Who is David?
David currently works as a Data Quality Specialist/Senior Assistant Manager in the Data Governance Division at Security Bank Corporation, one of the top commercial banks in the Philippines. He graduated from the Polytechnic University of the Philippines with a degree in Industrial Engineering in 2018.
What do you do?
As a Data Quality Specialist, my job is to help make sure that any data that’s essential to the bank’s operations is consistent and accurate across the whole bank. If my team discovers any problems with data quality, we investigate and resolve them.
Take mobile numbers as an example. Whenever someone opens a bank account, they need to tell us their mobile number. This is a type of data that’s important to the bank, so ideally, we want all the numbers to follow the same format.
Data governance teams set rules like “a mobile number must have 11 digits, start with 09, and not have spaces or dashes” and ask the bank employees to follow these rules so that the data is consistent.
Data quality teams then check on the quality of the data that’s entered into our systems. For example, if we notice that mobile numbers are only being entered correctly 95% of the time, that’s a problem and we try to figure out why – maybe there’s a problem with a branch of the bank, which isn’t properly onboarding their new employees.
Maintaining the quality of our data is especially important when it’s the type of data that might be used by our data analysts and scientists to come up with insights that affect our bottom line. If our data isn’t up to our quality standards, they’ll have to spend extra time cleaning the data instead of, say, discovering ways for the bank to make more profit.
Can you share a project of yours that you are most proud of?
When I worked at Globe Telecom after graduation, we had this initiative called the “Hub and Spoke Model” which I am most proud of. In data management, the Hub and Spoke Model is a way to organize data that allows banks to better manage the quality of their data across all their branches and systems.
In this model, data is collected and stored in a central location (the hub), and then distributed to various other locations (the spokes) as needed. This system makes it easy for data governance teams like ours to maintain the quality of the data while giving other parts of the bank easy access to the data when they need it.
So for example, if a customer updates their address, this information would be updated in our Hub which would then send this information to any relevant systems or departments that need it, such as the bank's billing department or payroll team.
When I came to Security Bank, I was able to bring this experience of setting up a Hub and Spoke model to the data governance team, and it has been a real success.
How did you land your job?
After I worked at Globe, I actually applied for a financial services company, IQ-EQ Philippines, but only stayed for about six to eight months. When Security Bank messaged me through LinkedIn that they were looking for someone with experience in data governance, I transferred there.
Can you share more about your background?
I live in Las Piñas City and studied here until high school. After I graduated high school, I was already thinking about a job that could financially support our family. I was advised to take up any 5-year degree so I can go abroad after graduation. The way I chose my degree was I got a dictionary and looked up all the definitions of majors/courses related to engineering and ended up liking Industrial Engineering the most.
In college, I joined student organizations since I enjoy socializing. I became the Vice President for Marketing of the Philippine Institute of Industrial Engineers - National Student Chapter.
It helped me land my first job and a cadetship program with Globe since I was able to talk with their HR at that time when we were looking for sponsorships for our organization’s events. The training that I received through Globe made me love data governance and I am thankful that I got in the data space as an Industrial Engineer.
Could someone with a different background do your job?
Yes, it is possible because data governance is not rocket science. It’s just that the scope is enterprise-wide. Unlike most jobs where you are limited to a specific business unit, working in data management requires you to see the bigger picture.
What I usually tell anyone interested in data governance is to check DAMA International (the central organization that handles data management) and the DMBoK (Data Management Body of Knowledge) for reference on concepts in managing data.
What do you love the most about your job?
The best thing about data governance is connecting with people. As a data governance team, we provide the framework for data quality governance but we also talk to people and see their perspectives on various things in life. Through that, we are able to see more of the bigger picture and the root cause of the problem in the data. Then, there is a sense of achievement once we resolve the problem and see that consumers are happy with the improvement.
What part of your job do you consider difficult?
I think one challenge is when you appear too kind or helpful, there is a tendency that you become just a “follower of orders.” There is a need for you to emphasize that the data consumers, owners, and others also play an important role in the data life cycle, and that they also have a responsibility over their data and not just you as a data specialist.
There are also times that you get too much workload and it becomes difficult to distinguish what should be the priorities. This is where the importance of properly managing your time without overworking comes in.
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