E58 - Shantha Mohan - A Founder’s Perspective in Building an Analytics Solution Using Data Governance & Product Development

Shantha Mohan is an Executive In Residence (EIR) at Carnegie
Mellon University - Integrated Innovation Institute, Silicon
Valley.


Shantha has over 36 years of experience in software development
and engineering, product development, data science,
entrepreneurship, and building and leading large tech teams.


In her current role as EIR at the Integrated Innovation Institute
at Carnegie Mellon, she co-delivers courses, contributes to
curriculum design, and mentors students in their projects and
practicums.


Shantha is also a Co-founder & Chief Development Officer of
Retail Solutions Inc. RSi is the world's leading technology
company enabling CPG manufacturers and retailers to optimize
their market position and drive greater profitability – from
supply chain to shelf.


At RSI, she ran Product Development and was responsible for
scaling the product development team across the world and
delivering multiple applications. Her worldwide product
development team built the products & services which made the
company the leader in Retail Analytics used by top Consumer
Packaged Goods (CPG) companies and retailers.


Previously, Shantha worked in various leadership roles at Applied
Materials, the leader in materials engineering solutions used to
produce virtually every new chip and advanced display in the
world.


Shantha has a PhD in Operations Management from Carnegie Mellon
University. She is also the author of Roots and Wings: Inspiring
Stories of Indian Women in Engineering.


In this exclusive episode, Shanta shares some pearls of wisdom
from the extensive experience she has in business and academia.


Difference between teaching and leading teams from her
experience.

How her team developed a data analytics solution to identity
out of stock products.

Value of combining the three elements of design, development
and product management into one philosophy.

How can we encourage more women to join engineering and
tech?

Reasons behind lower female participation in the workforce,
both in the east and the west.

Projects her students are working on involving data lakes,
AI, ML, data quality assessment tools, and data governance.

What mistakes companies are making in data governance.

Tools you can use for strengthening data governance in your
organisation—data catalogue, data discovery, data observability,
data lineage, and data security.

When to prioritise what when it comes to maintaining data
governance and creating an MVP as fast as possible?

Importance of letting the users know about the product
limitations.

Why products are never finished and when to move on.

Product development and management for data solutions.

Importance of UI/UX for data solutions and data
pipelines.



If you are working on anything associated with data analytics and
data science, this is the episode you shouldn’t miss. There’s
something for everyone in this episode.


Also, share this episode with your peers and friends in the
industry who might benefit from the deep expertise and wisdom of
Shanta Mohan!


DataGovernance, BusinessAnalytics, DataAnalytics,
ProductDevelopment, CustomerExperience, DataScience