Embracing Flexible Data Governance

Peter is the president of Metis Strategy, a business and IT strategy firm that he founded in 2001. He has advised many of the best chief information officers at multi-billion dollar corporations in the United States and abroad. He's written for the Wall Street Journal, CIO Magazine, CIO Insight, Information Week and several other periodicals. Since 2008, he moderated a widely listened to podcast entitled “Technovation with Peter High,” which features a wide array of IT thought-leaders, and is available at www.forumonworldclassit.com on a weekly basis.

Julie Hansen is a trusted strategic advisor with 20 years of enterprise experience enabling success with global, enterprise customers and partners. During the past 10 years at Salesforce, Julie has served in a variety of leadership roles building extensive business and technical expertise. This expertise combined with thought leadership and industry insight has empowered Julie to partner with and advise some of the largest global enterprises across Financial Services and other industries. Following her guidance, these organizations have successfully innovated through setting visions, executing strategies and ultimately creating unique stories of success and transformation.

Julie is an active speaker and writer on a variety of industry-related subjects including the popular topics of Innovation & Transformation, Culture and Diversity. Julie holds multiple degrees across disciplines including Management & Organizational Studies, Computer Science and Psychology. She is currently studying Innovation & Entrepreneurship at Stanford University.

Kirk A. Law is Vice President of Product Development at Tableau. Tableau has a simple mission: help people see and understand their data. Tableau makes breakthrough products allowing workforces to harness the power of their data. Tableau provides an analytics platform that has disrupted the world of business intelligence.

Kirk leads a development team consisting of product management and engineering development for Tableau’s on-premise and cloud-based offerings. His organization spans US and Europe. This team produces end user products such as Tableau Prep Builder, Tableau Prep Conductor, and key offerings like Tableau Catalog. This team provides primary infrastructure services used by all of Tableau products such as data connectivity solutions, query services, and scalable database technologies like Hyper. He is also responsible for the Customer and Partner Developer Platform activities.

Prior to this, Kirk was an executive leader at several startups and larger corporations, including Primary Data, SanDisk, NetApp, Cacheflow Systems, SGI (formerly Silicon Graphics Computer Systems).

He is on the Board of Directors for the national non-profit organization Raising a Reader, a member of the Executive Leadership Council, a member of the Sigma Pi Phi fraternity, a member of the National Society of Black Engineers, and Eta Kappa Nu (Purdue EE Honor Society).

Kirk earned both a BSEE and MSEE degree from Purdue University. He is a 2012 recipient of the Purdue Outstanding Electrical and Computer Engineering award, selected by the faculty of the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering and is presented to a select group of alumni who have demonstrated exemplary accomplishments, leadership and service to community.

Vikram Somaya is the Senior Vice President, Chief Data Officer at PepsiCo, where he leads all data related for PepsiCo products and people. Vikram is a sought-after expert at conferences and media industry events to share his insights around the audience ecosystem and the use of data.

Previously, Vikrama was the Executive Vice President, Chief Data Officer at Nielsen and has also served as senior vice president, global data officer and ad platforms at ESPN. In his role, Vikram led the company’s global data strategy, working closely with the Disney Media Networks to identify new revenue models and drive key sales strategies; he also ran the product management and evolution of the company’s advertising platforms across all forms of media.

Before joining ESPN, Vikram was the general manager of AdFX and analytics at The Weather Company, where he oversaw a global team focused on sales efforts geared towards predictive marketing and ad product monetization. During his tenure, Vikram also developed the WeatherFX data management ad platform, which utilizes real-time localized data from users to create personalized ad targeting solutions.

Prior to that, Vikram was vice president of global operations and audience at Thomson Reuters, administrating the company’s global operations and analytics as well as audience-derived revenue across various products lines. Additionally, he was responsible for building a successful private programmatic exchange.

Vikram holds a Bachelors of Arts in Art History from Yale University.