https://anchor.fm/census/episodes/Data-Maturity-When-to-Switch-Processes-and-Tool-Stacks---Operational-Analytics-Conference-2021-ev8eks

Boris Johnson (00:00:00): So with that, why don't we take it off and let's get, see we don't know where everybody is currently stationed but why don't we get each person to give a brief bio of where you're working out how you got into data maybe and we'll go from there. So, Emily, why don't you take us away?

Emilly Hawkins (00:00:19): Awesome. Cool. Yeah. So for those who don't know me, I'm Emily Hawkins. I'm currently at Drizzly as the data infrastructure lead on analytics. And how did I get into data? I've kind of like always been in data, like my first internship was a business analyst intern. And I just kind of got into it from there. Got really lucky that I found it early on. But yeah-

Boris Johnson (00:00:53): When you were in college did you think you would end up in this field?

Emilly Hawkins (00:00:57): I did. Yes.

Boris Johnson (00:00:59): Okay. Oh, wow. All right. So yeah, definitely early on.

Emilly Hawkins (00:01:01): Yeah.

Boris Johnson (00:01:03): That's cool. Scott, how about you?

Scott (00:01:06): Cool. How did I get into that I... Maybe not as early as Emily. I was in management consulting, and super analytical, super quantitative. But like Excel was my jam. And that was kind of as technical as I got. And then I somehow managed to convince the founders of Casper to bring me on as the kind of First Data hire and the head of data and learned everything on the job there. And it was a very cool, right time, right place, successful company growing at the beginning of this modern data stack.

Scott (00:01:43): And that's where I basically learn everything kind of really fell in love with running a data team building data, infrastructure, and the kind of the power of all the cool things you could do with data. And now I'm running a consultancy called Brooklyn Data, where we essentially help folks of all companies of all shapes and sizes with those exact... To build those exact same data capabilities. So looking forward five years ago, 10 years ago, I had no idea what that path would be. But looking back, it does feel like there was this very cool line. It just didn't feel quite as straightforward when I was there.

Boris Johnson (00:02:17): That was nice when you can recast your life story as a perfect journey. Like Of course [crosstalk 00:02:24].

Scott (00:02:24): That was my autobiography. It [cosstalk 00:02:26]-

Boris Johnson (00:02:26): Absolutely.

Scott (00:02:26): Seems like it was all predestined. Exactly.

Boris Johnson (00:02:29): Yeah. This is a very important skill. Scott. By the way, so you were the first Data hire at Casper and you just went straight to head of data that was like the startup style let's just create a head of data on day one?

Scott (00:02:43): Yeah, pretty much. I mean, actually. I mean, I'm sure we'll get into like how teams evolve, are evolving out.

Boris Johnson (00:02:50): Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Scott (00:02:50): But back then the goal was to hire that senior data person who would build the infrastructure, do the analysis, build the team. And I think the paradigm has definitely shifted a bit more towards the tools can do a lot more of the heavy lifting early on. But back in the day that was the MO was to hire your head of data director or VP, whatever you call it within 12 months of launching.