Getting to know Amy Lenander, Chief Data Officer

Reflecting on Amy’s first year as Chief Data Officer, her 20+ year tenure at Capital One and how data powers innovation.

As Chief Data Officer and member of the Capital One leadership team, Amy Lenander spearheads the development and delivery of Capital One’s data strategy. Amy’s team builds and manages the data platforms and products that make up Capital One’s data ecosystem and drives data management practices across the company. Following are excerpts from a conversation with Amy on the heels of her one-year mark as Capital One’s Chief Data Officer.

You worked at Capital One for about 20 years before becoming the company’s Chief Data Officer in February 2023. Tell us about your career trajectory and why you chose to take on this leadership role at Capital One.

Over the last two decades, I’ve had this incredible opportunity to play a number of different roles across the company. As I look back, data — and thoughtfully leveraging data to make an impact on customers’ lives — has been a thread throughout my career.

I first joined Capital One because I loved to analyze data to solve problems and central to Capital One’s approach to business was its use of analysis to drive business strategies. Since then, I’ve held a variety of positions focused on driving growth, managing risk, developing teams and delivering compelling products for millions of customers across credit card, auto loan and installment loan products and both domestic and international businesses. Through all of these experiences and in my current role, I’ve learned what’s needed to best support various business stakeholders.

Having seen data used in many different contexts across the company, I was excited to take on this role because I know that building a great data ecosystem is a huge enabler to powering transformative experiences for customers. This is true for any company, but especially Capital One, where data-driven decision-making is in our DNA.

This role also gave me the chance to work across the whole company and broaden my experience in product management, platforms and the latest innovations in artificial intelligence and machine learning (AI/ML). The central enterprise data team that I lead works with businesses across Capital One symbiotically to ensure our data strategy supports their needs and that they support our data strategy by adopting and contributing to enterprise platforms and tools. By working with multiple lines of business, we get to solve data challenges and think-up the possibilities of what data can power for the enterprise. This has been a fascinating and rewarding journey so far!

What aspects of the people, culture, or business more broadly have kept you motivated to remain at Capital One throughout your professional career?

There are three primary reasons that I’ve spent most of my professional life with Capital One.

First, I love that Capital One attracts smart, curious and genuinely nice people who are passionate about making a real difference for customers. That’s a powerful combination. I find it energizing to work among top-tier problem-solvers in this culture that cares both for and about people.

Second, we’re doing bold things. Capital One was fairly early in recognizing that the winners in banking would be companies with great tech and the risk management skills of a leading bank. So, back in 2012, we sought to completely redefine who we are as a company — to operate like a bank that a technology company would build. As part of this nearly twelve-year technology transformation, Capital One exited its last legacy, on-prem data centers in 2020 to become the first major U.S. financial institution to go all-in on the public cloud and has continued to stay at the frontier of cloud innovation.

Today, we’re harnessing the power of the cloud, real-time data at scale and AI/ML to build leading products, services and experiences. Our teams work on unique, challenging technology problems that will ultimately benefit millions of customers and in many cases that requires us to do it in a way that hasn’t been done in the industry. The company has evolved so much over the last 20 years, but this reverence for tackling tough challenges in a cross-functional and collaborative way has been pervasive since our founding.

Finally, I’m a curious person who is passionate about learning, and I’ve continued to get amazing learning opportunities at Capital One! The different roles I’ve stepped into have given me the chance to learn about so many different aspects of business and partner with a diverse set of talented people. And, as Capital One has taken on new challenges, I’ve been able to learn my way through those along with the company overall.

Over the course of your career, what has changed about the way companies use data and how they think about managing and leveraging data?

Capital One was founded on the idea that we will drive better business outcomes by using data and analytics to drive the core of the business forward: To tailor products and services to customers. This approach was different from the norm at the time when analysts were seen more as advisors who supplemented the way the business was actually run.

Fast forward to today, using data to make decisions is central to most business school curricula and it’s common to infuse data into ways of working. Especially as tech companies create and use more data in the course of business, they are more likely to use data to drive decisions at the core of their businesses. Being data-driven is not as unique as it previously was! But still today, many companies struggle with comprehensively using data to make decisions. In fact, many Chief Data Officers have as one of their primary objectives a remit to infuse a data-driven culture into their organizations; whereas at Capital One, this is already a huge part of our company culture, and has been since day one.

Looking back 20+ years ago, analysts (a position I held when I first joined the company!) were driving decisions using basic segmentation and the amount of data that would fit in a spreadsheet. Now, Capital One and other large companies use petabytes of data and ML and AI models to drive decisions. Not only is the scale of available data much greater, but AI raises the stakes on having trusted data that’s high-quality and easy to use. Today, there is so much more we can do with data, and the companies that have plentiful, well-managed data have a big advantage.

What excites you about using data to serve and empower customers, whether those customers are internal Capital One associates or the company’s millions of consumer and business customers?

First and foremost, data helps us more comprehensively understand what customers want and need, and whether the changes we make to serve those needs are making a real difference. This is core to being data-driven. We’re also focused on ensuring data is available to power customer experiences in real-time. We can create more compelling, customized experiences if the data needed to fuel those is in the right place, at the right time.

I get particularly excited about work we’ve done and continue to do at Capital One to help customers succeed with credit. With data, we are able to observe places where customers could use more support, for example, with paying their credit card bill on-time. We can and have implemented new strategies, such as better payment reminders, to support customers with this important task and have measured the impact those strategies are having on customer performance and well-being. Finances are both personal and critical to individuals, which makes the work we do so important.

As product and tech leaders, we strive to enable associates across Capital One to change banking for good. Fundamentally, it’s almost always data that powers those strategies.

Data is undoubtedly central to companies’ AI capabilities. As a CDO, how are you thinking about the challenges and opportunities of data as it relates to AI?

AI capabilities can only be as powerful as the data that backs them. I’m focused on ensuring our data ecosystem can support and enable Capital One’s bold and thoughtful AI/ML agenda as well as support how AI could evolve over time. My team is focused on making data across the enterprise easily available to those building our AI/ML models which will help us create value for our business and our customers.

Any company that seeks to make the most of AI will need a multifaceted data strategy that enables people across the organization to use data in a well-managed way to inform important decisions. When you think about what’s needed to reach that destination, it requires central data standards and systems with built-in data governance. With a foundational and central ecosystem, organizations can enable users across the company with data access so they can harness the power of data in their domain. Companies that are able to make the most of AI will not only have an accessible, modern data ecosystem, but will also foster a data-driven culture throughout the organization.

What are your main priorities as CDO this year?

This year, we’re focused on continuing to build and evolve a modern data ecosystem of core enterprise products and platforms. From this central foundation, the ability to leverage well-managed data at scale and speed becomes much more accessible for teams across the organization. We’re excited about the potential for this work to continue to unlock innovation for many areas of the business.

Apart from data, what other areas of leadership are you passionate about?

I’m passionate about creating an environment where people can learn, explore, and do their best work. A big part of this comes from creating an environment of belonging and psychological safety where each member of the team feels encouraged to try new things and learn from mistakes. I believe we all get better together in an environment where we champion a culture of continuous learning and truth-seeking.

I also believe that to best solve customer problems, it’s important to bring together people with diverse perspectives, experiences, and workstyles because it’s through this push-pull of ideas that we achieve the best outcomes. That requires the intentional recruiting of diverse teams and ensuring that we work cross-functionally across engineering, product management, data science, design, and many other business domains. Capital One’s customers are broadly representative of the general population and we serve them better when we understand and relate to their needs.

What advice would you give to people building a data strategy?

The data strategy needs to support the business strategy, so step one of any data strategy is understanding what the business is seeking to achieve and how data can provide leverage. This means figuring out where data availability and quality can make the most impact on the core business and then ensuring that the data ecosystem and strategy support those outcomes.

Most often, you need to prioritize making sure your data is well-managed and that you can empower people across the organization with the data itself. It’s important to strike the right balance between ensuring data is safe and trustworthy and making data easy to use.

The objective of any comprehensive data strategy should be to power growth and innovation at the company. As a data leader — or someone working in a related role — you should work back from this destination to identify and prioritize the right areas of focus.

Building on our adoption of modern cloud and data capabilities, Capital One Software is helping other companies leverage their data to unlock new value for customers and accelerate innovation across areas like AI and ML. Learn more about Capital One Software.

Originally published at https://www.capitalone.com.

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