are going to give you that higher quality data. And so, therefore, if you have different systems saying different things, then you need to have that central source where you can rely back to, you know, what is the truth of what we're dealing with so that we can then make the right decisions, be more efficient and be able to, you know, gain that value from it. Very nice. So I like to ask this question, you know, what is your definition of data as a data practitioner? And so let me just stop there and let me stop part of it. Yeah, yeah. So I would consider data anything that is a representation of what is truth. We were just talking about kind of that that source of truth. So if you are receiving and it can be numbers, it can be letters, it can be images, it can be anything that you are trying to capture and have that representation of a fact of life. And generally, you know, being in the business and financial services, a lot of times that's, you know, tied to specific numbers, specific addresses, specific people, specific companies, you know, entities and the relationships of all of those things, you know, is the raw data, having the metadata or that contextual information that then allows that raw data to actually mean something. That's when you start getting knowledge and the insights and the things that are really going to, you know, benefit a company. Very nice. So do you see the importance of data management and the number of jobs working with data increasing or decreasing over the next 10 years and why? Oh, absolutely increasing. You know, for a number of years now, people have been talking about analytics and data science. And again, that's what helped me, you know, to fuel me into the data governance space. But, you know, as people talk about, you know, gaining these insights and analytics and, you know, we can do it, you know, with just machines and we can automate everything and it'll be great. We've found, you know, especially with machine learning, AI, you know, that what is being produced when you don't have good data, you know, it's just garbage and garbage out. You have to understand the data. You have to be able to find that data. And then, you know, as you do data governance, then you can have that trust in the data that it's actually representing what you think it should and that everybody's aligned on that representation of the facts that are needed. Very interesting. So, and what advice would you give people looking to get into career in data management? So, there's no degree necessarily in data governance. So, what should people study and what should people focus on? Yeah, I kind of mentioned this earlier that when I'm recruiting, I try to find people who, you know, aren't looking linearly, you know, saying, hey, I want to be an accountant, so I'm going to, you know, get my degree as an accountant. It's more those people who, you know, have a couple majors or like, you know, a couple minors, you know, as they're coming out of school. And generally, it's in the business, you know, or some combination or at least interest in the business area, the technical area and the mathematical, you know, statistics, you know, kind of area. So, when you get, like, all three of those, then that's, you know, pretty golden. But yeah, I would say that the academic world is starting, I am starting to see more courses and more programs around data because data is that important. Again, there's a lot more, you know, hype, well, not just hype, but a lot more excitement. I would say on the analytical side of thing of how to tell the story of data, but in data management, where, you know, we focus on what is truth and, you know, how to represent that, there's a lot more understanding now and there will continue to be for the people who are saying, hey, let's do this, you know, because of analytics. And then they realize that it's not producing what they want. They need to go back and realize, oh, they're actually paying their data scientists to do data governance work rather than just focus on the analytics side of things. And so, as that becomes more and more, you know, increasingly aware among companies and organizations, the more and more data management is at the centerpiece. And I'm definitely seeing that in my career so far. It's fascinating. You know, I've heard a few times that, you know, just understanding the business is so critical to a data management role. Do you have any thoughts around that that you can expand on? Yeah, from my experience, you know, again, going in as a business analyst, I found, you know, opportunities to, you know, find what was happening, you know, as credit card processing was, you know, going through its process. And really, what that means is that there was, I was understanding the data flow of when you swipe a card, then, you know, there's a certain amount of information that needs to go through, you know, authorizations, submissions, you know, etc. And so, as that data, you know, is going through the process flow, I realize that, yeah, I'm a business analyst, but I'm really getting closer to and understanding data and the data flows. And, okay, you know, now I need to learn more, you know, about the technologies behind it, the integration, store procedures, we had user interface, you know, and we had the backend of, you know, SQL databases, relational, etc. Now, you know, at American Express, where the technologies have, you know, just become more modern, we're dealing with no SQL databases and, you know, big data and all of that. And so, we have machine learning as well with our data quality rules, for example. And the technology side of it, you know, is also, you know, very exciting to see where we've come from, just even in the last 10, 15 years. So, back to your question of, you know, being in data governance, I do get to understand more of the business, whether it's the data flows, the business process flows, and, you know, we bring people together and, you know, part of it is assigning formally that accountability of who owns the data, right? And you get to understand the process of, okay, well, who, you know, today makes certain decisions and, you know, who should that be? And so, you really are at the center of understanding the business and getting to find out where data governance can, you know, prioritize some of the issues that the companies are going through in order to, again, bring about the most value at that time. I like it. And is there any way that, what do you do to keep up, like, with the tech, because tech is changing so rapidly? Yeah. So, how do you keep up with the tech and everything that you need to function in your role? Yeah, this is kind of a softball pitch to me for dataversity, right? Not necessarily. Yeah, to be completely honest, you know, staying in touch with each of the webinars, going to the data conferences, DGIQ, EDW, you know, there's articles out there, making sure you get certified as a data management professional. And then, you know, through demo days and understanding, you know, what the different technologies and offerings there are out there, you get to see really how far we've come and also how far we need to go, because there's a lot of opportunity out there. There's no technology or tool that is the perfect optimal solution to implement, because it is that mixture of technology process and people in order to make data what it needs to be. I appreciate that. Anything else that you want to add in, anything that you want to expand on? So, one thing that I'll also add just to continue the story of my career progression. So, as I then was working, you know, after I graduated with my MBA and I became director of data governance, then, you know, one thing I had in my mind was, you know, okay, well, this is how it works at a small company. You know, I really want to see if the same things that I'm doing are going to translate, you know, to a midsize and even a large enterprise. Because again, I started at Hewlett-Packard, you know, 350,000, you know, plus people at the time. And then going back to, you know, we had about 500 employees, I think about the time that I left the small insurance company. So then I went to a midsize, you know, company in financial services and was able to also be a part of laying that foundation in data governance. We already started, you know, seeing the value of that and that we could, you know, establish that foundation so we could do cooler things, you know, with our data and bring people the data that they needed. And then, you know, when this opportunity came up at American Express, you know, I was super excited to come back into the credit card space. It's a really exciting industry, but also to work with, you know, really great people, really intelligent, you know, bright people that I could then, again, take the things that I had learned, you know, through my career at that point and then apply them here. And so it's been, you know, a great process. Again, I've been blessed, you know, through my time to, I keep saying stumble upon data governance, but I feel like that's how, you know, most of us get in the space because there isn't that, you know, data governance program, you know, out of college or anything like that. Or, you know, we're very nascent, you know, in that space right now in the academic world. So, yeah, I would just add that, you know, it's a great space to be, you know, for those who are not in it right now. There are opportunities out there, you know, careers in data management are just going to continue to increase. And so I'd highly encourage anyone to, you know, take a look at that, reach out to me on LinkedIn, you know, and ask me any questions. And, yeah, it's been a blast. Perfect. Well, thank you, Darren. Well, I do have one more very important question. Who's your favorite baseball team? So, that's a great question because I actually moved a bit around in my youth. So, Seattle Mariners are... Good man! Yeah, that was my first and truest team, you know, back when Ken Griffey Jr. was there. Edgar Martinez, Randy Johnson, Alex Rodriguez, you know, what a team. Man, we should have won the championship way back in the day and can't believe it's taken us long for us to get back, you know, into the playoffs. But, so Seattle Mariners, you know, that's because that's where I grew up. I did spend my high school years in Texas. And so I always say I followed Alex Rodriguez, you know, going into... I didn't end up going to New York, but, you know, at least from the Mariners to the Rangers, you know, shout out to the Texas Rangers. Then I went to Cleveland and, you know, became a Cleveland Indians fan, now the Guardians. And so I love, you know, triple A ball, double A ball, you know, just taking my family out to the ballpark. So, yeah, spring training is happening right now. We're actually about to go this next week. So... Oh, very nice. I love it. Well, Darren, thank you so much. It has been a pleasure. So I really appreciate you taking the time today. And for all of our listeners out there, if you'd like to keep up to date in the latest podcast and the latest in data management education, you may go to dativersity.net forward slash subscribe. Until next time. Thank you for listening to DataVersity Talks brought to you by DataVersity. Subscribe to our newsletter for podcast updates and information about our free educational articles, blogs, and webinars at DataVersity.net forward slash subscribe.