Q What about IT makes you passionate?
A My role with Nationwide is a hybrid: I am on the business side, but I am closely aligned with IT [as] the primary interface with our IT partners. And I manage technical resources as well. I will always consider myself a technologist even when I am on the business side because what makes me passionate is leveraging technology to make business capability more broadly available, more efficient and able to drive better profitability for a company.
Q What makes you happy?
A My family. I have a great husband and two great daughters. We have a lot of fun and joke around. We just enjoy hanging out, being together and laughing.
Q What was your most interesting day on the job?
A One of my proudest accomplishments at Nationwide occurred this past fall, when we finished a project that introduced needed functionality into how we managed our customer data. We deliberately brought in people with diverse approaches and methodologies. What made it so great was that the team came together, and because we had so many varied perspectives the best ideas bubbled to the top, and we were able to flesh out some things really effectively that maybe if we had all been like-minded, we would not have considered. We were able to meet some pretty aggressive deadlines and moved the needle around our capabilities on customer data.
Q What is the most productive new thing you've accomplished with your data warehouse?
A Improvements in the Teradata Customer Management solution and underlying data structures drove significant efficiency gains in Nationwide's ability to execute direct marketing campaigns. In one year, the number of customer communication programs almost doubled, and outbound customer contacts more than doubled but did not require the addition of any staff. T
Teradata Magazine-June 2008
