Hi everyone

Last week hundreds of data leaders, engineers, practitioners, and innovators came together to join us at FWRD 2024, including many of our community members. We wanted to start by saying a big thank you to all for taking part as participants and as speakers, sharing your thoughts, and questions with us live. This FWRD has been nothing but an exciting teaser to what’s to come in 2025! 

That being said, if you’ve missed or need a recap, here is a quick wrap of FWRD 2024 highlights  

The era of data and role of Chief Data Officer

We kicked-off FWRD with Ataccama CEO, Mike McKee’s keynote on the role of CDO’s and tips for success. Mike spoke how business is interested in data more than ever to be able to stay competitive. Enter the CDO role.

Mike McKee’s three key tips for CDOs to become successful are:

• Strong data culture. Foster a strong data culture where everyone understands the value of data and actively participates in data quality initiatives.
• Data products over data projects. Create valuable, reusable data assets (like a customer 360 view) that empower different teams to achieve business goals rather than just completing one-off data projects with limited impact.
• Connect data initiatives to business goals. Demonstrate the value of the CDO role and secure buy-in from stakeholders across the organization.

Akhil Lalwani is the Chief Data Officer at Convex Insurance shared their own approach on how to create a data culture within their organizations. Starting with looking for individuals that can do things differently, the leaders role to drive change and and most importantly to take pride in creating data quality within the orgazation rather than focusing on creating siloes.

Randy Bean’s session later put the CDO role into the frame of a AI future where he goes in deep and shows the data behind each finding - make sure to give that a listen.

Future of Ataccama - ONE AI Agent, Snowflake DQ Native App, and more

Before the moving on to tracks our CPO, Jay Limburn shared a sneak peek into Ataccama’s product vision moving into 2025 with very exciting updates.

Taking the copilot to the next level and introducing our ONE AI Agent. We are leading this new wave of AI innovation by changing the way we work with data by automating end-to-end complex tasks such as:

• Uploading data tables with business requirements to create DQ rules in bulk
• Mapping newly created DQ rules to relevant data assets
• Ensuring data quality in specific datasets with technical knowledge
• And much more!

This technology democratizes data management, making it accessible to everyone and freeing up data professionals to focus on strategic initiatives. More on ONE AI Agent coming soon

We also introduced our DQ Snowflake Native App, providing all Snowflake customers with data validation service at no cost. You can find out more about it here, and share your thoughts:

️Data Leaders, Practitioners, and Users Tracks

We had a packed agenda for each of the tracks composed of fireside chats like Navigating the future of data & AI in telecom and beyond with our customers, on crucial topics such as Bridging data and business: Women leaders driving valuable outcomes to Beyond technology: Building a people-first approach to data governance success, and more.

As you might expect AI was one of the key topics and having two dedicated sessions from industry experts is something you shouldn’t miss. The AI acceleration: An opportunity to double down on good data management and governance by Krishna Cheriath, Chief Data Analytics and AI officer at Thermo Fisher Scientific and The power of data to unlock GenAI from Tia White, Artificial Intelligence & Machine Learning Executive at AWS were two key agenda points through the event.

Missed FWRD 2024 or want to re-watch some sessions? You can now access all on-demand session recordings here 
 

From insightful keynotes to engaging fireside chats, FWRD was a whirlwind of knowledge sharing and networking. We hope the latest breakthroughs in AI-powered data management inspire you. We'd love to hear your thoughts, what you are excited to hear more about, or any feedback you might have!
 

Let us know in the comments, what was your favorite moment or key takeaway from the event? Anything you are taking away for your organization? Looking forward to hearing from you!