 Hello and welcome to My Career in Data, a podcast where we discuss with industry leaders and experts how they have built their careers. I'm your host Shannon Kipp and today we're talking to Chris Way from Rocket Software. Visit dataversity.net and expand your knowledge with thousands of articles and blogs written by industry experts, plus free live and on-demand webinars covering the complete data management spectrum. While you're there, subscribe to the weekly newsletter so you'll never miss a beat. Hello and welcome. My name is Shannon Kemp and I'm the Chief Digital Officer at Dataversity and this is My Career in Data, a Dataversity 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.net forward slash subscribe. Today we are joined by Chris Way, the data modernization president at Rocket Software 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. Chris, hello and welcome. Welcome. Thank you. It's so great to be here, Shannon. Oh, so glad you could join us. So tell me, okay, so you're the data modernization president at Rocket Software. So what is Rocket Software and what is it that you do? What does that title mean? Rocket Software, we've been around for a bit more than 30 years and we help enterprises across the globe modernize their IT environments and we help them modernize their data, their applications and their infrastructure. And so it's a really exciting company where we get to work with some of the world's largest companies and they're very, very complex IT environments and these complex environments have thousands of applications and servers and data centers all over the world. They're using public clouds. They have their own data centers. They have their own computers. And so all of these applications and infrastructure within our customer's environment are a veritable playground for a company like us that really help customers modernize their IT environments because the reality is so many of these customers have been around for decades and so the complexity is huge and we help customers simplify and modernize. Oh, very cool. So that works it into the title. How did you get this title and what is it that you do specifically for Rocket Software? So I lead one of our business units at the company. Our business unit is focused on data modernization and that really focuses on the data that customers have within their environments and data is such an important part of our customer's businesses, whether they're in the insurance industry or financial services or governments across the globe or retailers. There's so much data out there and so we help our customers modernize their data environments. Very cool. So tell me, Chris, was this the dream when you were just a wee person in elementary school? Was this the dream like I'm going to grow up and be a data modernization president? Well, not exactly. I mean, I think I didn't even know this type of job existed, you know, yeah. Yeah. So what was the dream? What was the dream when you were a kid? Well, I actually wanted to be a fighter pilot, believe it or not. Very cool. My uncle flew B-52s in the Air Force and I had the chance to go on the Air Force base and visit the big jets and bombers on the Air Force base. And as a young child, that was incredibly exciting. I like to go fast, whether that's in cars or planes. And I had good eyesight and good hand-eye coordination, but then over time, unfortunately, the motion sickness was not a good thing for me. And so I think the fighter pilot wasn't going to do it. Yeah. There's so many things, details there that they need. Yeah. So what's and then what changed? So so as you as you got older and became an adult, you know, what became the new passion and what what did you start to become more interested in? Well, I was always good at math, enjoyed numbers, good at engineering. And so I went to college and studied engineering, electrical engineering and was able to get a job with IBM coming out of school, which was really exciting. And I worked at IBM for more than a decade and coming into the first job out of school, I started in sales operations as kind of a data analyst within the sales operations team for our semiconductor business and got to really enjoying data right out of school with IBM. Oh, that's exciting. So how are you working with with data there? Yeah. Well, in the sales operations role, we had salespeople across the globe that were selling our various offerings to our enterprise customers and we had just converted from fax machines to a Lotus Notes database. And so yeah, those reports would come in from the salespeople. They used to come in on the fax machines and we collect them. And now we had centralized everything into a consolidated Lotus Notes database. And I was made the IT and the database administrator in the sales operations team for all of the reports. And what was the interesting thing is everybody would send their formats in a slightly different way and the fields were different. And the way they would describe the products were different because there was no standardization in the fields and the data elements within the database. And so it was it was a lot of fun. I got to essentially help harmonize the data and make it consistent so that we could actually report on the consolidated sales forecasts from all of our sellers across the globe because we had a centralized database, but we didn't have any data governance and we didn't have any data quality and we didn't have any data consistency. And as somebody that was kind of OCD like myself, I was like, oh, I can I can fix this problem. I love that. I love that. So then where did you go from there? Well, from here, you know, I think, you know, that was I started with this one database and this one business problem on how do we help our executives that are trying to understand the sales forecast from all of the sellers across the globe to listening to the salespeople and when they were not getting what they wanted from the company because we were in sales operations really kind of felt like a representative or a helper of the various folks in the field offices, whether that was in Europe or across the states or in Asia Pacific and helping them what they to get what they needed out of headquarters. And so we would hear that, you know, great job improving the sales forecast process, but we have all these other other problems with the things in headquarters. And so I was a curious person and I went and followed up with the different areas of the business and found that we had a whole spattering of databases across the enterprise that didn't really talk to each other because the thing with these Lotus Notes databases at the time was they were really easy to fire up, but then you had just a proliferation of databases. It's kind of like, you know, BI reports these days or, you know, who knows, Salesforce dashboards, right? You get all these things popping up and and so we had all these databases. They didn't talk to each other. They weren't consistent and things would get stuck and the salespeople and the customers wouldn't get their parts. And then we had unhappy customers. And so I kind of started with fixing the data quality in the database that we had and then expanding from there and trying to help the rest of the division at that time, fix their data quality and their data consistency problems to essentially help our customers get what they needed from our division. I love it. So so far you've said a couple of key things that, you know, I've heard and and we've been learning a lot from from other interviews. This curiosity, such an important thing and problem solving. Here's a problem that we have. This is causing me a lot of time and we can be more efficient if we do, if we standardize and create some quality and create some standards. I love that. All right. So tell me, so how do you go from there to rocket software? What's your what's how tell me more about your journey? Yeah, well, I spent about 13 years at IBM and I started in this semiconductor business where we were making memory and processors and custom processors for our customers. And then eventually made my way into the software business at IBM, which was a big business that helped customers with data quality, data management, we had various databases that still do around DB2 and other databases that are big for enterprise customers. And in the software business, I actually got to know and meet some of the leadership at Rocket Software. And so that was a really exciting time for me. I'd spent some time getting into the business of acquisitions and mergers and divestitures with IBM, which we did a lot of at the time. And so that was a very exciting time for me. And that that that opportunity and meeting the team at Rocket Software was a connection that was really important to me, that as I moved on in my career and went to two other companies ultimately came back and worked with Rocket Software. And I've been here for three and a half years and it's been wonderful. Amazing. That's great. So so tell me then, because you've been working with data for a while, so since college really and coming out of college, you know, so what is your definition of data? Well, I think data is central to everything that we do in business and even our home and our personal finances. I mean, I think, you know, there's always some people out there that you'll meet and they're like, no, I'm an intuitive person and I'm going to look at the face that the person makes. And if they really wink this way or look this other way, then I've made my decision, right? But for most of the person, data is essential of our decision making processes. And we want to see, you know, which direction is our checkbook headed or where, you know, my bank account or my value of my home or in the business is my bookings going up or down is my revenue going up or down and my cost and expenses going up or down. And that those fundamental data elements are so important to what we do. And so this exercise in aggregating data, consolidating it, making sure that the quality is high, putting it into a report and that data life cycle is such an important part of everything that businesses do. I've had a passion for it since I was very young. I had, you know, I was fortunate enough to work with it coming out of school. As you mentioned, that curiosity, I think, is a big factor in having an interest in the kind of the analytical tendencies, the curiosity, getting roll, have a desire to roll up your sleeves. And I think if those are things that you like doing, then, you know, data is a type of business for you. 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. Hello. So tell me, Chris, how are you working with data today to help you with your day to day job? Well, one of the, there's probably two aspects to it. I think one is as an internal customer of my company's IT department, right? So my company's IT department looks very much like an IT department at many large companies where they have a database team and they're consolidating all of the financial information. And there's a data warehousing or data lake where we consolidate all of the information across the company. And then there's a reporting in a business intelligence system that sits on top of that that delivers hundreds, if not thousands of reports to employees across the company. And so I'm a customer of that information as the president of our business unit here and having an understanding of what is the fundamental data of my business and how is my business doing and is it doing well or not? And understanding the detail by geography, by customer, by product, by specific feature, right? These are important information data that I want to know about, you know, the performance of the business. And so that's one aspect. But then as a business unit and we're a software company that helps our customers modernize their data, one of the most exciting areas that I love is around the area of data intelligence. And so we help our customers understanding how data travels through the organization from start to finish, from the time it gets created as it travels different databases and ETL scripts and transformations and warehouses and BI reports. And we help customers understand the trajectory. We call that data lineage, and that's an extraordinarily exciting area for me on how we build that software and then help our customers take advantage of that to understand where their data came from inside their company. That's great. I really like that, you know, and I love that you mentioned earlier, too, that, you know, we're using data in our daily lives, not just at work. So whether we know it or not, it's everywhere. 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? I mean, I might be biased because I love data, but I think it's got to go up into the right. There's, you know, and maybe my rationale for that, Shannon, is probably that there's so much data getting generated and a lot of the data is messy data. And so what you want to find out is, you know, what's the what's the signal within that mess of data? So we want to improve the signal to noise ratio. And in order to improve the signal to noise ratio, you want to have more intelligent people looking at all the data. And, you know, we certainly probably can't get through the podcast without talking about AI, but, you know, AI will certainly have a part in improving the quality of data. But I think the massive amount of data, the increase of what's happening in the data space makes it interesting. And so again, if you're a curious individual, technical, want to analyze data, look for insights, I think with the massive increase in data that's happening that's just generated out of all the systems that are collecting data, generating data, analyzing data, I think there's going to be more data jobs over time than there are today over the coming 10 or 20 years. I love it. So what advice then would you give to people looking to get into a career in data management either in the broad scheme of things, because it's a very broad scope of data management but or to a specific data job? Yeah, well, I think there's data everywhere you go, whether you're, you know, at at home or in the workplace. And my advice to people is roll up your sleeves and dig in. And so if you've got that curiosity factor, if you want to get into the data business, get familiar with Microsoft Excel as a starting point, pull up a spreadsheet from your business, ask around, find that data and dig in and start looking at the trends and the patterns and what's happening with the business or what's happening with the numbers or what's happening with the data inside your enterprise and ask questions, be curious, do analysis. And as you go through that process, you're going to build a set of insights on what you believe is happening with the business or the data, and that insight is something that's valuable. And so as you essentially create that insight and you share that insights with higher ups within the organization, those insights will be valuable and well received from others. And I think from there, it's off to the races and you're going to find yourself having a job for life in the analyzing data. Oh, I love that. So it sounds like, you know, anywhere you are, you can just start really being aware of what data you're creating, what data you're using and start asking and use that curiosity to find out what other people are using to build those insights. So you don't even have to have data in your job title to start a career in data management. That's right. No, I think there's so many jobs now that are related to data, whether that's an analyst, a business analyst, a data analyst, a business operations. There's most titles in the in the in the in corporations today, you're touching and analyzing data. And, you know, we have these amusing conversations inside our company on a regular basis that says, well, you know, marketing has some data people and IT has some data people and business units and sales and HR and everybody is hiring people that are interesting, interested in data. They have some technical skills and data analysis and they're looking to build insights and understanding from the data that's there. And so we say, well, how can we connect the individuals across the company to create communities of practice, have them share insights with one another in addition to the higher levels of management? And so there's really just an ongoing trend of data because, again, go back to the explosion of data and you want to understand what's the signal? What's the message? What's the narrative at the end of the day that's happening? If you understand the business and what trajectory the business is going into, you need people to really spend the time to pay attention to the details of what's happening in the business. And that's where the data analysis comes in. And I think it's just a great opportunity for everybody to roll up their sleeves there. I love it. So, and Chris, when you're hiring for your team, you know, who are working with customers and their data and is there a specific skill set that you're looking for? Is what is it that you look for when you're? Well, I think there's probably a couple of skill sets that I've probably already mentioned and then maybe a new one that I'll throw in. I think the curiosity is really important. I think the analytical skills are critical, right? So you have to want to know answers, right? And you have to ask questions and ask questions on a regular basis. You have to have the technical knowledge to play with the data and to understand what the data means. But then I think people's skills are also really important. And that might be surprising, I think, in the type of a data job. But the question is, what do you do with that data once it comes out of the database? Once you've analyzed it, once you've figured out some things. Well, you need to not sit on that data and put it into a chat box. You need to call people. You need to talk to other people in different organizations and you need to see on that curiosity. And if you're a data analyst in sales and you see something that marketing or operations or IT might want to know about, you need to communicate with those other individuals. And so I think those people's skills, interaction and that curiosity factor combined with the analytical skills are probably the top three things that I think are important in a data job. I love that. Such great advice. And you're right, people's skills are so important. Communication is so important. We forget that sometimes we're working with numbers. Just want to get lost in the data. I have done that myself many a time. Well, Chris, thank you. I want to. So I would be remiss if I didn't ask, you know, if somebody wanted to solicit the services of Rocket Software, where would they go? How would they find you? The best place to go is rocketsoftware.com. And we've got a wonderful new website, a great new branding and logo that we're really proud of. We've been sponsoring the rock, the Boston Red Sox recently, which is really fun, how much data is in baseball? I mean, that's an interesting thing. Yeah, some of the data folks at our company have been talking to me about. So that's a really interesting part of the overall story. Software.com, we welcome you to come take a look. Oh, what a fun way to play with data, because you're right. So many stats in baseball, so many. So then the Red Sox, is that your favorite team? Yeah, as a Bostonian. You have to be. Die Hard. Absolutely. Is it I think it's a city law, right? I mean, you really it's it's you're not very welcome in Boston if you're not a local fan. I know Boston Red Sox fans here in Oregon, who are still so very Die Hard. It's great. I love it. It's a great community. Well, Chris, thank you so much. Anything else you want to add? It's really been a pleasure to be on the podcast, Jan. And I really appreciate it. A great conversation. I just wish there would be many more folks in the in the data type of roles because there's so much of it. And we just need all the insights we can get. And it's a lot of fun. And so really encourage anybody that's interested to roll up their sleeves and dig in. I love it. Think great advice, Chris. Thank you so much for taking the time to talk with us today. Right. And to 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 dataversity.net forward slash subscribe. Until next time, stay curious, everyone. Thank you for listening to Dataversity Talks, a podcast brought to you by Dataversity. Subscribe to our newsletter for podcast updates and information about our free educational webinars at dataversity.net forward slash subscribe.