Sharing Data and Wisdom

Deepak Jose believes universities are often a step ahead of industry professionals when it comes to innovation. That is why Jose eagerly accepted an invitation to speak at the 2023 Analytics Exchange conference hosted by Northwestern Engineering's Master of Science in Analytics (MSiA) program. 

Jose is the global head of One Demand Data & Analytics solutions for Mars Wrigley. In that role, he guides a worldwide team of data scientists, data engineers, and product strategy leaders whose job it is to keep the company in its industry-leading position when it comes to manufacturing chocolate, chewing gum, mints, and fruity confections.   

Jose’s talk centered on the balance between speed, scale, and sustainability when building data analytics solutions. An answer that can be built quickly often isn’t the one that can be scaled to support a larger organization, which gives it an extremely short shelf life.  

Better solutions, Jose said, are those that can be scaled up and supported to provide lasting competitive advantages to the company.   

Jose participated in the event as a way to share his knowledge and wisdom, but also to learn from his fellow speakers and the MSiA community.  

He was not disappointed. 

"I had a great time discovering some of the latest generative AI trends and technologies," Jose said. "The event was a fantastic platform for knowledge sharing and collaboration." 

During his talk, Jose focused on his approach to using the trove of information at his fingertips, which is to start with a specific business problem the data can solve.  

“People sometimes want to talk about technology first or data first,” he said. “It should be a business problem first. If it's business-problem led, we'll be able to add more value around the solution.”   

To move data analytics from being seen as a cost center to being seen as a business’s profit-generating heart and soul, the data needs to be applied to problems that have solutions that create revenue.   

That’s where Jose and other successful data analysts can have the biggest impact, he said.  

The Analytics Exchange is an annual gathering of experts in academia and the data product management field. Discussions centered on emerging trends in the industry.   

Staying on top of these trends enables data product managers to empower their companies with the right information at the right time to take action for the betterment of the business. A successful data product manager creates the systems that collect the information and serves as a gatekeeper to the data.  

While sharing his knowledge was important, Jose was also excited to interact with the other Analytics Exchange participants. He said that events like it are a crucial way for students to expand on their classroom education. 

“I was really impressed with the diversity of the speakers and the kind of content that was discussed,” he said. “It speaks to the vision of the MSiA program on building not really a theoretical curriculum but one with a lot of practical experience.”