Home Episode 16

Podcast Episode 16

Exploring the Role of Data Integration and Automation in Connecting the Enterprise

with Geeta Pyne, Chief Enterprise Architect at Intuit

In this episode of Automating the Enterprise, Geeta Pyne, an enterprise architect, discusses the importance of data integration and automation in driving an organization’s growth. She explains how a capability map, which serves as a living document, can be used to understand the impact of changes in the organization.

Full Transcript

Dayle Hall: 

Hi, and welcome to our latest podcast for Automating the Enterprise. I’m your host, Dayle Hall. This podcast is designed to give you, our listeners and organizations, the insights and best practices on how to integrate, automate and transform the enterprise.

Our guest for today is a prominent data leader, known for her unmatched passion for data. She’s described by her colleagues as someone with the most analytical approach to solving business challenges. With a combined expertise in technical leadership and analytical type of nature, she is actually a true data tech powerhouse. And I hope that that doesn’t embarrass her describing it that way. But please welcome to our podcast, Geeta Pyne, the chief enterprise architect at Intuit. Geeta, welcome to the show.

Geeta Pyne:

Yeah. Thank you, Dayle. Wow, that was way too over my capacity, what you introduced, very humbling. Thank you so much. And I’m looking forward to the conversation. Nothing gives me more joy than talking about architecture and data.

Dayle Hall: 

Yeah, I love it. I love it. You’re definitely one of the best thought leaders we’ve had on this series. And I’m excited to get going. But before we jump into some of those detailed topics, why don’t we kick off with just how you got into this specific area, did you study it in college, did you fall into it? What brought you into this type of role?

Geeta Pyne:

Yeah, great question. So back to the basics, as engineering, I did computer science and technology as my education. One of the reasons I went to computer science, I would say, back then was, a, I like to always solve really hard problems, but I’m pretty lazy. So I figured out, if you are- like you want to do things that you want to make the computers do for you, I would rather do that versus doing myself, right? So long and short of it. So I was good in math, I was good in rational logic and so on, so I fell into computer science. And I started loving it. I started loving being lazy and being able to- actually, to instruct somebody else to do the job for me was very, very inspiring and fun to do.

And from there, my first job, I started back in India, in India Space Research Organization, think about kind of the NASA for India. So I started with dealing with satellite data, dealing with data at scale, dealing with making sense of the data as my first job, right? So thinking about architecture, thinking about scale, thinking about fault tolerance, thinking about reliability, because once things are up in the air, there’s very little you can do. So that kind of got ingrained in me. So I would say it happened by curiosity, it happened that I wanted- I had other jobs, but I just was curious about the space and what can I do there. But then I didn’t know that it will be all about data and integration and automation, but it just happened by chance that I started dealing with data and started falling in love with it.

Dayle Hall:  

Yeah. And I’m sure over the years, as you’ve seen, as we all have, the advent of all this technology to help us look more at the data, get more out of the data, that must have been exciting for you. But I just realized you like Hidden Figures. Do you remember the NASA movie? 

Geeta Pyne:  

Oh, yes. I have my Hidden Figures moments, too.

Dayle Hall:

Well, I’m really glad to have you on the show. One of the things that, again, in our industry, the things that SnapLogic talk about and things that are relevant to who we are, the integration, automation, and for the work that you do around enterprise architecture, I think what would be a good starting point is, if I asked you to define what your interpretation is of an enterprise architecture within your organization, but in general, because of your background, how would you describe it to someone that’s thinking about- maybe they’re more junior in this area, or maybe they’re already CIO, where they’re looking across their organization, but how would you define what enterprise architecture means?

Geeta Pyne:

Yeah, great question. So the way I define enterprise architecture is very simply, it is your strategy to execution, this is how you connect your- you have this business strategy, technology strategy, but how do you unpack that, break it into a chunk that you can actually execute on it. So that’s the sweet spot of intersection of strategy to execution is enterprise architecture. And what does that really unpack, the things that you need to be good at, is understanding the why and the what of the business, so be good enough with understanding the business strategy, why you’re doing, and the other side being really translating that into bits and bytes and pieces, the things that actually make this real.

So I say enterprise architects are those people that can ride actually all the floors of the elevator, as Gregor Hohpe, one of the best EA in the industry, tells that. So I think this is the sweet spot. And if you’re thinking about anybody looking at what is enterprise architecture, think about having that curiosity, the mindset, understanding the business strategy, and then translating on the other side is what you need to do as a technology strategy and technology execution to put these pieces together to deliver on the outcomes that the business needs.

Dayle Hall:  

Yeah. I love that description of really understanding the bits and bytes, but also having an understanding of the business because some of the things that we see within our customers, the most successful ones are the ones that come to us with, we’re trying to solve this use case, this business challenge. Do you have something? What should we do around data? Is it AI? I think that is good thinking for anyone to try and be successful because, I think if you have that mindset up front of a business challenge or something you’re trying to solve for, I believe you’ll be more successful. I’m sure you see that within your own organization.

Geeta Pyne:

100%. It always starts with the why and the what outcome are you driving. We all are technologists and not technology for technology’s sake. But at the end of the day, so what, what things are you able to move by doing this?

Dayle Hall: 

That’s a perfect description. I’m going to write that down, and we’ll come back to that towards the end. As we talked about the understanding the business and the bits and bytes part of it, how can someone in your kind of position who has this remit- and I think you said you can ride every floor of the elevator, I like that analogy, too, how can defining or understanding that proper architecture, how can that help a company grow or scale? Because, obviously, I think you probably get some very specific IT challenges to solve. But surely, if you have this broad understanding, you can have a massive impact not just on the bottom line, but the top line of the company.

Geeta Pyne:

Absolutely. So the first step of thinking about what is enterprise are doing when we say strategy to execution is, your first layout is what we call the capability map. So it is not the technology, it is the what type of business you are in. So Intuit, as a fintech company, for example, we have our capability map. What do you need for our customers? Your consumer and the small businesses are our customers. So if you’re thinking about whether we do tax for the consumers, or you want this growth, the integrated ERP for small businesses, right? So based on those business goals, we have the capability, and that capability map is what enterprise architecture covers, right? And then you break it down- and when you talk about capability, so you create a taxonomy like, okay, if you talk about, say, money movement, within money movement, what are the abilities you need?

So you create that kind of a taxonomy for the owned business, and then you think about how you deliver by whether you are building something on your own or you’re leveraging off the shelf. But that capability map becomes the linchpin of giving you understanding of the business as well as how well you are delivering. So you do attributions like, hey, are you mature in this, are you mature enough functional IT-wise and as well as technology maturity-wise? And then you collect those attributes with data to understand where in the landscape of things.

So to your map, think about if you could have a heat map of that kind of a piece on a paper that you understand where you are doing well and where you are gapping. And that opens up opportunities for, hey, how do you fill those gaps? And you have a conversation, is this something a competitive differentiator, or is this something, hey, commodity, we should probably go and use somebody’s, or maybe we should accelerate by doing an acquisition. So this becomes the discussion point, how you drive your business strategy, how you drive your investment strategy, how you deliver on those business outcomes.

Dayle Hall: 

Right. I love the concept of the capability map. So talk to me a little bit more about that in terms of who builds it, who do you bring into the process, who signs off on it, who’s a stakeholder? Because what I really like to do on these podcasts, Geeta, is if we think of the audience like, okay, what are the soundbites they’re going to be able to take back to their organization. So tell me a little bit more about the capability map, who’s involved.

Geeta Pyne:

Yeah. So when you think about a capability map, it is about the business, right? So  you’re bringing your business stakeholders, maybe your core GMs of the units, right, or your core product managers, also blend in your product engineering or technical process, and try to understand for the consumer back, or the customer back, what are you doing today. So basically, those things that you are breaking down, then you start to see like, hey, how should we think about this as a grouping if I’m doing? So you start this conversation, you always start with this kind of like with a business understanding, hey, if you’re solving for small businesses, what are the core things you are doing for that business, right? Can we start grouping those abilities into a way, like into- maybe they are similar things you create that domain that, hey, these all probably relate to tax, or these all probably relate to how we solve somebody’s money problem, or maybe somebody how they do payroll management, like depending on what are the things you are solving for. And then you create that. But that goes to an iteration. Don’t try to- so my advice always is, don’t try to be perfect, don’t try to be completely 100% right. Get a good enough. And other thing is that naming what you call- what’s their name is very important. Keep it [blank], make it very simple English that somebody can understand, follow some best practice, is it a verb, or is it a noun, but keep it topology neutral. With tech, it’s getting the way of calling things like transaction versus like, hey, it’s a money movement maybe.

Dayle Hall:

Yeah.

Geeta Pyne:

It’s abstract system agnostic.

Dayle Hall:

Got you. I like that concept of keeping the language simple, not going too much into the tech side. And I think, again, coming from the business side, I think that would actually create a better connection as well between the IT and the lines of business because it’s a language that the most simple people like marketing can actually understand.

Geeta Pyne:

Yeah. And yes, exactly. And you can- if you’re starting new, there are a lot of industry reference models, sometimes take a look at, hey, because most likely, there are other companies in the adjacent domains, look at how they have been tasked doing that capability map.

Dayle Hall:

Understood. So let’s delve in a little bit deeper on specific areas around your role of enterprise architecture. Let’s look at data and let’s- one of the hot topics these days is this term automation. And there’s very different aspects of it. We talked about RPA, we talked about app-to-app data integration specifically. But what do you think about in terms of automation across the enterprise? And how does understanding having the capability map or having that remit for the company’s architecture, how does that help you make good decisions around automation and what you could do?

Geeta Pyne:

Yeah. So everything you think about is centered around- if I break it down, it can be like there is something you are doing with- like at the center is that data, and then you are doing some action on it. And then you’re connecting things together and orchestrating or integrating in concert to perform a task like, why are we in the business?

So in my role, the capability map is kind of our center, but then how those incapabilities like you think about these are like LEGO boxes or pieces, they alone do things, but when you put them together, then magic happens, right? So when you have all these bits and pieces that in a capability map we have, the way we look at is, what is the data that powers that, what kind of things can you do, whether it is like eventing, whether it is how you do act on it or accesses through request response, or you do like asynchronous use  to send some eventing. So there are different ways of communication, and then how you can connect these pieces to solve one, ultimately, larger, bigger business problem, right?

So all of this thinking about is through automation, and integration plays an important, critical- that’s the DNA or the fabric that helps us to create the fabric or the substrate that connects all these things together. And for my enterprise architecture role, first of all, as we describe this capability map, this is a living document, I mean, living artifact. This is nothing static that you are going on. So we describe all of this, but there is behind that is a highly rich graph database that describes all these relations, right? And then we have automation against- to understand when things change.

So things like, as an architect, you need to know impact analysis, right? So how would you know if I move this piece away, what’s going to break or what’s going to slow down? So those kinds of things are all in this map that you can understand and they are integrated. And when something changed, you have automation to notify, you have alerts or notifications and things like that to say, hey, you may be out of knob here, or something is happening, or things are slowing down. So all these. So I think about data integration automation is your nervous system really that drives our organization.

Dayle Hall:

I’m smiling because we currently have our integrator going on. And our CEO, Gaurav, uses the analogy of the central nervous system about connecting the enterprise. So it’s a very good analogy.

Geeta Pyne:

Yeah. That’s what I always tell. I used to be the integration architect. My first architect role as an enterprise was enterprise integration architect. And I used to hate when people did not enjoy that. We are the nervous system, we made this organization come to life at 100%.

Dayle Hall: 

Like I said, that’s a really good analogy. So we talked about integration and automation. Obviously, it’s a big part of connecting the enterprise. Now, obviously, one of the things that we’ve heard a lot, big data, data-driven, AI using data. So obviously, the enterprises now are creating a lot of data. So as well as looking at the integration and automation piece, how do you think about getting the right pieces of data? Have you had to break certain silos down? How do you think about making sure the work that you do, the end result is making sure the data actually gets to the right people at the right time?

Geeta Pyne:

Yeah. So there’s a lot of fundamental things, going back to our central nervous system, how do you know that you are actually receiving the right question and responding or acting, it is hot or cold, and responding to that, right? So having that sensors across, right? And so meaning, observability- so we have pretty good observability defined like, what does it even mean? And when we say something is delivered, what are the metrics that you are observing? So metrics is a very key critical- you cannot manage what you cannot measure, right? So we have to break in a lot. So what does that mean? How do you get the data, whether it is in a custom software or a third-party software, or the things that we are writing. And we are also a 40 years old legacy company, so we are also breaking monoliths to become, say, microservices to make the data usable.

So there’s a lot of work. It is not isolated. But it is always in the context of the corresponding business capability and the business outcome, and then how you factor or modernize and think about data as a first-class citizen and how do you know that the lifecycle of the data from the production to the consumption, and who has- it gets also our back, like who has access to the data governance policy. So it is a conglomerate of things.

We build these foundational building blocks. So focusing on some of the foundation, the infrastructure and the data governance, things that you need to think about from security compliance rules, different types, or whether data residency rules that you have to apply, having those big policies and building those in a way that they are modular, they can be declared, you can interject rules, interject policies, and change the behavior of how you want to handle that. So that, I would say, is a cool- before you can do integration or automation, hand in hand, think about the data, think about the quality, think about what kind of infrastructure and foundation layer you’re building from observability to compliance.

Dayle Hall: 

Got you. Now, if we think about where those- where did these requests come from? Because we hear a lot today about, there’s different terms, the citizen developer, the citizen integrator, obviously, the lines of businesses are obviously looking for- they want to bring in their own tools, they’re looking at different pieces of data. How much of the work that you do comes from, hey, we’ve identified this within my organization or with our remit, and how much of the requests are coming from the lines of businesses saying, we need you to help us support this. How is that balanced at your organization?

Geeta Pyne:

Yeah. Depending on the size. Right now, I would say there’s a lot of requests that comes from actually the segments or the BUs. It’s a chicken and egg problem, right? You don’t want to build things hoping that people will use. At the same time, if you don’t do that, then somebody else is already in the need, right? So us, in some areas, we are good, but think about the core data entities, they’re already available, accessible, but then nuances of the business that you might have global-specific requirement, or some segment-specific that coming from more on the BU. 

And then it becomes like, hey- so the way our model is, if you like, always think about somebody else will reuse your data. So start- even if the need might come from a BU, think about how- so we have this- I was mentioning about maturity concept. So we have both data maturity and capability maturity technology. So it has to be like- there are constructs that when you’re producing data, here are the things, checks and balances you have to meet so that even you’re producing, that domain event should be readily accessible and available for others in the downstream, in the pipeline.

Dayle Hall:

Right. That’s a good way of thinking of it. And again, I think whilst we hear that a lot of those requests are starting to come from the lines of business, and there’s this term that I hear a lot, I’m sure you do, this shadow IT. I think, to some extent, if you’re in an organization that thinks about how you just described, which is what data can get used, what can we supply to the business, if you’re working closely with them, the shadow IT actually shouldn’t exist.

Geeta Pyne:  

And it might be a good thing if it is in the sense like, I don’t know. I sometimes think like when people are actually in need, and you see something, nobody’s doing it just because I want to have fun and nothing else I have to do, because there is a need. So if you can follow through those shadow ITs, you can actually understand more closely what truly the business is. Maybe the way- what I’m doing at a central IT, maybe that’s not what people actually need. So I always think, if people are using your data or they’re trying to do something, go and have a look at why are they doing it. Nobody wants to create work just because they have an extra time in the world, right? They must be in some kind of a pain that you’re not solving for.

Dayle Hall:

Yeah. That’s a really good point. Before we go on to being a leader in this area and how you pass that on through the next layer of leadership and upcoming professionals, are there certain hot topics in and around your space, integration, automation, other hot topics that, let’s say, you’re getting approached with from, it could be vendors, it could be things you hear from your lines of businesses, or from analysts and so on, are there things that you’re seeing like, oh, I’m hearing a lot about this or being asked to look at that within your remit?

Geeta Pyne:

I think one of the things I see in this space, the modern data stack, everybody, we all are in the modern data stack. Within that, there is a lot of, I would say, ambiguity or unclarity around what’s the data fabric, is data fabric an architecture, is data fabric a product, how does it replace or integrate with the so-called integration middlewares, like the SnapLogics of the world? I keep hearing there’s a lot of work going on around with some of the start-ups trying to figure it out. But how do you build that, and can you take a look? But trying to be everything to everybody, in my humble opinion, you are good at nothing. So I see that a lot going on, oh, I do this, I do this, I do also this, right?

At the same time, it will go to my- if we can solve one problem, then the complexity- so basically, this fragmented world is not getting simpler, the data fragment, whether coming from the devices, whether coming from wherever, on all your systems and external SaaS solutions and the vendors. So that’s I think a hot topic I see. And also, the how do you do the metadata management, whether it is your active metadata or passive metadata? Like how do you bring in your streaming real-time analytics to your typical business intelligence analytics, like bringing things into normalized form into a data warehouse, but how do you blend those two things together. I think that’s a new world we’re living in because of the rate of explosion of the data, because of the rate of change of how data is produced, right, and being able to do that. But do that also with compliance, making sure that we are not violating just because you have to quickly respond.

And the last thing I would say also is, in this whole compute world, we are all in this multi-cloud world, there is hybrid world, there is edge computing. And I think how you can process data with also applying the compute lens that is evolving, right, with edge computing, pushing compute close to the data, I think this is a really fascinating time right now for data and automation and integration.

Dayle Hall:

Yeah, definitely in that term. We talk about this internally a lot as well, this modern data stack, and it’s started to get some traction. So a lot of people are using it within their marketing material and the things they say. And I think there’s still some element of definition that has to be within there because what I think is happening, as more people jump into that, all of a sudden, you’ve got hundreds of vendors that say they do something. To your point, you’re either solving a very specific- one specific problem, and then you’re going to have 15 vendors doing- to try and manage your data, or you’ve got someone that’s saying they can do everything. We need something in between.

Geeta Pyne:

Yeah, absolutely. And the other thing I would say since you just started here, Kubernetes was the thing, containers give us this whole portability across the cloud. Now there is this super cloud, right, and these big clouds are now talking to each other. Now  what does the role of traditional, like the Dell Boomis and the Snaps of the world, their role become when this mega-cloud start interoperating to give that fabric across, right?

Dayle Hall: 

Yeah. That’s definitely something that as an organization, we’re definitely looking at how we play in that. As an organization, the pieces that we have around iPaaS, APIM, data integration, we feel is relatively unique. But again, just the data integration and the modern data stack is so big, you’ve got to be careful, you don’t boil the ocean with everything you’re trying to do. We’re definitely in touch with that scenario.

So let’s move on to talk about you as a leader. And I gave you a great intro, which I don’t think downplays the capabilities of who you are and what you’ve done. But let’s talk a little bit about, how do you like to work with the next generation of professionals coming through? How do you inspire people to be just as passionate around the areas that you are?

Geeta Pyne:

Yeah. This could take even like a whole chapter. I love what brings the most out of me, best out of me is when I can bring the best out of any talent, or anybody that I work with, right? So I love next generation from fresh engineers to even high school interns. One thing I always try to do is make people ask- help them to ask questions, be curious, always ask questions. So I ask a lot of questions, and that’s how I learn. I have junior engineers to senior most architects in my teams, too. But I spend time helping them to see the big picture.

Inspiration-wise, I always try to make sure they understand the work they do, how does that relate to the company. Even as this morning, one of my junior engineer, I was doing one on one. I was like, hey, do you understand, do you feel good yesterday in the state of the company, our capability map was displayed and these were the things talked about. Do you feel proud that the work you do, it actually gets shown in the state of the company? Or this is something how we run our Tech Tuesdays to understand how the platform is operating, right? So always really take the time to ensure that the work is connected to the company’s strategy and explain to them, not just the technology or for technology’s sake, the why, their purpose, how their purpose and their little contribution is actually making an impact to the company.

And I bring in a lot of- whether I’ll bring in external speakers, encourage them to do public speaking, coach and mentor them like, hey, it is okay to fail, and push that envelope. For me, it’s like for somebody, I’ll continuously give them more, it depends on how hungry they are. And I will stretch the limit, doing mediocrity job does not excite anybody, so you have to always push for more. That’s what I do. But of course, making sure that I’m there as their fall back. They have my back and I have their back, but always give them a chance to fail, or even give them some stretch goals and stretch opportunities that may not be comfortable, get them out of their comfort zone. So that’s how I grew, getting out of my comfort zone, what made me who I am today.

Dayle Hall:  

Yeah. I like that. I try and tell my own team that you shouldn’t be afraid to fail because if you don’t fail anything, you’re not really learning, you’re not trying, you’re not pushing the envelope. So I think that’s important. I mean, don’t continue to fail at the same thing, that’s not a good idea. But you have to have the option.

Geeta Pyne:

Yeah, yeah. 

Dayle Hall:

If we look at the area- and again, as I mentioned, I’m sure you’re faced with different technologies and vendors and all these kinds of things, where do you go to keep your knowledge fresh? How do you make sure that you’re up to date with the latest technologies, the trends, what’s going on in the market? We’ve talked about the modern data stack and the potential for ambiguity as to what it means. Where do you go to get your knowledge?

Geeta Pyne:

Yeah. So I do a few things. So one is plugged into the start-up community. So I’m in some of the VCs and what technologies, what vendors, or what products are they investing in. So I’m in some of the advisor group for the start-up VCs and some of the start-ups, so that’s how I learn and keep myself what’s going on.

Of course, the big mega vendors follow the leaders, so probably, if they’re solving something. So that’s another way of- those are, I would say, my two primary. I look at, of course, other than the tech magazines, also a lot of peer networking, right? So I am in part of the chief architect forums, I’m part of multiple global chief architect forums, CIO forums. I’m usually the only enterprise architect in a CIO forum and CTO forum. So I’m in- through networking because I think that’s the best way to learn, definitely. But I think the start-up ecosystem and those peer networking are the source of my knowledge.

Dayle Hall: 

Do you think the title, enterprise architect, or the role, you just mentioned, you’re one of the few- you end up being one of the few enterprise architects in CIO groups, and probably the skill set, the knowledge is very similar. Do you think the role is becoming more prevalent? Do you think it will continue to grow?

Geeta Pyne:  

Yes, yes, yes. The time for enterprise architect has never been this good in my book, right? Because we talked about digitalization, digital transformation. And in the last two and a half years, the way the world has changed, I think everybody is seeing the need for understanding that, hey, end to end. So I think CIOs and the chief enterprise architects are the two roles that has end-to-end visibility. No matter how smart you’re building a product, many a time, you’re siloed, right? So I think getting that end-to-end visibility, having a quick lens on, hey, if I do this X, what would happen, right? And that, you cannot have. So I think the pandemic has, in a way, has forced companies to really become digital. And you can’t do that unless you understand what end to end what you have and how are you operating, how are you delivering on it.

Dayle Hall:

Yeah, no, I think we’re definitely going to see this becoming more- we see it more already. But I think more roles are going to be defined as this way on, again, I think the visibility that you have for not just the data, but the applications and the opportunity to help the business grow. Again, if we come back to the capability map, I think you’re in a unique position to show how the technologies and data and the processes and the people you have can help the business. I think it’s a unique position.

My last question would be if you look for the next 18 months, two to three years, something specific, or just a general trend are you excited about, what are the things that you look now across your business or into the future and say, we’re really excited because we’re going to do this type of project or we’re looking at this type of area?

Geeta Pyne:

Yeah. I think for our business, it’s truly like us- our CEO says that we will be a trillion-dollar business, right? And that would come through basically a lot of ecosystem and partnership. I think I see that partners were always important. But again, now we’ll see that ecosystem and partnership and being able to do a lot more than what individually your company can do, I think that’s where your multifold growth. But in general, technology-wise, I’m looking forward to see how we will make the whole supply chain really becomes a global supply chain with global data sharing. It will force us to actually- talk about data sharing within the four walls is hard. Think about the world. But if we don’t do that, we’ll be still in this global supply chain crisis. We cannot have that again.

And the third thing I would say is we talk about sustainability, front and center. And again, architecture and data being the linchpin for what’s the- how do you make a safer planet. And that actually really excites me, what planet are we leaving for the next generation, how do we make sure this is sustainable planet and sustainable technologies we are doing. And you cannot do that without data, without an architecture, without automation, without the compute that you need across. So I think if we can make the world a better and safer place, that I think-

Dayle Hall: 

I love that as a mantra is how we can leave the world a better place, make things more sustainable using the tools that we have, and at least thinking about the impact of that. Look, this was- we could go all day. We could talk about mentorship and growing the next generation. We could talk about the data piece. We could probably sit and define the modern data stack for the next hour if we have the time. But I loved what you said around that there’s definitely some ambiguity there, and we really have to understand there are opportunities for integration and automation. And I think you described it as the fabric for connectivity for the enterprise, which I think is a really good way of looking at those capabilities.

I love what you said around the capability map. But more important than that, as well as bringing in the other parts of the business, but have it be in simple language. Obviously, the technology side can be complex. But when you’re dealing with the business, make sure that the simple people, like the marketing team, can actually understand what it is that you’re talking about. And then I love how you think about enterprise architecture. It’s from strategy to execution. It’s not just the technical bits and bytes, but it’s the why and the how and the what of the business and how the technology and the data and the processes can help. 

But I think my favorite thing that you said, which I will always- I might actually tell my own children this, is that you’re interested in solving problems, but you’re lazy about it. So use the technology, use what’s at hand, so you can be more successful. I think that’s a brilliant analogy, because it just means use what you’ve got, use the capabilities and do things in a better way.

This was a pleasure for me, my own interview with Geeta, Hidden Figures from the space program in India, but it was a pleasure. Thank you for being part of the program today.

Geeta Pyne:

Thank you so much. I didn’t even realize the time just went by. So thank you.

Dayle Hall: 

No, it just flew by. Thank you, everyone, out there for listening. I hope you got some good insights from our guest today, and we’ll see you on the next episode.

Geeta Pyne:

Thank you. Thank you.