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Gartner Expert
Cindi Howson
VP Analyst
Cindi Howson is a Research Vice President at Gartner, where she focuses on business intelligence (BI) and analytics. Her work includes writing about market trends, vendors and best practices and advising organizations on these subjects. Of particular interest are visual data discovery, augmented analytics, data for good, and best practices for bigger impact from data. Best practices for bigger impact from business analytics include company culture, measures of success, business-IT partnership, executive-level sponsorship and organizational models to support data and analytics. Ms. Howson also has an interest in diversity of IT teams and improving recruitment of women in IT.
Roles and responsibility
CIO
BI Director
Data and Analytics Leader
Lines of Business Using BI and Analytics
CDO
Previous experience
As the founder of BI Scorecard, Ms. Howson developed an evaluation framework for BI tools and published product reviews based on hands-on testing. She worked with clients on tool selections and strategies for managing BI tool portfolios. Ms. Howson taught for The Data Warehousing Institute (TDWI) and wrote for Information Week. She authored five books, including "Successful Business Intelligence: Unlock the Value of BI & Big Data" and "SAP BusinessObjects: The Complete Reference." Prior to founding BI Scorecard, Ms. Howson was a manager at Deloitte & Touche, helping clients select, implement and optimize BI tools. She started in BI at Dow Chemical in Switzerland in the early 1990s, selecting and implementing BI tools globally. Her entree into BI was designing decision support systems, writing Lotus 123 macros and FOCUS programs.
Professional background
BI Scorecard
Founder
Deloitte & Touche
Manager
Dow Chemical
Access Tools Leader and Subject Matter Expert
Areas of coverage
Data and Analytics Leaders
Analytics, BI and Data Science Solutions
Education
M.B.A., Management Information Systems, Rice University, Jones Scholar
B.A., English, University of Maryland
Top Issues That I Help Clients Address
1Comparing and selecting the modern BI and analytic tools, balancing governance with agility
2Organizing BI teams (BICC, ACE) for better business-IT partnership
3Developing a successful BI strategy and program to improve impact, evolve BI and analytic maturity
4Using data and AI for good to improve society
5Improving diversity in BI and analytic teams