娇色导航

Welcome to 娇色导航Leadership Live.

I'm Lee Rennick, executive director of 娇色导航communities for cio.com.

And I'm very excited and honored to welcome

Annette Cooper, director of data analytics at Graham, to the show today.

Annette, could you please introduce yourself

and maybe tell us a little bit about your current role? Yeah.

So as you see in Annette Cooper I'm the director of data and analytics here at Graham Construction.

So Graham is one of the largest construction companies in Canada.

And we also have a pretty big presence down in the United States.

my role is leading the data and analytics practice here.

And I've been at Graham about three years and I was the first one of me.

So data and analytics is new to Graham.

and we're all going on the journey together. That is wonderful.

That must be incredible.

Well, I really appreciate you joining us here today and thank you so much.

So we've develop this series,

to support the technology leader in their tech and leadership journey.

So first question and I ask everyone this question.

Could you please tell us a little bit

about your own career path and leadership journey today?

Any lessons learned along the way that you could share?

Just sharing generally about your journey so far?

I think the lesson at the end of it all, I'll do that.

First is there's no one way to have a career path, particularly not in it.

And when I started out working 20 years ago,

there wasn't really even this role that I'm sitting in now.

So I think the biggest lesson is, you know, do it your way.

There's no there's no pathway, there's no prescription.

So I started off as, a researcher working in academics,

very much on the analysis side of the data world, and then ended up

working in central government in New Zealand for a long time

as a policy researcher.

And then I got offered the opportunity to move into a leadership role.

And I think that's where I found my first real fit,

or feeling like that was something that I did really well

and something that I really enjoyed and could bring skill to.

And then I've sort of grown from there so much.

Like I said, it's been a very non-linear millennial style,

kind of twisty turny career, and I've followed my interests.

and I've also followed

other leaders that I thought were people that I could learn from.

And as opportunities have come along, I've taken them.

So I moved away from government and into core technology

like I am now, because it was something

that I hadn't done before, and it was something that interests me.

So just leveraging the wide range of skills that I had,

sort of in and around other leaders that I was interested in learning from.

I love that, and,

you know, you have a lot of experience in different areas, especially government.

But I'm sure there's a lot of process and ways of processing things

and developing things that were very different to, how you do things now.

But it probably helps and impacts on your, your role.

you know, there at Graham, every different place that I've worked

has given me a slightly different way of looking at the world and also

a slightly different set of skills for analyzing how to get things done.

You know, is this a place where we we really focused on process?

Is this a place where we're really focused on relationship?

You know, what matters to the people sitting at the top table?

That's the same whether you're working for,

elected official or, you know, the people that I work for here. So, yeah,

it's all just about that skill of how do you get done what you need to get done.

And the diversity of my experience has given me lots of opportunities

to flex that muscle. Well that's wonderful.

Thank you for sharing that.

I really appreciate that.

And congratulations to Graham on the 娇色导航Canada Award winning

project on enterprise data.

So I would love to learn a little bit more about the project

and maybe how it transformed the business. Yeah.

So Enterprise Data Platform was a great big audacious

goal, that I set when it came in about three years ago.

we as a business

were a little bit behind on some of our use of data.

And I think that's probably just the reality of a lot of businesses.

We all like to talk about that.

We're really data enabled.

But reality is right.

It costs money and it takes time.

So because Graham has grown significantly through the journey acquisition,

one of the key things was we needed a platform that was going to be agnostic

to our main ERP or the ERP, you know, all the other things.

We wanted to have something that was data specific.

So we went about building the platform itself,

where we could bring information from across all of our major organizations

and across Graham's disparate systems together

in a place that we could use it particularly focused on operations.

So project operations, building

bridges, building giant high rises, the stuff we do at grain. The other

thing that that in and of itself was a big task, but the other thing was about

how do you get that out to people in a way that is useful and usable

and recognizing the challenges of the folks in our field,

so they're not sitting at desks all day long.

so we also built what we refer to as our, insights hub.

So that's the thing that sits on top of the enterprise data platform.

That's where all of our reports are that we've built,

and that sits on our gateway, which is our main entry,

and people can access the information through there.

The other thing I'm really proud of about enterprise data platform

is that we've taken a, product approach to how we think about data.

So we're not building reports

and putting them out there and hoping someone wants them.

We've bought product thinking, and so every report is its own product.

It needs a product owner.

We've also designed to make the lives of our users easier.

Well designed products make the world easier for our users.

So all of that has been going on in the background,

while we've also been building pipes and things like that.

So it's been impactful to the business in the sense that it's radically different

to where we were.

Like, it is a big step forward.

And because we're laying the groundwork for the importance

of thinking about reports as living things,

as our business changes, our data needs change. And thinking about,

the importance of design and all of our technology operations.

So that's what I'm most proud of.

Wow, congratulations and congratulations on the award.

I mean, we really pride ourselves

on developing these awards so we can showcase projects like this.

And I think this is such an important one.

we didn't have this one player, but I mean, obviously with the year

being a lot about generative AI for some, a lot of companies,

you know, this idea of data and enterprise data and pulling that all together

and how you use that is such an important, you know, for what I'm hearing from CIOs

is such an important piece to having successful AI platforms

and building out anything you might want to.

So sounds like you laid down some great groundwork, not groundwork,

but, you know, implementing great strategies, an end goal,

and then also making sure that user had that amazing experience with it. yeah.

So congratulations on that.

Any thoughts around that?

Just around how you might be planning for AI and things like that?

You can't do anything if you don't have the pipes in the ground. Right.

And I think it's one of the benefits of working

at a construction company was it was an easy analogy to make to people. Right.

So you cannot build a, 60 story

sky rise on top of an open pit.

So we are building the foundation for all data work in the future.

Airframe generative AI, whatever it is, was

whatever is most important to the business. Yeah.

We chose a tool that could manage structured and unstructured data. We're not

using any unstructured data at the moment, but we wanted to future proof ourselves

yet again, taking the long term view and doing

the boring hard work,

you know, getting everything where it needs to be.

Okay, so this segues very well into the next question perfectly,

which is around the role of the senior tech leader or the tech leader.

So we release every year a state of the 娇色导航report.

when we interviewed 1100 CIOs globally about that, their role, 79% of tech

leaders said that the 娇色导航has an educational partnership with the CEO

and the board of directors.

Now, you just talked about that,

how you're describing and explaining these projects. But, you know,

what are your thoughts on that given the scope of the project you led?

I am lucky I have a close relationship and a lot of access

to our senior executive team, and that's helpful.

when you're talking about budgets and funding

and big picture thinking about what we want to do,

but I would say the real people

that I needed to influence were that next layer down, because those are the people

who are operationally in charge of parts of our organization. Right.

And those are the people who have the real ability to go or not go

when we're talking about change and change management. so

that's been part of the product

thinking was bringing those people at a director or a VP level into work

with us to lead the development of what was important to the part of the business,

rather than leaving all of those decisions to the executive

who are really too far away in some cases from the actual work that's being done.

In a practical sense,

and what's going to be helpful to our operations folks onsite.

So, yeah, I think it's important to have

a relationship with your senior leaders and you and your CEO.

And additionally have them.

But I also think that in

and of itself is not enough to be a successful technology leader.

You want to be building partnerships with people

where you're seen as a strategic partner in this thinking

and being brought early into, hey, I think we've got a problem here.

We don't quite know what to do.

Who can we talk to?

I think your technology leaders,

you want to be the people that are coming to talk to.

I love that analogy.

Thank you so much. I think that's so important.

I was just having a discussion with someone today about,

you know, chief marketing officer.

And, you know, we were saying, well, you know, the people that are out running

the social media are doing this, working on the CRM, CRM and all of that stuff. You know,

sometimes that person at the highest level doesn't really know what's going on,

but it's all the other people that are involved

that really help create this interaction with the organization.

So I appreciate you sharing that very, very much.

Actually, I think it'll be beneficial to anyone listening in on this interview. All right.

So, you're very passionate about building diverse teams.

you know, I work a lot in this area, working with

some of our research teams around this, talking to see,

I was about how they're helping to support those that are starting their careers,

you know, especially, in the Canadian market here.

So could you talk a little bit about that? Yeah.

So, I mean, I'm an immigrant and a woman

and a member of the LGBTQ community.

And you can't be what you can't see, right?

So growing up as a young kid in New Zealand,

there were very limited view of what a career looked like.

I think technology for a long time was about leadership.

For a long time has been very much a male dominated society.

And that's true here in construction too, with we're still very much there.

but I'm passionate about diversity because diverse teams

bring diverse skills and diverse ways of looking at things.

And back to our product mentality.

When you bring a bunch of different people into a room

with different ideas, you get a better product out of it.

You get a better, You also give people the opportunity

to learn how to collaborate with others who are different to them. and to

make a team that really gels nicely together.

That's the difference that brings us together.

I'm passionate about getting more women into technology

because I think the whole place would be better off.

I think every place is better

when we have more women in it, particularly in leadership roles.

so I do whatever I can to support young women.

And again, I understand the immigrant experience.

So I think all of those things are important.

And I think opening your eyes up to the talent that's out there,

you people who aren't taking this view,

I think it just missing out on good candidates and good people.

Yeah, I agree with you.

And I just interviewed,

Lucy Ho, who's the founder and executive director of Hacker Girl.

So they're working with younger girls,

getting them into technology, letting them feel safe in the space.

They're learning how to code and do all sorts of really amazing things.

And I also interviewed Christine Barnhart, who's the CEO of the web network.

And they're an organization that supports women in tech.

And really about that,

what you just talked about, the diversity of all the skills you bring to the table,

usually women are more on that track because they take more of a

like a different type of approach to that end career.

And so they, you know, really work globally to support women in technology

and just building out their skills, but also having that opportunity to to network.

And I think it's so important.

So I appreciate your insights in this area.

It's so important to really, I think for any business to really be

successful, to look at those teams

and how they're building out their diverse teams.

so I appreciate your insights.

I would especially say nowadays, right, when we're hearing of,

companies sort of contracting and, and things like that, know

if you're just doing things

the same way, you've always I mean, I'm a millennial and I'm middle aged, right?

If you're just doing things the same way you've always done them,

then you won't be around much longer. Yeah.

The generationally young people want different things. Yeah.

and I and I think it's a, it's just a big missed opportunity

to not be taking a broader meet when you are thinking about hiring.

I've never met another immigrant who hasn't been incredibly hardworking,

because in order just to get here, you have to be hardworking. Yeah.

So just wonderful people.

And I think it's a it's a shame if you miss out.

We're also lucky here in Calgary we have toast is based here which is a

and a women and IT recruitment company who our awesome know

and do an amazing job of like helping other women integrate roles.

So I think it's shifted in the last few years

and I hope to be part of that continued shift.

Thank you so much for doing that and being engaged and

and explaining why it's so important. I really appreciate that. All right.

So we're recording this in December 2025.

It's just around the corner. any predictions

on how you see technology and continue to lead and impact business?

Technology is here to stay.

I think the biggest honest struggle for businesses is managing cost.

So, you know, we talk about a lot of people talking about AI all the time.

If you don't have a use case for it, that's fundamentally important to your business.

You will spend a lot of money to get nowhere.

So I think that the technology leader 2026, yeah,

there's a lot of stuff out there.

Yeah, there's a lot of shiny whizzy things.

But managing cost for your business, I think that is the thing

that once we get over this AI hype cycle

and we come down the other side

and I'm looking forward to coming down the other side, there's going to be

a lot of people cutting programs that are too expensive.

So for me, you know, and others that I talk to

in my kinds of roles, that's what we're thinking about.

How are we managing cost to still deliver

as much business value as we can without blowing that budget way up?

I appreciate that feedback.

Thank you so much for sharing, and thank you so much,

Annette, for being here on the show today.

We truly appreciate it.

Thank you for having me. This is fun.

It was a wonderful.

And if you're interested in watching this

or other videos, head on over to cio.com. /ca.

Thanks again.