Ahead in the Cloud: Colleen Camuccio of Dow Jones

In our latest “Ahead in the Cloud” post featuring Colleen Camuccio, VP of Program Management at Dow Jones, she explains how the AWS Cloud has helped transform and optimize their customer data platform program, which she directs. Now, she’s looking ahead to more innovation and business value for Dow Jones, leveraging the cloud. As if that wasn’t a big enough job, Colleen starts her day at 5am to make time for health, and her family.

Let’s hear from Colleen about her twin penguin toys, named Truth and Justice:

Mark 

What’s the coolest thing you’re working on?

I am the program director for our Customer Data Platform Program.  We have built the foundation of our platform using AWS technology and filled our Data Lake with terabytes of data that is cleaned, cataloged, and ready for mining and machine learning. We are now building out an analytics sandbox using S3, Jupyter notebook instances, and SageMaker. Our users are eager to comb their fingers through the data and start curating their own insights. Once this project is complete, we are going to run a company wide hackathon and let users loose on the data to see what they can come up with.

Where do you see yourself in 3 years?

At some point the Customer Data Platform will be considered built and will no longer be a program. The platform will become part of everyone’s day to day jobs. Once that happens, I would like to shift my focus to finding new and exciting ways to use the platform to power our business. This could be opportunities to build new technology to generate more data or better data. This could also be feeding data into new technology to improve the customer experience.

Share someone who has been a mentor to you along the way, and the best lesson you learned from them.

In my 13 years at Dow Jones, my current manager has been the most influential presence in my career. He has been a great mentor for the past 8 years. He has taught me so much about leadership.

What’s your favorite Amazon leadership principle and why?

Dive Deep: Leaders operate at all levels, stay connected to the details, audit frequently, and are skeptical when metrics and anecdote differ. No task is beneath them.

Very early on in my career I only managed people that had performed tasks that I had performed in the past. It was the easiest way for me to manage. Since then I have moved on to manage those who can perform tasks that I cannot perform, but I still show my team that I am not afraid to roll up my sleeves and get down into the weeds if that is what is needed to be successful. I prefer to lead by example.

How do you learn about new technology and its potential impact on your business?

I love to read, so I read everything I can get my hands on, but my favorite way to learn about new technology is to sit and ask questions while I draw on a whiteboard. It is the best way for me to grasp how the technology works and how it could fit into our ecosystem.

How do you decide on where to prioritize your technology investments?

I am a business person that trends very technical, so I still look at everything with a business focused lens. I always look at technology investments from the perspective of the value it can bring to the business. But a close second for me, is the value to the broader Dow Jones community.It is exciting to introduce new technologies that make a person’s job easier or give them an opportunity to learn something new and round out their resume.

How do you think about the organizational impacts of adopting new types of technologies?

Change management is very important and yet very tricky. New technology can be very exciting, but can also be very scary. People may worry about job security and have a fear of the unknown. So when trying to map out organizational change, it is important to view the messaging from both sides of the coin.

What’s the most interesting thing on your desk right now?

There are 2 penguins on my desk. One is the penguin of truth and one is the penguin of justice. They are bizarre, yet effective, mascots for the Customer Data team.

What does your morning routine look like?

My morning starts at 5am with a quick browse through my email from the night before and a trip to the gym. After getting ready, I wake my 3 kids and head straight to the kitchen to prepare breakfast and dinner for that night. Over breakfast I get a quick glimpse into the lives of elementary school children before we are all rushed out the door for school. Then I stop at Wawa for a cup of coffee and enjoy a peaceful, kid free, hour commute into the office where I will take the occasional conference call.

What are your top 3 book recommendations (personal or professional)?

I’m Feeling Lucky: The Confessions of Google Employee Number 59. this book is what first piqued my interest in the cloud space.

Big Little Lies: This book was a just a fun read for a sunny beach vacation.

Don’t Let the Pigeon Ride the Bus: As a parent I have book recommendations for myself as well as my kids. This is a personal favorite as it generates a lot of interaction with the reader.

What’s your favorite failure?

On International Women’s day I decided to try and start a social media campaign to drive excitement about our girl’s sports program.  I sent out emails and made multiple posts on various social media platforms asking people to post pictures of their fierce daughters doing what they do best. I encouraged users to post with #wbatoughgirls to drive recognition to our organization. Throughout the day I check and I only got 1 post. While probably the most failed social media campaign of all time, I am using it to fuel my desire to be bigger and better next year!