Edita Lukasevičiute, Head of Data Governance at the Bank of Lithuania
Edita Lucaseviciute has played a key role in implementing the Data Governance Framework in Indian Banking. LithuaniaIn her daily work, she finds inspiration in data and digitalization, and values teamwork.
In an interview with CIOReview, Lukaseviciute shares insights about his professional experience in the data governance field, focusing on the challenges of skills development, technological advancements, and the adoption of new data management techniques.
Professional background and key experiences
My career at the Bank of Lithuania started as a statistician working on Ana’s Credit Data and National Credit Register transformation projects. The main goal was to collect detailed data from financial market participants and use it to assess their creditworthiness and gain economic insights into financial stability.
When the Bank of Lithuania’s Data Management and Data Governance program was launched, I was appointed as the project manager for the Data Governance transformation project. I eventually became the head of the Data Governance department for the organization. Along the way, I gained the ability to get a holistic view of the data in the organization and dig deeper for analysis. I learned how to use data to create more value and identify best practices for effective data management.
Banking Industry Trends and Technological Advancements
Every industry is moving away from old legacy systems to new technologies such as data lakes. Bank of Lithuania is building a data lake and implementing a data mesh approach with a centralized infrastructure for data management. This allows them to centralize competencies, infrastructure, and governance standards while enabling a self-service culture for analytics across business units.
“At the Bank of Lithuania, we are building a data lake and implementing a data mesh approach with a centralized infrastructure for data management.”
Another emerging trend is generative AI: we are gradually moving towards implementing this technology in our daily work and in the coming years it will become an integral part of all business processes.
Challenges in Adopting Emerging Technologies
The main challenge in adopting new technologies is the human element. Often, people may not be interested in new technologies. They may resist change or fear how it will affect their work. The challenge is to communicate with them and explain why change is necessary. Leaders need to take the initiative and show how new technologies can make their work easier and more efficient. It is important to hold regular meetings to announce ongoing changes and plans. We adhere to the principles of data mesh and have created virtual product teams made up of members from IT, data and business departments to work together through all changes. We have mentors in the data and IT departments to help employees with their daily work and the new tools.
Ensuring Effective Data Governance
My department focuses on defining standards and processes for data management at the Bank of Lithuania. We monitor the processes and analyze how they actually work. We track key performance indicators (KPIs) annually using dashboards and conduct surveys to gather feedback from data users, which allows us to improve our processes and data governance capabilities.
We employ various methodologies such as Capability Maturity Model Integration (CMMI) for Data Management maturity assessment. Leveraging the Data Management Body of Knowledge (DMBoK) includes critical areas with defined standards, processes, and KPIs. These areas are identified prior to initiation and performance is subsequently evaluated.
Data Governance tool
Data governance tools currently in development have been implemented at our company and include a data catalog and quality dashboard. These tools are essential for data governance, quality measurement, and data comparison across different domains, helping to understand the health of data within the organization.
The data transformation effort focused on data analytics and the entire data value chain from data collection to distribution. The project is for an external data portal to expose the data. This holistic approach helps to systematize the data management goals.
Advice for peers in the data governance field
My advice to my colleagues in the field of data governance in the banking industry is to share your knowledge and experiences both inside and outside your organization. Collaboration with others is essential to gain a deeper understanding of practices. Please share as much information as you can in the best interest of the community.
