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Scott Friesen’s transformation into a data analytics professional wasn’t exactly linear. After graduating with a biology degree and becoming a pre-med student, he switched gears and managed artists in the music industry. After that, he worked at Best Buy, eventually becoming their Senior Director of Analytics for the company’s consumer insights unit. Today, Scott is the SVP of Strategic Analytics at Echo Global Logistics, a provider of technology-enabled transportation and supply chain management services. He also advises for the International Institute for Analytics.

In this episode, Scott shares what he thinks data scientists and analytics leaders need to do to become a trustworthy and indispensable part of an organization.  Scott and I both believe that designing good decision support applications and creating useful data science solutions involve a lot more than technical knowledge. We cover:

• Scott’s trust equation, why it’s critical for analytics professionals, and how he uses it to push transformation across the organization
• Scott’s “jazz” vs “classical” approach to creating solutions
• How to develop intimacy and trust with your business partners (e.g., IT) and executives, and the non-technical skills analytics teams need to develop to be successful
• Scott’s opinion about design thinking and analytics solutions
• How to talk about risk to business stakeholders when deploying data science solutions
• How the success of Scott’s new pricing model was impeded by something that had nothing to do with the data—and how he addressed it
• Scott’s take on the emerging “analytics translator” role
• The two key steps to career success—and volcanos