Becoming a Data Strategist — Dora Boussias

What a data strategist actually does, and how the role changes when every strategy must now include agents. An Engatica briefing anchored on Dora Boussias's original interview.

In the original series, Dora Boussias — then Senior Director, Data Strategy & Architecture at Stryker — walked through the top pitfalls on the way to becoming data-driven. Her own thought-leader page still links to this address, so the briefing returns here.

The briefing

The data strategist's job is translation: between what the business wants to decide and what the data can honestly support. The pitfalls from the original conversation endure — strategy decks written before anyone audits the data that exists, governance treated as a brake instead of a licence, and dashboards built for the people who commissioned them rather than the people who must act. The 2027 addition: every data strategy is now also an agent strategy, because the consumers of your best data are increasingly machines acting on it.

Questions we ask every guest on this theme

• What is the most expensive data mistake you have watched a company make?
• Which metric do executives ask for that you wish they would stop requesting?
• How do you decide what data an agent may act on autonomously?

See also the 3 Vs of data innovation.