9 Must-Watch Videos for Aspiring Data Leaders: Bridging Tech and Business for Data Team Success

Leading data teams can be challenging. You’ve got management and non-technical teams constantly reaching out with ad-hoc data requests; you’re likely trying to figure out what tools will work best and not blow the bank.

Not to mention, you’ve got to bridge the gap between business and technology. All while trying to grow your data team members and keep them happy.

To make matters worse, there is not a lot of content out there on data leadership. That’s why I have put together this article to highlight nine videos that cover data leadership.

So here they are!

1. Don’t Lead A Data Team Before Watching This – 5 Lessons You Need To Know As A Head of Data

Recently, I heard 2-to 3 data leaders say that the default state of most data teams is failure. But I don’t think most data teams are set up for success to start with(I also don’t believe that failure is the default state).

I do, however, find that many data engineers, analysts, and scientists get thrown into the role of Head of Data or perhaps director and don’t get much coaching or advice.

There is just the expectation that we will do a good job because we were a good individual contributor.

So, I wanted to start by putting together a list of what you need to know and do to be successful as a leader in the data space. That’s what this video is about!

2. What Skills Do You Need To Lead A Data Team – With Ana Zapata

One of the best ways to learn is by hearing from people who have been there before.

So, throughout this list, there are several longer videos that chat with data directors and leaders who have made the switch from individual contributors to data leaders. In this video, I talk to Ana Zapata, who will share her insights on the skills required to be a good data leader.

3. Going From Data Engineer To Head Of Data – How To Run A Data Team Successfully

Making the switch from data engineer, analyst, or data scientist to a head of data is challenging. So, I put together this video to help prepare you for the switch.

So let’s say you join a 1000-person company as the head of data.

What should you do? I would invest a lot of time upfront to understand the business(especially if you haven’t worked in the industry). I was just talking to someone at the Snowflake Summit who told me they made the mistake of recently being put in charge of a data team, and their first response was, “Great, what tools can I use?”. If you can’t answer the following questions within the first month or two, you’re probably going in the wrong direction.

• What are the main drivers of the business?
• What are the main pain points of the customers?
• What does the business flow look like?
• Who is our customer?
• (What other questions would you add)

More than likely, if you’re a Head Of Data, you’ve hopefully got the technical chops to excel in the role.

So, let’s talk about how you can make the switch.

4.How And Why Data Engineers Need To Care About Data Quality Now – And How To Implement It

One of the important topics that you need to be concerned with as a Head of Data or VP of Data is your data quality. Bad data, makes can derail even the most successful data project. Sure you built a data model that’s “accurate” but if the data is wrong, can you trust the output?

Trust me, the last thing you want is a CEO or CFO questing your data in a meeting. So you have to make sure you implement data quality checks into your data workflows.

5. How To Manage Data Teams Successfully – Asking A Director Of Data Architecture And Governance

Personally, one of my favorite people to talk to about data leadership, architecture and just better understand the industry as a whole is Jeff Nemecek. He has a great understanding of the space and I could have talked to him for hours to try to learn more about what he knows. You’re not going to want to miss this chat.

6. Building Data Infra And Data Maturity With Gu Xie

Gu has recently grown the data maturity at his organization and developed a framework to help other leaders understand how they can do the same. In this video we will chat about that as well as how you can grow as a data leader.

7. How To Fast Track Your Data Engineering Career – Translating Business Requirements Into Value

One of the mistakes you’ll make as a data leader early in your career is not truly understanding the business requirements.

The business will come to you and ask for a real-time dashboard.

But they mean they want the data updated 3-4x a day, or maybe they only look at the report once a week; at that moment, the data should be as up-to-date as possible.

The business will ask for a machine learning (ML) model to help detect fraud.

But once you understand what the business generally knows is fraud, you’ll realize you just need basic anomaly detection.

This isn’t to say you don’t ever need more ML models or never need to deploy a near-real-time system.

But it’s good to figure out what the business really needs before building what they describe.

8.A Decade In Data Engineering – Has Anything Actually Changed?

The concepts and skills data engineers need to know have been around for decades.

However, the role itself has really only been around for a little over 10 years, with companies like Facebook, Netflix and Google leading the charge.

Throughout those ten years, there were significant breakthroughs and tools through hype, and general acceptance became standard (if even only for a few years). Each of these tools and practices shifted how we as data engineers operate.

As a data leader, it’s good to understand where the data world has come from and where it’s going.

9. Navigating The Data Leadership Landscape – From IC To Director

Celina Wong has led data teams at companies like TULA Skin Care, Poppins, and Simon Data. She now runs a data consulting company helping organizations set up their data processes and technology to get the most from their data. In this video, she’ll discuss the habits and behaviors of successful data leaders as well as the skills you will need to improve.

Are You Ready To Lead A Data Team?

Running a data team is hard. But you don’t have to do it by yourself or least without any lessons from others. Hopefully the videos above have helped you understand how you can be a better data leader and make the switch from individual contributor to leader.

With that, I want to say thanks for reading!

Also! Don’t forget to check the articles below.

How to analyze merchant homepages visually at scale with SQL

9 Habits Of Effective Data Managers – Running A Data Team

The Data Engineer’s Guide to ETL Alternatives

Build A Data Stack That Lasts – How To Ensure Your Data Infrastructure Is Maintainable

Explaining Data Lakes, Data Lake Houses, Table Formats and Catalogs

How to cut exact scoring moments from Euro 2024 videos with SQL

How To Modernize Your Data Strategy And Infrastructure For 2025