Data and analytics leaders need to support the opportunities and challenges of today’s digital business with the right competencies. This is the time to evaluate data and analytics roles and skills that are fit for now and the future. This session will provide key considerations for D&A and AI roles and skills.

To position their teams as a must-have discipline that can fulfill cross-functional use cases, D&A leaders must optimize their organizational model. The optimal organizational model is one that balances enterprisewide capabilities focused on enablement with decentralized needs focused on outcomes. In this session you will learn the design principles behind the right D&A organizational model and how to balance a centralized team (focused on enablement) and decentralized needs (focused on outcomes).

Successful data and analytics strategies today are business-centric, focused on achieving tangible and measurable business outcomes. This session will discuss the anatomy of an effective data and analytics strategy that enables organizations to thrive in today’s highly challenging and dynamic business environments.

D&A leaders and teams are at an AI-driven inflection point. They are crucial to enable business value through AI-readiness but must evolve their strategy and operating model to meet their organization’s AI ambitions. Reporting from the Gartner 2025 CDAO Agenda Survey, this session reveals actions successful D&A leaders have taken to deliver business outcomes from AI, data, and analytics, and what they need to do next year.