Trent Lezer
Senior Director, Data & Analytics
Daikin Applied
As co-founder of a start-up and as a global leader of technology professionals, I have experienced the excitement of rapid innovation as well as the challenge of scaling solutions. I've worked in technology for nearly 30 years and found that I enjoy working with and optimizing data solutions most. A couple fun facts about me: I'm an avid golfer; most people don't know that I've also authored a sci-fi/fantasy novel (unpublished).
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Give us a brief overview of the path that led to your current role.
I began my career as a C++ and ETL developer but quickly discovered how everything led back to the database, displaying data, interpreting data. I was offered an opportunity to use that expertise to build a solution from scratch and then layer analytics on top of it, which opened the door to a data and analytics focus. Since then, I've leveraged that experience in several multinational organizations to implement governance, data platforms, and analytics.
What is one of your guiding leadership principles?
Perfection is the enemy of good. This has been a guiding principal over the last 20 years of my career, so much so that the French origin of this saying by Voltaire is tattooed on my forearm, "Le mieux est l'enemi du bien"
What is the greatest challenge CDAOs face today, and how are you addressing it?
An immediate need and focus in my current role is on Master Data and the general trust of our data lake. We are implementing a Trust Architecture that includes governance, data quality, observability, and master data management. This necessarily includes cooperation and collaboration with business stakeholders, data owners, and data stewards as we identify and prioritize data domains and targets.
What is the key to success for someone just starting out as a CDAO?
New leaders can do themselves a tremendous favor by categorizing activities into keeping the lights on versus transformation/growth. Failure to distinguish these forces, sustaining operations and important initiatives to become conflated and interlinked, potentially causing failure due to unrelated efforts.
How do you measure success as a leader?
There are many things that contribute to, or are a strongly correlated behavior of, success, but I believe the ultimate measure of success must be value delivered. Scalability, elegant platforms, happy employees, etc. all of these things may also happen or be necessary, but successful delivery of what users and stakeholders desire is the final determiner of success.
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