My letter to our CDO Hub members, Dec 2019

Each year I write a letter to our (ever increasing number of) members of the CDO Hub to look back, reflect and share how much we shared, collaborated and learned together throughout the year. Here is my note that went out to our members this year....

Thank you for contributing to our community of senior data leaders. The CDO Hub has had an incredible year, with greater events and more diverse conversations, and you played a massive role in that. We're excited to see what's next in 2020!

The CDO Hub was founded as a movement to set and elevate the standard of data leadership. To help connect data leaders across the UK, start new conversations about the industry, and support your own personal and professional development.

Our community is pivotal to our events, and we're grateful to have found such a collaborative base of members to support one another. Over the past year, we've more than doubled the size of the CDO Hub. 

We kicked off the year with Allison Nau, Jo Cruse, Ikenna Uzoh and Anthea DeSyllas joining a panel to explore diversity in data. In February, we also expanded our community outside of London for the first time, hosting the CDO Hub Leeds event.

In March, Barry Green led a discussion on tool functionality and data ownership, opening a debate around contexts of data management. Emma Cosh then started a conversation in April around approaches to data visualisation and storytelling.

Through the summer, we had Simon Hayter leading a discussion on where ownership of data governance should sit, and Helen Louwrens led a brave and bold discussion around her internal challenges running a large data science practice.

Later in July, we invited Daniel Hulme to share his ambitions to realise practical AI and its impact on the world, and we also hosted the first CDO Hub West in Bristol.

Peter Eckley asked members to consider the economics of data in August, before Jonathan Sunderland raised his perspective on the evolution of data science.

Rounding off the year, in October we had our panel of sports experts sharing lessons on creating high performing teams. In November, Ashley Rhodes took to the floor to share the data strategy he'd built with TUI, before our final event of the year - our Christmas Party. These discussions would not have been possible without the generosity of our members in leading and contributing to the discussions! 

The main ambition for this community has always centred on open discussion and peer-to-peer conversations. We strive to put on a schedule that makes everyone think a little differently on topics that aren’t covered as much elsewhere. Your feedback has also helped us understand what topics you want to discuss, and where we can improve - and we've been listening.

In the New Year, we're planning to find a new home for the CDO Hub - a venue that still reflects our values as a community, but supports members in networking and engaging better in our monthly discussions. 

We're also looking ahead to 2020 to open more discussions on data and beyond. As always, if there's a specific debate that you have in mind, please reach out to myself or anyone from the Cynozure team!

We thrive on your feedback and thoughts on how we make this the best it can be, and we look forward to hearing from you more.

Finally, thank you to the whole Cynozure team for their continued focus and efforts to support the CDO Hub and bring together this incredible community.

Have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Jason

PS. Check out what I said to the community from Dec 2018 > here