The Data Chief

Discover how Nasdaq uses data platforms at a massive scale to power markets and prepare for AI. Angie Ruan, Nasdaq’s CTO of Capital Access Platforms, explains how large-scale data systems support market integrity, transparency, and decision-making across public and private markets. She defines what it really means to be AI-ready, how leaders should modernize data platforms, and how market fundamentals help separate real AI value from hype.
Key Moments:
Why Nasdaq Is More Than a Stock Exchange (06:10): Angie reframes Nasdaq as a global technology company rather than a traditional exchange, explaining how data, platforms, and engineering underpin trust, resilience, and transparency across public and private markets.
The Scale of Market Data Powering the Global Financial System (11:15): Angie breaks down the massive scale of Nasdaq’s data ecosystem, including hundreds of billions of market messages per day and platforms supporting more than $90 trillion in assets. She explains how data quality and reliability are foundational to market integrity and decision-making.
Building a Unified Data Intelligence Platform at Nasdaq (16:35): Angie explains how Nasdaq approaches data architecture, governance, and platform design to create a unified data intelligence layer. She shares why access control, operational efficiency, and data trust matter more than raw data volume when enabling analytics and AI at scale.
The AI-Ready Playbook for Data and AI Leaders (19:20): Drawing on her experience across startups and large enterprises, Angie outlines a practical framework for data and AI transformation. She emphasizes cloud adoption, breaking down silos, listening to business needs, and treating platform modernization as both a technical and organizational challenge.
Is AI a Bubble? Using Market Data to Separate Hype from Reality (31:00): Angie applies a data-driven lens to the AI bubble debate, examining earnings growth, margins, return on equity, and capital investment. She explains why current financial indicators suggest today’s AI moment differs fundamentally from past technology bubbles.
Key Quotes:
“ The foundation of any data strategy is actually cloud… If you don't put the data or the actual system in the cloud, it's much harder in terms of services and platform, let alone AI.” - Angie Ruan
“Data is great, but the more important [thing]... is how we put it all together.” - Angie Ruan
“ The world is going to change so fast… Being curious [and] continuing to learn, it is so important.” - Angie Ruan
Mentions
Inside the Invitation-Only Stock Market for the Wealthy
Nasdaq eVestment: The Institutional Intelligence Platform Powering $90T+ in Decisions
Guest Bio 
Angie Ruan is the Chief Technology Officer, Capital Access Platforms at Nasdaq. An award-winning industry leader, Ms. Ruan holds four technical patents and has been instrumental in driving digital transformation across many industries, including enterprise application, e-commerce, payment, and capital markets. She most recently served as Vice President of Engineering at Chime before returning to Nasdaq where she was the Senior Vice President of Global Technology, responsible for overseeing the development of Key Market Technology Products and Corporate Platforms. Prior to joining Nasdaq, Ms. Ruan served as the Global Group Technology Vice President of consumer experiences and platform for American Express, where she was responsible for the digital transformation of American Express web and mobile technology. Before then, she was the Unit CIO for U.S. Consumer and U.S. Small Business, and was also Head of Engineering for Global PayPal Retail and Merchant product lines. As well, she held various executive engineering leadership roles at eBay including building the eBay messaging system, creating the eBay mobile platform, and transforming the DevOps organization.
Recognized as one of Silicon Valley's Women of Influence, Ms. Ruan holds an M.S. in Computer Science from the University of California, Santa Barbara, and studied undergraduate in Computer Science at Tsinghua University of China.

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Discover why the future of AI at work is more human than you think. Vinay Gidwaney, Chief Product Officer at OneDigital, shares how treating AI agents as talent rather than technology is changing AI adoption at work. He explains people-first change management, managing AI coworkers, building trust in human AI teams, and why real transformation depends on equity, access, and better decision-making.
Key Moments:
AI as a Coworker (01:45): Vinay introduces “Ben,” an AI benefits consultant at OneDigital, to illustrate a fundamentally different way of thinking about AI at work. Instead of positioning AI as automation or replacement, he explains how AI coworkers are designed to augment human expertise and support better decision-making.
Hiring, Training, and Managing AI Like Employees (04:20): Vinay walks through OneDigital’s intern-to-apprentice model for AI, including job descriptions, cultural fit, human managers, and ongoing supervision. He shows how applying HR rigor to AI builds trust, accountability, and clarity while helping employees see AI as part of the team, not a threat.
Why AI Projects Fail: The Misguided Focus on Tools over Talent (10:45): Vinay argues that AI fails when treated like a traditional IT rollout. He emphasizes that AI adoption is fundamentally a people and change-management challenge, calling on HR leaders to lead the shift in how humans and AI work together.
Recognizing the Limits and Risks of AI Automation (23:10): Vinay explains why fully autonomous AI agents often fall short in knowledge-based organizations. He cautions leaders to be skeptical of automation-first promises and introduces a more realistic model centered on cognition, human oversight, and thoughtful ROI evaluation.
The Future of Work in an AI World (38:10):  Vinay reflects on his career and argues that software alone is no longer a defensible moat. He emphasizes speed, insight, services, and human judgment as the true sources of lasting value.
Key Quotes:
“ If you treat AI like any other technology that you've adopted in your company. It's not going to work out as well as you'd like… It's not a technology thing, it's a people thing.” - Vinay Gidwaney
“ AI is a great way to spread human talent in your organization because they mirror what your humans are doing.” - Vinay Gidwaney
“AI is talent and you have to treat AI in the same way that you treat the talent within your organization.” - Vinay Gidwaney
Mentions
How to Train Your AI ‘Coworker’
What are AI agent types? How to choose one for your data
Reconfiguring work: Change management in the age of gen AI
Guest Bio 
Vinay Gidwaney is the Chief Product Officer at OneDigital, a national insurance, employee benefits, HR, and financial services company serving 100,000 employers and 10 million families, with over $1B in revenue. He is responsible for defining and executing the technology and AI strategy as the company reinvents the insurance and wealth management industries with innovative products.
Previously, Vinay led the technology strategy for CIC Health during one of the largest COVID-19 public health campaigns in U.S. history. Collaborating with public partners, he helped set up award-winning vaccination efforts at iconic locations such as Gillette Stadium and Fenway Park, and at numerous community sites, administering 1.2 million COVID-19 vaccinations in less than seven months.
A 2002 winner of the prestigious MIT Technology Review Magazine Top 100 Innovators Under 35 award, Vinay is a proud father to Leela, Niam, Kayvion and Samay.

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In this season premiere of The Data Chief podcast, host Cindi Howson sits down with three industry leaders to unpack what’s next for AI, and the concrete moves data and AI leaders need to make in 2026—many of which are detailed in ThoughtSpot’s Top Data & AI Trends of 2026 ebook.
Get ready for a deep dive into:
Agentic AI goes mainstream with Paul Baier, CEO and Co-Founder of GAI Insights
AI-ready data and the rise of the AI manager with Jennifer Belissent, Principal Data Strategist at Snowflake
Scaling agents with trust and control with Rory Blundell, CEO of Gravitee
Consider this your field guide to navigating AI in 2026.
Key Moments:
Agentic AI Goes Mainstream with Paul Baier, GAI Insights (1:50): Paul Baier, CEO and Co-Founder of GAI Insights, explains why enterprises that already have GenAI in production are pulling decisively ahead, how agentic AI is reshaping enterprise operating models, and why leadership alignment and AI literacy will determine winners in 2026.
AI-Ready Data and the Rise of the AI Manager, Jennifer Belissent, Snowflake (19:16): Dr. Jennifer Belissent, Principal Data Strategist at Snowflake, breaks down why data quality, transparency, and governance remain the foundation of AI success, and why the next critical enterprise skill is learning how to manage AI agents as part of the workforce.
Scaling Agents with Trust and Control with Rory Blundell, Gravitee (35:11): Rory Blundell, CEO of Gravitee, shares how the agentic era is redefining API integration, why most enterprises are stuck at early AI maturity stages, and how agent management and security frameworks will unlock real action in 2026.
Key Quotes:
“Yo u have to treat AI as a capability and not an IT project.” - Paul Baier
“ Transparency as a requirement is not slowing down adoption. It's actually accelerating it.” - Jennifer Belissent
“My prediction is that companies that adopt robust security frameworks in 2026 will be the companies that accelerate fastest.” - Rory Blundell 
Mentions
GAI Insights’ Corporate Buyers Guide to Enterprise Intelligence Applications
Harvard Business Review: GAI Insights’ WINS Framework
Gravitee’s AI Readiness Curve
ThoughtSpot’s Top Data & AI Trends of 2026 ebook
Guest Bios 
Paul Baier
Mr. Baier is the CEO and principal analyst at GAI Insights. Mr Baier co-authored 4 articles about enterprise GenAI that were featured in Harvard Business Review and MIT Sloan Management Review. He was appointed an Executive Fellow at Harvard Business School and is a Forbes contributor. He is a seasoned software entrepreneur with two decades of experience and multiple exits. Related to AI, he was VP of Product at First Fuel Software, an enterprise AI company for 5 years. He holds an MBA from Harvard and a BA from Kenyon College.
Jennifer Belissent
As Principal Data Strategist, Jennifer advises Snowflake customers on data and AI strategy and best practices in building world-class organizations. Previously, she spent over a decade as a Forrester Analyst, and has held management positions in tech sales and marketing, designed urban policy programs, taught secondary school math as a Peace Corps volunteer, and earned a Ph.D. in political science from Stanford University and a B.A. in econometrics from the University of Virginia.
Rory Blundell
Rory Blundell is the CEO of Gravitee. He joined the company in March 2020, first as Chief Revenue Officer, before becoming CEO in September 2020. Prior to Gravitee, Blundell led SnapLogic's EMEA expansion from a technical sales perspective, overseeing significant growth in EMEA revenues over three years. Prior to SnapLogic, he was the CEO and founder of Velinko, a UK software and consultancy company for the legal and accounting sectors.

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In this special episode, host Cindi Howson pulls together the most useful, and hard-won, lessons from a year of conversations with Data Chiefs leading the GenAI charge. With generative and agentic AI no longer a side experiment, this episode spotlights five practices early adopters can rely on to move from pilots to profit. Expect straight talk on what to prioritize, how to bring people with you, and how to scale AI with the trust, literacy, and guardrails that make impact stick.
Key Moments:
Tying AI to Real Dollars with Anand Iyer, Ecolab (02:10): Anand cuts through the GenAI FOMO and brings everything back to a simple survival test: if you can’t draw a straight line from an AI initiative to top-line growth or bottom-line savings, it won’t last. His lesson is a sharp reminder that “cool” doesn’t scale, value does. 
Leading Through Ambiguity with Karen Stroup, WEX (06:01): Karen names what everyone’s feeling: ambiguity is paralyzing. She explains how leaders earn trust by shrinking the unknown into learnable, bite-sized experiments and creating the psychological safety people need to engage instead of resist.
Building Practical AI Literacy at Scale with Josh Cunningham, Lloyds Banking Group (12:42):  Josh shares how Lloyds Banking Group makes literacy impactful by meeting people where they are. Rather than one-size-fits-all training, they pair broad fundamentals with role-specific learning so every business unit can build confidence in ways that match their actual work. 
Scaling Responsible Agentic AI with Noelle Russell, AI Leadership Institute (25:09): Noelle steps in with a practical framework for building agentic systems that don’t go rogue. She walks through the POET framework and stresses that responsible AI isn’t a final checkpoint. It’s something you embed from the first idea to production, with guardrails that protect people and outcomes.
Embedding AI Where Work Happens with Ilan Twig, Navan (32:35): Ilan tells a classic early-adopter story: start with a business problem, move fast, and be ruthless about what needs building versus buying. His lesson is that AI wins when it’s inside the workflow, supporting decisions at the point of impact rather than living in a separate tool. 
Don’t Let Perfection Stall Progress with Ketan Karkhanis, ThoughtSpot (40:59): Ketan shares a culture gut-check: waiting for perfect metrics, perfect KPIs, or perfect clarity is how progress dies. He argues for visible, trust-building iteration, because in AI, speed to learning beats speed to certainty. 
Key Quotes:
“One thing that people sometimes forget is that at the end of the day, it's all about are we either saving money or making money? And are you able to show that in the bottom line or the top line in a measurable way?” - Anand Iyer
“I don't think there's any chief anything officer that should not be considering AI today. I think if you're not considering AI, you are at the risk of being disrupted because you're not going to be learning at the pace with the rest of the industry, and there's someone out there looking for a better way.” - Karen Stroup
“It’s trying your best to meet people where they are… Finding a way to anchor the [AI] learning to something that's relevant to their day-to-day role is always going to make it land better.” - Josh Cunningham
“ When people lose 70% of their trust in you, they just don't buy from you, they don't work for you, they don't talk about you… and your business starts to die. I think that trust component is a human component… and it is underpinning all the other philosophies that I have.” - Noelle Russell
“When you asked me about how to educate yourself on AI, I think that companies must make a decision, and quickly, this or that.” - Ilan Twig
“ Don't let perfection be the enemy of progress.” - Ketan Karkhanis
Guest Bios 
Anand Iyer
Anand Iyer is the SVP, Chief Data Officer at Ecolab, where he leads the company’s global data and analytics strategy. Based in Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania, he oversees enterprise data governance, business intelligence, engineering, and advanced analytics to accelerate Ecolab’s digital transformation. Since joining in 2018, Anand has held several senior roles, including VP of Enterprise Architecture and VP of Architecture for Commercial Digital Solutions, helping to scale IoT and data-driven platforms across the organization.
Karen Stroup
Karen joined WEX in 2022 as Chief Digital Officer, a newly created role. She brings more than 15 years of experience leading product management, digital, and innovation organizations focused on software as a service offerings, primarily in financial services.
Josh Cunningham
Josh Cunningham is the Group Head of Data and AI Culture at Lloyds Banking Group, where he leads the Data Culture Pillar—one of five strategic pillars in the Group’s data strategy. He is focused on embedding data-driven mindsets across the organization and empowering teams to unlock the full value of data.
Noelle Russell
Noelle Russell is a multi-award-winning speaker, author, and AI Executive who specializes in transforming businesses through strategic AI adoption. She is a revenue growth + cost optimization expert, 4x Microsoft Responsible AI MVP, and named the #1 Agentic AI Leader in 2025. She has led teams at NPR, Microsoft, IBM, AWS and Amazon Alexa, and is a consistent champion for Data and AI literacy and is the founder of the "I ❤️ AI" Community teaching responsible AI for everyone.
Ilan Twig
Ilan Twig is the co-founder and Chief Technology Officer (CTO) of Navan, the leading modern travel and expense management platform, globally. As CTO, Ilan drives Navan’s product development and engineering efforts, leveraging cutting-edge technologies — including AI — to enhance user experience and operational efficiency. 
Ketan Karkhanis
Ketan Karkhanis is the CEO of ThoughtSpot, the Agentic Analytics Platform company. Prior to joining the company in September 2024, Ketan was the Executive Vice President and General Manager of Sales Cloud at Salesforce. He returned to Salesforce in March 2022 after his time as the COO of Turvo, an emerging supply-chain collaboration platform. 

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Learn how one of the world’s biggest restaurant companies is turning data and AI into a recipe for global innovation. Cameron Davies, Chief Data Officer at Yum! Brands, shares how he’s combining strategy, technology, and change management to drive gobal growth. He explains how Yum! is building AI literacy from the top down, reimagining operations with generative AI, and partnering with NVIDIA to scale innovation. Cameron reveals what true data leadership looks like, balancing bold ideas with business impact, and proving transformation starts with people, not technology.
Key Moments:
Start with the Business Problem, Not the Tech (04:27): Cameron recalls advice from a mentor, “start with the business problem down, not the technology up.” He emphasizes that innovation only matters when it solves real business challenges, reminding data leaders not to get enamored with the “cool” factor of technology at the expense of impact.
Balancing Global Scale with Local Agility (07:45): Cameron unpacks the challenge of scaling analytics across 160 countries and four major brands, 98% of which are franchise-owned. He explains how Yum! balances centralization and autonomy, ensuring smaller markets have a voice while global teams leverage shared technology and insights.
Building AI Literacy from the Top Down (13:44): Cameron describes Yum!’s investment in digital upskilling, from Harvard-led training for executives to hands-on AI workshops for employees. He outlines how the company is embedding AI tools, like Microsoft Copilot and ChatGPT, into daily workflows to build confidence and accelerate adoption.
Digitizing the Restaurant: Byte By Yum! (17:18): Cameron introduces Byte By Yum!, a suite of proprietary software that simplifies restaurant operations. He explains how it unifies e-commerce, point-of-sale, voice AI, and kitchen systems to make running a restaurant easier and more efficient in an increasingly complex digital environment.
Partnering with NVIDIA to Power the Future (25:12): Cameron shares how Yum!’s strategic partnership with NVIDIA is fueling next-generation restaurant innovation. He reveals how the collaboration gives Yum! early access to cutting-edge AI engineering and product strategy, extending his team’s capabilities with some of the best minds in the field.
Key Quotes:
“Technology’s actually a whole lot easier than people, and the more successful the people are, the harder it is to get them to change.” - Cameron Davies
The business problem is the business problem. You never have as much data as you want, as fast as you want, as cleanly as you want. People are always people, but the opportunities are always the opportunities.” - Cameron Davies
“I think sometimes we get so enamored with the technology… We forget it’s all in the service of a business problem.” - Cameron Davies
Mentions
Byte By Yum!
Yum! Brands to accelerate AI innovation in an industry-first collaboration with NVIDIA
2025 AI & Data Leadership Executive Benchmark Survey
Guest Bio 
Cameron Davies currently serves as the Chief Data Officer at Yum! Brands since July 2020. Prior to this role, Cameron held the position of Senior Vice President of Corporate Decision Sciences at NBCUniversal, Inc. from September 2013 to July 2020, overseeing the Corporate Management Sciences and NBCU News Group Insights teams, focusing on advanced analytics and data strategies. 
Cameron's career at Walt Disney Co. spanned from October 1996 to September 2013, where responsibilities included leading the Walt Disney World Resort Forecast and Planning teams and managing global Yield Management. Cameron established and led the Corporate Center of Excellence in Management Science and Integration, collaborating with Disney executives on analytics initiatives. Earlier in the career, from May 1989 to June 1996, Cameron served as a Professor of Finance and Accounting at Pensacola Christian College, teaching various business courses. 
Cameron holds a Master of Business Administration (MBA) in Marketing Research and Operations Management from the UWF Lewis Bear Jr. College of Business and a Bachelor of Science in Business/Accounting from Pensacola Christian College.

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