During the last three years, DAMA Finland has been supporting the renowned MIT Chief Data Officer and Information Quality (CDOIQ) Symposium and its organizers called the CDOIQ Program. Along with the DAMA Italy association, we have been promoting the global event, helping to establish their first-ever international track, and therefore helped to spark the birth of the international CDOIQ events around the globe.

Next, the world-renowned CDOIQ Symposium will come to the Nordic countries for the first time ever in February 2025. The new Nordic symposium is a collaborative effort between the CDOIQ program and Aalto University Executive Education and Professional Development (Aalto EE), with a shared vision of establishing the premier data and analytics leadership event in the Nordics. As a long-standing supporter of the CDOIQ program, DAMA Finland has now joined the symposium as a community partner along with several other non-profit associations.

The CDOIQ Nordic Symposium will be an exceptional opportunity for data leaders to learn from their peers, improve their careers and support their employers for three reasons.

Networking: The CDOIQ is a global community of data leaders, for data leaders, by data leaders born out of the MIT research and industry programs.

Knowledge: In the CDOIQ events, data leaders share their experiences, lessons learned, and cutting-edge ideas around the globe.

Impact: The CDOIQ mission is to strengthen the role of CDO, improve data leaders career progress, and help organizations gain more value from their data.

Registration for the symposium is open – the link to the registration is here!

Inform your organizations top data leader(s) about this opportunity, regardless of their title in the organization!

However, who should be joining the event? What exactly is the position of data leader? What do they really do?

The Job of the Data Leader

The actual responsibilities and titles can vary a lot across the industry sectors and individual organizations. Typically, their titles might be for example Chief Data Officer, Chief Medical Information Officer, VP Data Science, Director of Data Platforms, Head of Data, and other similar titles. What is common for all these data leaders is that they are the highest ranked persons responsible for enterprise-wide cross-functional capabilities for data management and utilization. They lead people, manage processes and develop tools that provide better business value for their organizations and society.

For a more comprehensive description of the topic, you can read more about *data leadership* from the global authority on the topic – International Society of Chief Data Officers (isCDO):
https://iscdo.org/job-descrption/

The isCDO association is the premiere, vendor-neutral, professional society of individuals who serve the role of the Chief Data Officers for their organizations. The Society serves as a peer-advisory resource for all members, as a society of CDOs, by CDOs, for CDOs.

The Birth of the Nordic Symposium

On February 2025, the first-ever CDOIQ Nordic Symposium will take place at Aalto University in Espoo, Finland. Through this symposium, participants can expect a platform for insightful discussions, knowledge sharing, and networking opportunities, fostering the advancement of data-driven practices and innovation across the Nordic community.

The Symposium is organized under the theme ”Value from Data for Business and Society” and comprises three tracks.

• Data for and by Humans
• Analytic Innovations for Business Value
• Responsible Digitalization for Society and Business

One of the keynote speakers will be Ari Kaplan, the globally known “Moneyball Guy” from Databricks. The event expects 200 in-person participants and 400 virtual attendees from all Nordic countries.

You can read more about the event and its program here:
https://www.aaltoee.fi/cdoiq/

The Background of CDOIQ events

The Nordic event is a spin-off of the globally renowned MIT CDOIQ Symposium that has been running for 17 years now at the MIT Campus. The CDOIQ Program was created by Richard Wang, the ex-MIT professor, ex-CDO of US Army at Pentagon, and his research colleagues and industry network partners.

At the MIT CDOIQ events, typical participants and speakers have been the highest-ranked data strategists and leaders from organizations like American Express, Chevron, GlaxoSmithKline, Kaiser Permanente, National Security Agency, PayPal, Pentagon, SAP, and US Airforce, just to name a few participants of the previous symposiums. The event has been a place where the Turing award winners like Stonebraker and academic bestseller authors such as Davenport meet with industry executives and Ivy-league professors. The event is intended to be a peer network for data leaders, by data leaders – a university background ensures an impartial atmosphere.

The founder of DAMA Finland ry and the first-ever Finn to speak in the event, Kimmo Kontra, has participated in MIT CDOIQ events since its inception. He has been struck by the fact that the world’s most prominent leaders speak openly about problems and solutions, even when operating in critical industries such as military and healthcare. MIT and Harvard University, which reside only a few kilometers apart, have become more than two hundred Nobel laureates combined.

So something is being done right there. Kontra would like to see the same kind of open discussion about data in Finland.

In the Nordic Symposium, we aim to connect similarly with the highest ranked data leaders across the Nordic region and offer them a similar platform for open discussions and sharing their lessons learned.

You can read more about the reasoning behind and the history of Chief Data Officer-trend here:
https://www.aaltoee.fi/en/aalto-leaders-insight/2023/the-rise-of-chief-data-officers

The Nordic Community Campaign

In addition to the CDOIQ Nordic event, regional non-profit associations and research organizations are kickstarting a community movement to share knowledge in strategic data management, increase collaboration between professional communities, and to improve the status of data leaders’ careers. The CDOIQ movement will be more than just an event – it will be a beginning of a new tradition, setting up a new community, long-term strategic data management evangelism campaign across Nordics and much more.

Currenttly, already four non-profit associations have made a decision to join the CDOIQ movement as community partners for the CDOIQ Nordic Symposium:

• DAMA Finland ry
• MyData Global
• ICT Leaders Finland ILF
• NORA – The Norwegian Artificial Intelligence Research Consortium
• Tivia

The Sponsorship Opportunity

The CDOIQ Nordic Symposium is an unparalled opportunity for companies to contribute to the societal causes and to gain business visibility. The highest ranked data leaders are hard to catch due to their busy schedules. The CDOIQ events are crowded by them. In addition, the community campaign connects the Nordic event to a wider collection of professional networks. The event and its sessions will be promoted by these regional non-profit associations, that have dedicated their existence to the various perspectives on data and its utilization for the benefits of business and society.

By sponsoring the CDOIQ Nordic Symposium, companies can

• Become a pioneer of the Nordic CDOIQ movement and a founder of a new tradition.
• Stand out as a thought leader in data management.
• Gain unparalleled visibility across professional networks in the Nordic region.
• Help shape the careers of the next generation of data leaders.

You can be the founding sponsor only once – the everlasting unique position that will last in the history of Nordic data leadership stories. Currently, Workday and Cloud1 have confirmed their sponsorships.

For sponsoring opportunities, send us a message or fill the forms here in the symposium homepage:
https://www.aaltoee.fi/cdoiq/