Heidi Lanford is a Chief Data and Analytics Officer with over 30 years of global strategy and operations leadership experience. Most recently, she served as the Chief Data Officer at Fitch Group, leading their digital transformation to provide next-generation tools for clients, including their first ESG offering. She joined Fitch from Red Hat (IBM), where she led the enterprise data and analytics strategy, contributed to the firm’s rapid growth, and ultimate sale to IBM. She has earlier executive experience at Avaya, WPP, and PwC, as well as founder of a consulting firm focused on data-driven insights. She was an advisor to HearstLab, which provides investment and services to early-stage, women-led technology startups. She is a frequent keynote speaker on data strategy and its top/bottom line impact, data literacy, applied analytics/data science and women in STEM. She was named in 2023 to CDO Magazine’s “Global Data Power Women” for the third year in a row. She serves on the advisory board for the School of Data Science at the University of Virginia, the editorial board for CDO Magazine, and is a founding board member of the Data Leadership Collaborative, which connects like-minded leaders who are building data-driven organizations.