Cindi Howson

“It's not every day that you work with an industry leader and mentor who profoundly impacts your professional journey, but I have had the privilege of experiencing this when I worked with and reported directly to Cindi Howson. Cindi's unique coaching style, coupled with her extensive knowledge and experience in data analytics and business intelligence, has been instrumental in shaping my career. Cindi possesses a remarkable ability to guide and encourage those around her. She leads by example, demonstrating what it truly means to be a thought leader in the tech industry. Her approach to building relationships and understanding customer needs is exemplary and has taught me invaluable lessons in these areas. These learnings were instrumental in as I grew into an international thought leader with her assistance. One of the most impactful aspects of Cindi's leadership is her ability to foster an environment of growth and learning. Her insights and advice are not just theoretical but are backed by years of hands-on experience in the field, from her foundational work at BI Scorecard, to her strategic role at ThoughtSpot, to advancing the industry by shaping the next generation of leaders. The lessons I learned from Cindi resonate with me every day in my current role as a Chief Product Officer. Her teachings on the importance of data-driven decision making, ruthless prioritization, the strategic use of analytics, and the cultivation deep relationships with customers continue to influence my work and interactions. If you get the chance to work with, partner with, or even get advice from her, I highly recommend you do so.”

“I have known and had the privilege of working periodically with Cindi for over 20 years. She is the best in the business with respect to Business Intelligence. I first got to know her when she was an independent industry analyst at BI Scorecard and we invited her to speak at the Italian Data Warehousing and BI Summit that we organised. She was a great speaker and meticulous in her preparation. As a data management person I struck up a great working relationship with Cindi who, with her expertise in BI, really complemented what i was doing. We then started a great partnership by doing a joint Analyst report together on Cloud Data Warehouse and Business Intelligence back at the beginning of the cloud analytics era in 2011/12 which was very well received in the market. Looking at where we are today, this was a truly pioneering report so early in cloud computing. Since then Cindi has gone on to shine both at Gartner as the lead analyst on BI tools establishing the Bake Off at Gartner events, holding vendors to account. It is not at all surprising as she took Gartner to the next level in her area of expertise. That leadership has continued at ThoughtSpot. She is a true visionary and leader in analytics and her Data Chief webcast has been widely acclaimed around the world. She is also a fantastic leader in Women in Data. I would have no hesitation in recommending Cindi to anyone or any organisation as a keynote speaker or strategic advisor.”

“Thinking about my days back at ThoughtSpot I always enjoyed our interactions and so did the clients because of three reasons. Your very high level of energy and openness that is opening the hearts and doors of the people. Your competence and experience that is leading to a strong level of credibility to master tough discussions with some of the most senior people in analytics. But most importantly your loyalty to data and the truth and insights that come with it.”

“Cindi was right on top of my shortlist of most desired key note speakers for the first ever Gurus Of BI (GOBI) conference in Oslo, Norway. I was very pleased when she accepted the offer. She fulfilled all expectations giving the key note address ‘Cool BI: emerging trends and innovations in BI’. Cindi’s overview and in-depth knowledge of everything that’s moving in the BI space is downright impressive. Feedback from the 400 strong audience of BI professionals was unanimously positive, and gave everyone new insights and ideas to bring back to their own BI environment. Cindi also provided a post-conference workshop themed ‘BI Market Update and How to Choose a Visual Data Discovery Tool’. Her contagious enthusiasm paired with solid BI tools analyses made this deep-dive session excellent value for money. Cindi gave substance to the term Gurus Of BI!”

“Cindi is one of the best BI analysts there is. Her business model is unique amongst analysts in the space in that she is the only one that actually uses and tests all the products she assesses. She has deep understanding of both end user needs, the relevant products and the market overall. Cindi takes very seriously her role of being a neutral and unbiased guide to BI end users.”

“I could have easily checked all of the above "Top Attributes" about Cindi. Actually, my business relationship and good fortune of tapping into her expertise dates back years previous to 2011 but we have worked closely on TDWI conferences in the last 18 months. I have seen firsthand what a great job Cindi does in educating and guiding professionals in the often confusing worlds of business intelligence and analytics. She is very smart, conscientious, and engaged in making projects a success. I highly recommend her.”

“Many technology analysts rely on vendor briefings as their primary source of information, but Cindi Howson writes her BIScorecard reports based on in-depth, hands-on testing of products. Cindi is focused strictly on business intelligence, so few (if any) can match her on knowledge of this category. She digs below the surface and asks tough questions. Most importantly, Cindi delivers solid product insight and advice that BI technology buyers can trust. As a professional, she's honest, forthright, prolific and a pleasure to know.”

“In may ways I believe Cindi's reputation proceeds her, but I thought I'd describe the specifics of our Business Intelligence situation for those interesting in leveraging her in a similar capacity. Our organization is relatively decentralized from a technology perscective, and has grown through numerous mergers and acquisitions, and as a result we have a large number of disparate business intelligence platforms throughout the enterprise (we have two of everything). More recently we have made attempts to "rationalize" the BI portfolio, but due to the history, those conversations were highly politicized as various groups were extremely vested in their selected technologies. In our attempts to rationalize, we used Cindi's BI scorecard as a model for creating our own evaluation criteria and assessment process, and I asked Cindi to work with the teams as we reviewed and compared products against that criteria. Since Cindi has such deep knowledge of the BI platform products and their functions and features, and since she has hands on experience with the vendor products, she immediately gained the respect of the hands-on experts in our discussions of rationalizing the BI products in our enterprise. Her engaging and collaborative personality was put to the test when she had to subtly and appropriately challenge people's perspectives in conversations about vendor products and capabilities, and I was impressed with her ability to navigate politically charged and sensitive topics with relative ease... Cindi is smart, engaging, and (in my opinion) extremely unbiased, and gets my strongest recommendation in the space.”

“In 2001, I recruited Cindi to teach a course with me titled "Evaluating BI Tools" because she performed hands-on evaluation of BI tools and I valued her detailed knowledge of various products. She eventually took over the instruction of the course herself and turned her knowledge of BI toolsets into a business, BIScorecard. Cindi is now well known in the industry as an analyst and consultant whose integrity and knowledge are unsurpassed. People respect Cindi's opinions because they are based on fact gleaned from extensive hands-on evaluations, a process that few other analysts undertake because it is time consuming and difficult to do. Cindi also gives her utmost to every project, going the extra mile to ensure that clients or students receive the highest value. She continually introduces new features in the classroom to ensure a high quality educational experience, including head-to-head vendor demos and real-time polling. She is also a published author, columnist, and frequent speaker at industry events.”

“I had the pleasure of working with Cindi for four years, when I was Analyst Relations at Cognos and Cindi was an independent consultant/analyst who covered us. Our work together included an exhaustive (not to mention exhausting!) product evaluation/review that Cindi did of our flagship product, Cognos 8 Business Intelligence, in the winter of 2005/2006. Cindi values personal and professional integrity highly, and it showed in her work. Cindi and Cognos didn't always agree on issues, but she was always open to objective discussion. Her work ethic was equally strong: her hands-on assessments of our products were thorough and details were never overlooked. I would highly recommend Cindi as an independent consultant/analyst.”