ind out how Neto is leading his team and company through this period of digital transformation. His approach to leadership is underpinned by his desire for data to be accessible, digestible and transformational. Inside Retail: Can you outline your role and responsibilities as vice president of global analytics at Capri Holdings? Manuel Neto: I think there are layers to my role. There’s the layer of ensuring that everybody gets the data they need and how they need it – and what I call the element of intelligence on top of it. For me, it’s no longer enough to feed data, I need to make sure people understand what the data is telling you. The second layer is leading all the systems on the back end to enable the existence of data, so before you even think about it, the data will be there for you. Then I think the third element is to ensure there’s security and protection.  We’ve been on a big journey quite recently to make sure my role expands into understanding our consumers very intimately, and then our products that they navigate and gravitate towards as well.  IR: In previous interviews, you have alluded to the need for a shift in ‘data culture’. Could you elaborate on what you meant by this? MN: When you have an environment that understands the importance of data, not as numbers, but as a change, a driver of change, an enabler of strategic decisions, and not only to decide but to act on them, it becomes the most powerful thing you can ever do. I think a lot of companies and places stop at, ‘There’s the data, now you go make sense of it and do whatever you want’. But what about the element of, are you deciding on it? And if you really decide on it, are you really driving actions on top of those decisions?  Shifting the data culture starts with those uncomfortable conversations, because data is not unicorns, fairies and rainbows all the time, right? Sometimes you’ll be like, ‘Oh my god, sales are great’, everyone’s happy, or ‘Oh my god, sales are terrible’, who do you blame?  So, embrace the uncomfortable, embrace the difficult conversations that may happen and make it part of your day. Management is key, and that’s what a data culture is: where everyone has access to information and the intelligence the data enables. But it goes beyond the numbers – it creates a level of comfort where you understand, you decide, you act, and you know that it’s OK when the data is telling you a story that you’re not happy with. IR: As Michael Kors’ global VP of analytics, how are you leading your team and company through this era of digital transformation? MN: We embarked on a three-year journey of transformation. I think everyone wanted to jump really quickly towards the AI kind of train, but we realized that we first needed to make sure we were utilizing what we had in-house the best that we could – which is what we did.  So year one, we were very heavily focused on, ‘Let’s make sure everybody understands all the data that we have available today and what it means for us.’ So, it was a whole educational kind of road to show everybody, ‘No, you don’t need this, the data exists already and here is what it says.’ [It involved] translating [the data] to an aggregation of systems, understanding of KPIs, how to report success, so everyone’s speaking the same language.  Then, year two became an evolution of identifying the gaps in information that we don’t have. Here’s the information that could augment our decision-making. That’s when we started thinking about our blind spots that could make us even smarter around our decisions. We brought in a bunch of transformational efforts, innovation and more heat-mapping tools – it was a humongous year for us.  The third year, which is just ending, has been a year of change management and adoption. So now we have all these tools, we have all this powerful information, it’s all well structured and it’s democratized – it’s on everyone’s phone that makes sure everyone can have access to all the data they need, so it’s easy. Now, how are you driving the change based on that information?  So, my journey for this year has been to ensure that every single person is making use of that [data] and also that it drives the decision-making process. So it didn’t happen in a year. We really had to make hard decisions to take a step back when everyone in the industry was just going crazy for AI – I was like, ‘No, we’re not going to be one of those.’ Yes, we’re going to use them, but first, we need to make sure the whole company’s ready to use them, otherwise it just becomes a waste. IR: You sometimes have to collaborate with and report to people who don’t have the same understanding of analytics as yourself. How do you work or communicate to bridge that gap? MN: There’s a thing I call ‘bridge sessions’ and it has helped me throughout my entire career. With bridge sessions, I sit down with every single department on a frequent basis to understand how they operate without me. As in, ‘Walk me through the decision-making to launch a new product, to create a new campaign’ – and I’m able to at least get a framework of the steps that they take to land on their final decision, their final product or their final campaign.  Then, I take a step back and say, ‘OK, they’re thinking about this particular product, and they’re confused, should it be yellow or blue?’ I can help with that. I can go ask my consumers because I have a panel of consumers worldwide. Instead of coming in with that aggressiveness that sometimes data can create, I insert the opportunity to augment their decision-making. And the second element of it [is that it] allows me to contextualize their universes better, so I don’t have just jargon or analytics – I can talk their language. So the interpretation of those elements of data becomes so much easier. Also, you can put some memes and jokes here and there, it makes it easier for them to understand. IR: How are you approaching motivating your team and company to learn about and invest in new technological advancements? MN: When the economy is challenging, I think the first thing people think of is marketing and data. What I’ve been able to do, thanks to my peers and thanks to my team particularly, is show the power of information that could be unlocked but most importantly, what it would do if we didn’t have access to that information.  So when we are talking about tools like mix modeling, heat-mapping tools, research labs, they were all tools that got rejected originally when I put them in the budget planning process. So I had to do a mini road show with the approach of, ‘Look, you’re cutting budget towards this, here are the challenges that it could create for us. You could be moving away from your consumer, your ad dollars are going to be potentially wasted and if you don’t know what channels are selling, then you don’t know where your consumers are going, their pain points and [why] they’re dropping off of your website.’  The resolution of what we would lose if we didn’t invest [in these tools] has been really helpful for me, particularly in times when we have no budget. I normally forecast for every single project, I put a forecast out of, ‘If you give me $10, here’s the expected qualitative returns, efficiency building, and what it means for us.’  And I should say, every time I’ve forecasted one of these big innovations that we launched last year, the return has come back four or six months earlier. So it’s been very fun to see that track record. IR: Finally, what is it like being an analyst in the primarily creative industry of fashion? MN: Data is creative, I could draw with data and spend hours making a movie, but it, too, has faults. I’ve always been somebody – and as a data person, it’s going to sound bananas – [who believes that] 90 per cent should be data but you should still always trust your peers with years of experience.  Who am I to say to someone who has 30 years of experience they should not leverage their gut? So always trust your gut but verify with data. Then when you land in an environment where it’s so fashionable, it’s so creative, it’s so luxurious and where data sometimes is completely void or it doesn’t have a space just yet, it is a little bit of a challenge. But I will say, the last three years have been so transformational. I have senior people who are creating products coming to me and being like, ‘Manny, can you please help me verify with our consumers? What bags would they like? What color would they prefer? What price points would they like? What would they eventually gravitate towards more?’  It’s very rewarding, honestly, career-wise, but also rewarding from the perspective of seeing how the companies adopt the data culture elements of it. We’re not here to go against you, we are here to help you make better decisions, empower you and augment the decision.  So, it’s a very interesting eye-opening experience I never had before, and seeing how they are now elements of data in almost every single area of the company is very rewarding. Further reading: What Dario Vitale’s appointment means for Versace