Mario de Francisco will be at Data Management Summit International Edition 2021

Mario de Francisco will be at Data Management Summit International Edition 2021

We unveil day after day all those professionals who will participate with their presence within one of the most important event of the Data Management. For the first time, a forum tries to focus on data management in its entirety, from governance, through security, the cloud, automatic learning, data virtualization and much more. Today we introduce you Mario de Francisco from Anjana Data that will be a member of Roundtable called Data Governance, the heart of Data Management scheduled for 16th March and moderated by Robert S.Seiner

Tell us a little about your professional career

I am Maño (from Zaragoza, Spain), engineer and entrepreneur. I studied Telecommunications at the University of Zaragoza and I spent the last year of my career in Sweden where I discovered how many years ahead of us they are in many things, but also all the good things we have in Spain and that we do not usually value.

I came back to Zaragoza and started my professional career in a newly formed telemedicine start-up, where, looking to get into the world of bioengineering that I discovered in Sweden, I ended up unknowingly finding my first real experience working with data. Together with my battle buddy, we spent a year developing an algorithm in Matlab based on logistic regression that was able to predict quite accurately childhood obesity in adolescent children with just a few anthropometric measurements to be taken during the first 3 years of life.

Within this start-up, little by little I moved towards more business development functions (without leaving technology aside because it was our thing) and I discovered that this was really my thing, so, after the first failed entrepreneurial attempt (the start-up ended up closing), I went to Madrid to work for a multinational consulting firm.

Business consulting (suit included), the financial sector (until then I had gone to the ATM to withdraw money and little else), technology (which I always carry with me) and data (which I was slow to discover had always been present and was one of my passions) occupied my professional life during the following years in Spain and Argentina to finally take me where I am now.

Currently, I manage Anjana Data as CEO. Anjana Data is a quite new company that we founded less than two years ago among a few data freaks, totally oriented to product development and with which we have launched our own data governance solution (by the way, we are having great success despite our short history as an independent company).

Additionally, my passion for data and my desire to disseminate and share knowledge and experiences around the strategy, its management and governance, move me continuously to participate as a speaker at events, write articles, do webinars, collaborate with business schools and associations and, last but not least, have also led me to DAMA Spain, where I collaborate as Coordinator of the Data Governance and Metadata Working Group.

What are your challenges, what do you like to do with the data?

Help organizations to land and operationalize their data strategies by implementing innovative and disruptive solutions for data governance.

Do you think that companies have the right culture to manage data in a different way?

I am not used to apply a statement indiscriminately since I think that there are too many edges to say YES or NO when it comes to an issue like this but the truth is that most of the organizations still have a long way down to become data-driven in a real way.

Culture comes from people and the Data Era is just arising in a global way so there are still too many challenges to face in most fields around Data Management, especially when talking about knowledge, culture, awareness, ethics, …

People is aware of data since long time ago and Data Management, as a concept, began in the 1960s. Otherwise, the term Dataism was first used by David Brooks in The New York Times in 2013 and then expanded by Yuval Noah Harari in his book Homo Deus in 2016. Thus, we may say that Data Awareness and Data Literacy in society (which means not only in circles formed by experts) have just given birth and it means that most people (organizations in extension) need first to learn how to crawl to then start walking prior to think about running in a Data-everywhere World.

What are the most important challenges for CIO, CDO, CDO, CTO in 2021?

It depends on the sector they operate because we are now facing a global crisis but it is much more sectorized tan others before. Anyway, most of them will find adapting their businesses and facing covid-based challenges as the most important issues in their agendas.

The argument of your round table has many approaches and a long way to go, what do you expect from the members present in this panel that you will have to partecipate?

I am really excited since I will be surrounded of some of the most recognised experts in the field. When something really delights you, you feel like a child with new shoes in this kind of situations so I am looking forward to sharing knowledge and experiences with all of them which is the thing I find most rewarding.

You’ve supported the event from the beginning. Why did you do that?

The DMS is an event of data professionals for data professionals, a place where a lot of gray matter with a lot of knowledge and experiences around the world of data is gathered in very little space (this year virtual) and from which you can take a lot of learning in your backpack in a very short time. In addition, I think that what makes it really different is that it is not a trade fair full of supplier stands or a private club where there is no room for different profiles, but it is a participatory event where the quality of the content is very high and is open to all types of roles in the data world.

Additionally, I consider Michele one of the most relevant players in the data ecosystem in terms of divulgation and evangelization and this is something we do really need in the actual scenario.

Is there anything else you would like to add? 

You may follow me on LinkedIn or you may also see some of my work in Anjana Data’s LinkedIn profile, Website, Blog and Youtube Channel.

I highly encourage everyone to follow Anjana Data as a new interesting player in the market since we are disrupting the way organizations operationalize their Data Strategies by implementing a Proactive and Preventive vision of Data Governance leveraging DataOps.

Additionally, you will also find some of my work within DAMA Spain in its Website, Blog and Social Media.

About DMS

The DMS is a unique event to guide the data management community in the technological landscape, talking more about solutions than platforms. It wants to be an open discussion forum to share experiences and use cases. A fundamental summit for CIO, CTO, CDO, CDO, System Director, Data Scientist who implement emerging technologies to solve new technological challenges and align with new business opportunities.Only CIO, CDO, CTO, Systems Director, BI Manager, IT Consultant, IT Department profiles will be accepted. It is mandatory to insert the LinkedIn profile in the form. Filling in the form will not be considered an admission. Admissions will be confirmed by e-mail. The web address for participants is: http://datamanagementsummit.org