#133 Importance of Data Translators & Data Foundations: Investing in the 'Golden Record' with Elisa Koch - Head of Data and Analytics
In the 5th episode of our “Bitesize Insights for Data Driven Leaders” Series, we have our first ever live audience episode with Elisa Koch. She is the Head of Data and Analytics at the AFL - Australian Football League.
Elisa spent 10 years working for Avon Cosmetics, mostly in Latin America. That’s where she had her first encounter with marketing analytics and she fell in love with data once she discovered the link it has with customer behavior. Thanks to her ability to deliver, she was able to reach a senior position early on in her career. She tells us about how she felt nervous at first, but she knew if she applied herself and was curious enough, she would figure it out. She has taken that same perseverance with her throughout her career.
Like many other women, she also suffered from impostor syndrome and asking for feedback constantly was a habit that helped her overcome it. Different life experiences also led her to realize that life is too short to live worrying about not being good enough and after that she recognized how liberating getting rid of that feeling was.
Elisa shares her take on data translators and how she considers they are the first people you need to hire. Several organizations are not savvy enough to know how to apply their data and that’s why they need data translators to make their data approachable.
Stay tuned to learn more about Elisa and the work she is doing at the AFL towards merging the sports analytics and marketing data worlds together to better understand their fans and grow their audiences.
Enjoy Elisa Koch in our “Bitesize Insights for Data Driven Leaders” Series!
We speak about:
[2:30] How did you come into the world of data?
[3:55] How did you end up working in Latin America?
[5:10] How do you feel that time [working at Avon] set you up for what came next?
[7:45] Where do you think that confidence came from for you?*
[8:30] What helped you get over impostor syndrome?
[10:00] How was your journey to get into the AFL?
[12:33] How do you define a data translator and what is the impact and importance you see in it?
[16:45] In the context of Covid-19, how is the AFL using data to understand and inform decisions around supporter engagement?
[18:59] Five years from now, what sorts of questions do you think the AFL will be able to answer that they aren’t yet answering now?
[21:22] With everything you’ve done in your career, what are you the most proud of?
[22:28] What are you most excited about of the things you are currently working on at the AFL?
[25:44] What types of technologies or infrastructures are you using?
[29:00] How do you prioritize projects and where to focus your time?
[30:00] How do business analytics and sports analytics come together?
[31:45] Is the amount of AFL viewers outside of Australia growing?
Resources:
Elisa’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/elisakoch/
Australian Football League on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/australian-football-league/
Quotes:
"When I figured out that you can use data to try to predict what will happen in the future, that blew my mind."
"Ask questions, be curious, do your research and figure it out."
"Impostor syndrome is something you need to recognize to yourself first and say: I feel like I’m an impostor in this area, but actually I know a lot more than I think. Once you get over it, you fly."
"A lot of organizations are not savvy enough to know exactly how to apply data and are even scared of it. The beauty of data translators is they make data approachable."
We are now on YouTube! Watch the episode here: https://youtu.be/MChcJVGpxGY
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