>>From around the globe. It's the cube covering data citizens. 21 brought to you by Colibra >>Welcome to the cubes coverage of Collibra data citizens 21. I'm Lisa Martin. I have three guests with me here today. Colibra customer Freddie Mac, please welcome JAG chief data officer and vice president of single family data and decisions. Jog. Welcome to the cube. >>Thank you, Lisa. Look forward to be, >>Uh, excellent on Kiko LSU as well. Vice president data transformation and analytics solution on Kay. Good to have you on the program. >>Thank you, Lisa. Great to be here and >>A teeth Malik senior director from the single family division at Freddie Mac is here as well. A team welcome. So we have big congratulations in order. Uh, pretty Mac was just announced at data citizens as the winners of the Colibra excellence award for data program of the year. Congratulations on that. We're going to unpack that. Talk about what that means, but I'd love to get familiar with the 3d Jack. Start with you. Talk to me a little bit about your background, your current role as chief data officer. >>Appreciate it, Lisa, thank you for the opportunity to share our story. Uh, my name is Arvind calls me Jack. And as you said, I'm just single-family chief data officer at Freddie Mac, but those that don't know, Freddie Mac is a Garland sponsored entity that supports the U S housing finance system and single family deals with the residential side of the marketplace, as CDO are responsible for our managed content data lineage, data governance, business architecture, which Cleaver plays a integral role, uh, in, in depth, that function as well as, uh, support our shared assets across the enterprise and our data monetization efforts, data, product execution, decision modeling, as well as our business intelligence capabilities, including AI and ML for various use cases as a background, starting my career in New York and then moved to Boston and last 20 years of living in the Northern Virginia DC area and fortunate to have been responsible for business operations, as well as led and, um, executed large transformation efforts. That background has reinforced the power of data and how, how it's so critical to meeting our business objectives. Look forward to our dialogue today, Lisa, once again. >>Excellent. You have a great background and clearly not a dull moment in your job with Freddy, Matt. And tell me a little bit about your background, your role, what you're doing at Freddie >>Mac. Definitely. Um, hi everyone. I'm,, I'm vice president of data transformation and analytics solutions. And I worked for JAG. I'm responsible for many of the things he said, including leading our transformation to the cloud and migrating all our existing data assets front of that transformation journey. I'm also responsible for our business information and business data architecture, decision modeling, business intelligence, and some of the analytics and artificial intelligence. I started my career back in the day as a computer engineer, but I've always been in the financial industry up in New York. And now in the Northern Virginia area, I called myself that bridge between business and technology. And I would say, I think over the last six years with data found that perfect spot where business and technology actually come together to solve real problems and, and really lead, um, you know, businesses to the next stage of, so thank you Lisa for the opportunity today. Excellent. >>And we're going to unpack you call yourself the bridge between business and it that's always such an important bridge. We're going to talk about that in just a minute, but I want to get your background, tell our audience about you. >>Uh, I'm Alec Malek, I'm senior director of business, data architecture, data transformation, and Freddie Mac. Uh, I'm responsible for the overall business data architecture and transformation of the existing data onto the cloud data lake. Uh, my team is responsible for the Kleberg platform and the business analysts that are using and maintaining the data in Libra and also driving the data architecture in close collaboration with our engineering teams. My background is I'm a engineer at heart. I still do a lot of development. This is my first time as of crossing over onto the bridge onto business side of maintaining data and working with data teams. >>Jan, let's talk about digital transformation. Freddie Mac is a 50 year old and growing company. I always love talking with established businesses about digital transformation. It's pretty challenging. Talk to me about your initial plan and what some of the main challenges were that you were looking to solve. >>Uh, great question, Lisa, and, uh, it's definitely pertinent as you say, in our digital world or figuring out how we need to accomplish it. If I look at our data, modernization is it is a major program and, uh, effort, uh, in, in our, in our division, what started as a reducing cost or looking at an infrastructure play, moving from physical data assets to the cloud, as well as enhancing our resiliency as quickly morphed into meeting business demand and objectives, whether it be for sourcing, servicing or securitization of our loan products. So where are we as we think about creating this digital data marketplace, we are, we are basically forming, empowering a new data ecosystem, which Columbia is definitely playing a major role. It's more than just a cloud native data lake, but it's bringing in some of our current assets and capabilities into this new data landscape. >>So as we think about creating an information hub, part of the challenges, as you say, 50 years of having millions of loans and millions of data across multiple assets, it's frigging out that you still have to care and feed legacy while you're building the new highway and figuring out how you best have to transform and translate and move data and assets to this new platform. What we've been striving for is looking at what is the business demand or what is the business use case, and what's the value to help prioritize that transformation. Exciting part is, as you think about new uses of acquiring and distribution of data, as well as news new use cases for prescriptive and predictive analytics, the power of what we're building in our daily, this new data ecosystem, we're feeling comfortable, we'll meet the business demand, but as any CTO will tell you demand is always, uh, outpaces our capacity. And that's why we want to be very diligent in terms of our execution plan. So we're very excited as to what we've accomplished so far this year and looking forward as we offered a remainder year. And as you go into 2022. Excellent, >>Thanks JAG. Uh, two books go to you. As I mentioned in the intro of that Freddie Mac has won the Culebra excellence award for data program of the year. Again, congratulations on that, but I'd love to understand the Kleber center of excellence that you're building at Freddie Mac. First of all, define what a center of excellence is to Freddie Mac and then what you're specifically building. Yeah, sure. >>So the Cleaver center of excellence provides us the overall framework from a people and process standpoint to focus in on our use of Colibra and for adopting best practices. Uh, we can have teams that are focused just on developing best practices and implementing workflows and lineage within Collibra and implementing and adopting a number of different aspects of Libra. It provides the central hub of people being domain experts on the tool that can then be leveraged by different groups within the organization to maintain, uh, the tool. >>Put another follow on question a T for you. How does Freddie Mac define, uh, dated citizens as anybody in finance or sales or marketing or operations? What does that definition of data citizen? >>It's really everyone it's within the organization. They all consume data in different ways and we provide a way of governing data and for them to get a better understanding of data from Collibra itself. So it's really everyone within the organization that way. >>Excellent. Okay. Let's go over to you a big topic at data citizens. 21 is collaboration. That's probably a word that we used a ton in the last 15 plus months or so it was every business really pivoted quickly to figure out how do we best collaborate. But something that you talked about in your intro is being the bridge between business and it, I want to understand from your perspective, how can data teams help to drive improved collaboration between business and it, >>The collaboration between business and technology have been a key focus area for us over the last few years, we actually started an agile transformation journey two years ago that we called modern delivery. And that was about moving away from project teams to persistent product teams that brought business and technology together. And we've really been able to pioneer that in the data space within Freddie Mac, where we have now teams with product owners coming from the data team and then full stack ID developers with them creating these combined teams to meet the business needs. We found that bringing these teams together really remove the barriers that were there in the interaction and the employee satisfaction has been high. And like you said, over the last 16 months with the pandemic, we've actually seen the productivity stay same or even go up because the teams were all working together, they work as a unit and they all have the sense of ownership versus working on a project that has a finite end date to fail. So we've, um, you know, we've been really lucky with having started this two years ago. Well, and >>That's great. And congratulations about either maintaining productivity or having it go up during the last 16 months, which had been incredibly challenging. Jack. I want to ask you what does winning this award from Collibra what does this mean to you and your team and does this signify that you're really establishing a data first culture? >>Great question, Lisa again. Um, I think winning the award, uh, just from a team standpoint, it's a great honor. Uh, Kleber has been a fantastic partner. And when I think about the journey of going from spread sheets, right, that all of us had in the past to now having all our business class returns lineage, and really being at the forefront of our data monetization. So as we think about moving to the cloud Beliebers step in step with us in terms of our integral part of that holistic delivery model, when I ultimately, as a CDO, it's really the team's honor and effort, cause this has been a multi-year journey to get here. And it's great that Libra as a, as a partner has helped us achieve some of these goals, but also recognized, um, where we are in terms of, uh, as looking at data as a product and some of our, um, leading forefront and using that holistic delivery, uh, to, uh, to meet our business objectives. So overall poorly jazzed when, uh, we've been found that we wanted the data program here at Collibra and very honored, um, uh, to, to win this award. That's >>Where we got to bring back I'm jazzed. I liked that jug sticking with you, let's unpack a little bit, some of those positive results, those business outcomes that you've seen so far from the data program. What are those? >>Yeah. So again, if you were thinking about a traditional CDO model, what were the terms that would have been used few years ago? It was around governance and may have been viewed as an oversight. Um, maybe less talking, um, monetization of what it was, the business values that you needed to accomplish collectively. It's really those three building blocks managing content. You got to trust the source, but ultimately it's empowering the business. So the best success that I could say at Freddy, as you're moving to this digital world, it's really empowering the business to figure out the new capabilities and demand and objectives that we're meeting. We're not going to be able to transform the mortgage industry. We're not going to be able or any, any industry, if we're still stuck in old world thinking, and ultimately data is going to be the blood that has to enable those capabilities. >>So if you tell me the business best success, we're no longer talking a okay, I got my data governance, what do we have to do? It's all embedded together. And as I alluded to that partnership between business and it informing that data is a product where you now you're delivering capabilities holistically from program teams all across data. It's no longer an afterthought. As I said, a few minutes ago, you're able to then meet the demand what's current. And how do we want to think about going forward? So it's no longer buzzwords of digital data marketplace. What is the value of that? And that's what the success, I think if our group collectively working across the organization, it's just not one team it's across the organization. Um, and we have our partners, our operations, everyone from business owners, all swimming in the same direction with, and I would say critical management support. So top of the house, our, our head of business, my, my boss was the COO full supportive in terms of how we're trying to execute and I've makes us, um, it's critical because when there is a potential, trade-offs, we're all looking at it collectively as an organization, >>Right. And that's the best viewpoint to have is that sort of centralized unified vision. And as you say, JAG, the support from, from up top, uh, I'd see if I want to ask you, you establish the Culebra center of excellence. What are you focused on now? >>So we really focused in allowing our users to consume data and understand data and really democratizing data so that they can really get a better understanding of that. So that's a lot of our focus and engaging with Collibra and getting them to start to define things in Colibra law form. That's a lot of focus right now. >>Excellent. Want to stay with you one more question and take that I'm gonna ask to all of you, what are you most excited about a lot of success that you've talked about transforming a legacy institution? What are you most excited about and what are the next steps for the data program? Uh, teak what's are your thoughts? >>Yeah, so really modernizing onto, uh, onto a cloud data lake and allowing all of the users and, uh, Freddie Mac to consume data with the level of governance that we need around. It is a exciting proposition for me. >>What would you say is most exciting to you? >>I'm really looking forward to the opportunities that artificial intelligence has to offer, not just in the augmented analytics space, but in the overall data management life cycle. There's still a lot of things that are manual in the data management space. And, uh, I personally believe, uh, artificial intelligence has a huge role to play there. And Jackson >>Question to you, it seems like you have a really strong collaborative team. You have a very collaborative relationship with management and with Collibra, what are you excited about? What's coming down the pipe. >>So Lisa, if I look at it, you know, we sit back here June, 2021, where were we a year ago? And you think about a lot of the capabilities and some of the advancements that we may just in a year sitting virtually using that word jazzed or induced or feeling really great about. We made a lot of accomplishments. I'm excited what we're going to be doing for the next year. So there's other use cases, and I could talk about AIML and OCHA talks about, you know, our new ecosystem. Seeing those use cases come to fruition so that we're, we are contributing to value from a business standpoint. The organization is what really keeps me up. Uh, keeps me up at night. It gets me up in the morning and I'm really feeling dues for the entire division. Excellent. >>Well, thank you. I want to thank all three of you for joining me today. Talking about the successes that Freddie Mac has had transforming in partnership with Colibra again, congratulations on the Culebra excellence award for the data program. It's been a pleasure talking to all three of you. I'm Lisa Martin. You're watching the cubes coverage of Collibra data citizens 21.

>>from around the globe. It's the Cube covering upgrade twenty twenty, The NTT Research Summit presented by NTT Research. >>Welcome back. I'm stupid a man. And this is the Cubes coverage of Upgrade twenty twenty. Of course, it's the NTT Research Summit and happy to welcome to the program someone that watch the Cube for a long time. But first time on the program. Simon Walsh. He is the new CEO of NTT America's Simon. Great to see you and thanks so much for joining us. >>Thanks very much. Too good to be here. All right. See, >>A Zai mentioned your your previous companies that you've worked for are ones that the Cube and Cube audience are well aware of. Matter of fact, when I worked for some of those companies, NTT is one of the large global companies that I had the pleasure to interact with over the years. But if you could maybe let's start with just a little bit of your background. And as I said, it's only been a few months that you've been the CEO, so you know, what's it like coming into a role like this? You know, during the situation that we're all faced with in twenty twenty. >>Yeah, Thank you. I mean, my background is really in, You know, the platforms that enable the customers Thio run their technologies. Andi, Uh, you know, I spent some of my time in Europe and the media on then latterly the last five plus years in the Americas. I have to say I really enjoy It's a much better environment. If I think about it from a GDP and an economy perspective, it's, ah really dynamic place to work. I worked with companies headquartered from Europe running America's, and I've worked with companies that were headquartered in the Americas, running some of the European businesses. So I've crossed the continent's if you like. I recently joined NTT. I have to say, you know, it was a pretty lengthy process to explore, but that was partly, you know, interviews and due diligence because you want to make sure that, you know, you're you're buying into a company that, you know, number one, you can have ah, cultural compatibility with, but also somebody who you see really investing in technology that consult for, you know, the business agenda of the markets. So that's really a bit about my background and then, you know, joining. I mean, I literally joined last week of June, so my whole time has bean through, locked down in terms of employment. It's been very unique. Taking on a new post, exclusively remote. Andi I was a bit worried, you know, at a human level, just, you know, how do you connect with people? What I would comment is I've actually had the ability to really meet ah, lot more people in person because you can physically get to people's schedules a lot easier. So that's certainly helped, you know. And I've done my, uh, activities of meeting clients. Eso they've been very amenable to connecting talking to our business partners and spending, you know, considerable amount of time with my colleagues, uh, in the Americas and around the world. Andi, it's actually been very rewarding. I think, funnily enough, you probably physically closer because you're on a screen and you probably like twenty four inches away from each other. Whereas in a meeting room you'd be the other side of the table. So it's been unique, but so far so good. >>Well, yeah, absolutely. The the new abnormal is we. We have sometimes say what? We're all usedto looking in the screens all day talking to various people there. Uh, the impact on business, though, has been, uh, you know, obviously ah, lot of different things, depending on the company. But that discussion of digital transformation a few years ago it was like, Oh, I don't know if it's really is it a buzzword? But that the spotlight that's been shown here in twenty twenty is what Israel and what is not leveraging cloud services, giving people agility, being able to react fast because, boy in twenty twenty if we needed to react fast, so help bring us inside a little bit. And your time there, the discussion you're having with customers, that adoption moving along that journey for digital transformation, the impact that you're seeing and house NTT helping its customers as they need to accelerate and respond toe the realities that we see today. >>Yeah, so you're right into I mean, digital disruption has been ongoing for multiple years. Way used to call it technology and change, and now we call it digital disruption or digital transformation. So it's not necessarily new. I think the thing that's really accelerated in twenty twenty, You know, as a consequence of the pandemic is really the word distributed, uh, in that customers are undertaking their digital transformations understanding. You know what it is to modernize processes, you know, modernize the customer experience on Then they're finding that actually, they don't need in a board room and discuss, you know, the performance of the business so they now need to have distributed access to data on. I think the topics that we see very prevalent is the distributed nature off the workforce. Andi. Obviously there's always been a filled workforce, and we've had systems, crm systems and other systems that were built for a distributed workforce. But now we have toe think about our supply chain management systems and our HR systems, the P and L. And you know all of the activities that business undertakes with an entirely distributed workforce, and it's quite abnormal. And I think what we've learned is where is the data on how doe I amalgamate data from distributed systems. And so I see. And we're doing a lot of work with our clients relating to digital transformation, but really about how doe I join data from system a two system F in a distributed manner, most importantly, securely timely on in A in an interface that is usable on it sounds really easy is like Oh, great, yeah, it's just two different data points. Connect them together, make it secure, make it visible, create transparency. But we all know that the world is full of technical debt, legacy systems and platforms Very expensive and significant historical investments on those things Don't modernize themselves overnight. Quite often. The dollars to modernize them don't justify themselves. So we then end up layering on, you know, new technology. So you know what I'm seeing on in digital transformation is really about. How do we handle distributed data Distributed decision making on how we do that in a secure manner on through an interface that is, uh, user friendly? >>Yeah, way. Obviously know that there's had to be some prioritization. You know, the joke. I've had everybody came into twenty twenty with Okay, here. Here's what I'm gonna do for the first half of the year. Here's the objectives that I have, and we kind of throw those in the shredder rather early on Number one priority. I still hear it was probably that the number one priority coming into the year and it stays there, and you've mentioned it multiple times. Its security, you know, is absolutely front and center Still. How overall, though, How are your customers? You know, the c X So sweet. How are they adjusting their priorities? Are there certain projects that just go on hold? Are there certain ones that get front and center? Obviously, you know, that distributed work from anywhere. Telemedicine, uh, you know, teach and learn from anywhere have been top of mind. But any other key learnings you're finding or prioritization changes, some of which are gonna probably stay with us. Uh, you know, for the long term, >>Absolutely. We've definitely seems Thio customers re prioritizing. And I think there is obviously an inevitability to this, a za consequence of the pandemic. I mean, if you were undertaking a campus upgrade, you might just put that on pause for the moment. And we've absolutely seen that. But what we've really seen is a prioritization has been How do we get our information to our users? Whether the user is a customer or whether the user is an employee, you know, there's examples where there's lots of companies who are saying they've got, like, online detail, right. But now they've got to do curbside pickup because they've actually got inventory in the stores. But the stores couldn't open. So what you've seen is a re prioritization to say, Well, when we look out inventory management and the supply chain systems, are we factoring in that the inventory we have in a store could also be seen as inventory across the stores? And in fact, what we've really got now is a distributed warehouse. We've got inventory in the warehouse like wholesale, ready for distribution on. Then we've got inventory in a store retail ready for consumer consumption. What? We don't want that to be separate Infantry. We want that to be holistic on. Then how do we enable any any consumer anywhere to be able to arrange for curbside pickup, which we didn't used to do because we would come into the store or arrange for mail order? But the inventory may come from, you know, I may send something from San Francisco to somebody in Boston because it was in a storied inventory in San Francisco. Now, sure, it's got it's got some freight cost, but I've also got some other efficiency savings, and I'm reducing my working capital in my inventory expense. So we've seen prioritization for really how to take advantage of this. I come back to it. This word distributed is very simple in principle, but everything is now working on a new dynamic. So that's some of the prioritization we've seen. >>Um, you mentioned one of the things that might get put on hold is wait. If I was doing a corporate network update, that might not be the first thing. You know, we we Absolutely. We've gotten some great data on just the changing traffic patterns of the Internet, but the network is so critically important, everybody from home is, you know, dealing with Children doing their zoom classrooms while we're trying to dio video meetings. Um, NTT obviously has a strong, uh, you know, network component to what? Its businesses help us understand the services that are important there. What? What? You're working with customers. And how has this kind of transformed, uh, some of those activities? >>Yeah, Yeah, sure. Thank you. You're so right. I mean, I have to say I just like thio, pay my respects to colleagues and fellow workers around the world who are not just working from home but also home schooling in parallel. Uh, kids are fled the nest, you know, they're working for themselves now, so we don't have the extra activity of home schooling. But I can really have a lot of respect her colleagues who are trying to do both. It's a real fine art on. We've seen a lot of actually just talking of re prioritization. We've seen a lot of companies, including ourselves. You know, say to our colleagues, Look after your Children home, school them do everything you can to support your families on, then get to your work So that re prioritization. Justin behavior has been a key change that we've seen a lot of people do that flexibility to. You know, work is something you do not somewhere you go on. Therefore, as long as the work is done, we can flex around. You know your needs is a family, so that's one prioritization we've seen at, actually. But to your point on the network, it is quite amusing to me that we've been for years now talking about cloud on demand subscription services on Actually, the one asset that you need to really enable cloud is the network and its historically been the least cloudlike that you could possibly imagine Because you still need to specify a physical connection. You still need to specify a band with value you still need to specify. You know, the number of devices you get too attached to it. I think this is really a monstrous change that we're going to experience and really are experiencing the network as a service. I mean, we talk about I as has SAS. But what happened toe now, as I mean really, did we just think that everything was about computing software? The network is the underpin er on DSO. Really? We see a big change and this is where we've been very busy in the network as a service enabling customers tohave dynamic reallocation of resources on the network so that they can prioritize traffic, prioritize content, prioritize events, you know, a lot of customers are now doing activities such as hosting their own event, their own digital conference on. Do you want to prioritize what the user experience is when you host one of those events over perhaps a back office process that, quite frankly, wait a few days so we see a significant opportunity. This is where we've been very busy the last few months in really building out much more dynamic network of the service solutions. You know, the Cloud Network. And I think the whole software defined network agenda has materially accelerated. That's one major area on then. The other area has just been the phenomenal ship to I p voice on soft bone, actually almost the deletion of the phone in its entirety. Everybody using you know, teams or Skype or Google hangouts to really use as their collaboration mechanism on. Then you know, we're providing all the underlying transportation layer. But as I p voice, you know, that creates a much more integrated collaboration. Experience on git creates a cost saving because you're taking away classic voice services. >>Yeah, Simon Boy, I'm excited for that. I I remember when I got my first BlackBerry and they were trying to sell me some things. I'm like, Wait, this is an Internet endpoint. I can do all of these things there and of course you know it's taking taking it. The last dozen years. If If Ghana certain far, but and we always joke, it's like smartphones. We don't use them for phones anymore. We use them for all the messaging and all those services. So, uh, the the data and the network are so critically important, something I want to turn Thio, you know, upgrade twenty twenty. You know what? I'm excited about this. You know, we've talked about, you know, the major impacts of what's happened in twenty twenty, and we're looking at the here and now. But it's great in technology when we get to be able to look forward and look at some of the opportunities out there. So we'd love to hear from your standpoint, some of the areas. What's exciting? You what's exciting? That we can look forward to some of the areas and pockets of research that we see at the event. >>Yeah. Thank you. Strewn E. I think what I like about Aravind is the investment that we make to work with, You know, scientific community, academia, really invest in, you know, forward looking future proofing, how physics and different technologies might play a role in the future. And, you know, some of these investments and some of this research yields commercial products, and some of it doesn't. But it's still a very valuable opportunity for us to really look at you know where technology is going. I think the areas that particularly appealing to me on a personal level, just the whole thing of quantum computing. This is, uh, you know, I know we're already exploring the capabilities of quantum computing in, you know, some labs and Cem academia centers on really to understand, how can we take advantage of that? But I think if you then say and you take another area that we're exploring through the event Biosciences, if you then take the two together and you think Okay, how do we take quantum computing on? We take Biosciences on you think about health care, and then you think about the pandemic. You know? Are there things that we can do with simulations and technologies in the future that really would give us a greater comprehension and ability to accelerate understanding, understand, accelerate testing, and then really contribute to, you know, the health and welfare of society. Andi, I think that's really quite an exciting area for us. So that's a specific topic that I'm particularly interested in. I'm glad to see us doing a lot in that space quantum computing as well as you know, Biosciences. And I'd say, you know, one other area where I still think we're all trying to ascertain how it serves the business is really the area of Blockchain. I think this is, um, intriguing. I'm still mentally trying to master the subject. No amount of white papers has managed Thio overcome the topic of my brain yet, So I'm still working on it on. Then I think cryptography, I come back to the same subject security. I mean, we are dependent as citizens, businesses and nations on technology. Now, on our data is available how we secure it, How we make sure that it's encrypted is absolutely going to be critical. You see an increasing push nationally on globally to ensure that there is, you know, security of data on. I think the subject of cryptography and how we go forward with, you know, beyond one hundred and twenty eight bit is gonna be a very difficult and critical subjects. So these are the areas I'm very impressed with. >>Wonderful. Simon, I wanna give you the final word from update. Great. Twenty twenty. >>Yeah, thanks to you. Just thanks very much, Thio. Anybody that's attending what you'll find through various workshops. There's lots of insight from our strategic partners from research scientists from academia from ourselves. So thank you very much for participating. You know, we always value your feedback. So please tell us what we could do to improve the content to help you with your businesses. Onda, We look forward and hope that everybody stays safe. Thank you for connecting with us virtually >>well. Simon Walsh, Thank you so much. Great. Having a conversation and glad to have you in our cube alumni now, >>thank you very much to have a good day. >>Alright, Stay tuned. More coverage from upgrade twenty twenty. I'm still minimum. And thanks. As always, for watching the cube. Yeah,