Cindi Howson

I have a flair for bridging business and technology, a 30-year career of industry firsts, with a unique ability to blend strategy with execution.  I host the award winning The Data Chief podcast, in the top 1.5% of all podcasts, bringing best practices and industry visionaries to listeners around the world on AI, data strategy, AI literacy, and culture. I have the privilege of advising iconic companies on their data and AI strategies, cloud architecture, data and AI literacy, culture and people change, power and politics, garnering me awards such as Software Report's Top 25 Data &amp; AI Executives, Corinium Global 100 CDAO, DataIQ Top 100 in 2024 &amp; 2023, WLDA Motivator of the Year in 2022, and top 25 AI Leaders. As Chief Data &amp; AI Strategy Officer at Gartner MQ Leader, ThoughtSpot, I’ve helped grow the business from 250 employees to 1000, ARR from $30M to $150M, and valuation from $1B to $4B. I championed our integration with Diyotta that led to our DataFlow ELT capabilities as well as voice analytics with VoiceBase. As a company builder and woman in tech, I exec sponsored the creation of our DEI Liveboard and industry app, as well as our partnerships with Varsity Tutors, Girls Plus Data, Women in Data, Women Leaders in Data and AI, and the Mark Cuban Foundation AI bootcamps.  Across my 30 years in the tech industry, I’ve installed Novell networks, assembled computers, led a team to deliver the world’s first global data warehouse and BI program, authored 7 books, keynoted at Harvard and MIT Future Compute, and pioneered research in data for good, AI ethics, NLP, led the Gartner IT Score Maturity Model, Magic Quadrant for Analytics and BI, and Critical Capabilities research. In teaching for TDWI for 15 years, I led BI bake-offs and trained a generation of CDAOs on measuring business value, data modeling best practices, and architecting analytics for scale.

Chief Data Strategy Officer

In my role at ThoughtSpot, I advise our customers and prospects on leveraging data for business impact  - with all the politics and culture change that goes with it. I collaborate with our product team to drive co-innovation that will enable all people to access insights. I continue to work in data and AI for good, women in tech, and AI ethics, topics important to our industry and society as a whole.

2026 marks the first year ThoughtSpot was in Davos!  Here's my first impression, courtesy of Kate Strachnyi DATAcated on all things AI, agentic AI, and what's to come. It is kinda comical that two Jersey girls bump into each other in this iconic setting. 🔥 ⛷️ 

#Davos2026 #IIADavos #AI

Speaking @ Davos 2026, Host of award winning The Data Chief podcast, Corinium Global 100 CDAO, Software Report Top 25 Data & AI Exec, CDAO Whisperer

The theme for this year’s World Economic Forum in Davos was “open dialogue.” The theme along the houses at this world event was very much AI and building the infrastructure, ethics, and skills for this generational shift.

While I have been to Davos in the past for skiing and Dow’s annual holiday party, this was my first time attending WEF. One can think of it as a trade show spanning the whole village.

Was it intentional or happenstance that we had new world leaders at one end of The Promenade – Anthropic – with behemoths such as IBM and Salesforce at the other end?

In between, there were countries seeking investments. India 🇮🇳 wants to play a big role in the AI race, announcing a new innovation hub outside Mumbai. The AI House, Imagination in Action, and Humans of AI were the hottest tickets. I give big credit to John Werner and Paul Baier for the breadth and depth of speakers at this event that included both Standford HAI and MIT (academia), start ups (Ned Koh!), AI builders and researchers, to enterprises such as WHOOP and PepsiCo. (BTW - do you have a Whoop or any wearable? I love data, but am cautious with whom I share.)

It was a surreal moment for me to be in the CNBC House while U.S. President Trump addressed the WEF . As my email and slack suddenly stopped working, it was only later that a Swiss intelligence expert told me it was because every single message into and out of the city was being checked.

My head is still buzzing with the passionate debates, the many people I met both on the street, the bus, a shared fondue. 

But the comment that has stayed with me the most came from Cisco’s President Jeetu Patel: “If you don't like change wait until you encounter irrelevance.”  

Excellent interviews by CNBC's Emma Crosby & Arjun Kharpal

Thank you to all who engaged with me, to ThoughtSpot for sending me. Enjoy this photo montage. #AI #Davos2026 #IIADavos

ThoughtSpot in Davos 2026

If you are treating AI as a replacement for humans, you are missing out and instilling unnecessary fear that will block your AI impact.  Vinay Gidwaney, Chief Product Officer at OneDigital, serial entrepreneur describes how their AI agents are do workers, with human managers, and clear performance goals. 

Tune into this just released episode of The Data Chief on Apple podcasts, Spotify, and new this season, Youtube! 

#agenticAI #AI #leadership

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