Founding The Data Lodge in 2019, Valerie is as committed to data literacy as it gets. With train-the-trainer bootcamps and a peer community, she’s certifying the world’s first Data Literacy Program Leads.

Previously, Valerie was a Gartner Research VP in the CDO team where she pioneered the Data Literacy research and was awarded Gartner’s Top Thought Leadership Award (2018). Valerie has more than 28 years of experience in consulting leadership and telecommunications.

Valerie holds a B.S. in Math (SUNY College, Buffalo) and an M.S. in Applied Math (New Mexico State). She lives between the Adirondacks in Upstate NY, and Sarasota, Florida with her husband Brian, and their yellow lab, Cooper, who also serves as the beloved Lodge mascot.

Steve is the Senior Director of Corporate Data & Advanced Analytics at Worthington Steel, headquartered in Columbus, Ohio. Steve is tasked with driving impactful analytics across the enterprise through strong collaboration, transformative project work and a strategic focus on education and empowerment, including the Data Literacy Initiative.

 
Prior to joining Worthington, Steve was a high school mathematics and physics teacher for 13 years, earned his PhD in Science Education from the Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago, Illinois, and later joined the faculty of Middle Tennessee State University.
 

Steve is a proud graduate of The Data Lodge’s Base Camp program.

Brent's career has taken him on a winding journey from pastoral ministry to data science and data literacy to people analytics. He completed his undergraduate degree in Preaching and Church Leadership at Johnson University in Knoxville, TN, followed by an MBA from the University of Tennessee and an MS in Predictive Analytics from Northwestern University.

Brent has performed analytics work within a number of different industries, including healthcare, supply chain, and services. He has been with Chick-fil-A for 8 years and is currently tasked with building a People Analytics function, after having served as an analytics practitioner and a Data Literacy Program Lead for several years.

Brent has been married to his wife, Brittany, for 15 years, and they have 7 children that keep them on their toes. Brent's passion is to help others discover and become the best versions of themselves, and today, he gets to use data and analytics to help Chick-fil-A do that at scale!

Heather has 20 years of experience in the Financial Services industry at Volkswagen Financial Services thru multitudes of data and analytics positions and business units. She is passionate about data literacy and bringing data insights to action to drive strategy and success. She specializes in leading and building analytics organizations and establishing culture and community of analytic experts and their value proposition.

Heather holds a B.S. in Finance. She received her Data Literacy Program Lead Certification from The Data Lodge in October 2023 and is one of the "First 50" Data Literacy Pioneers in the program.

She lives in the North Shore Suburbs of Chicago with her husband, Chris, son, Ethan and their two boxers, Cocoa and Ferris. The beach/water are her Happy and Zen space, loves live music and is an avid Formula 1 Fan - the strategy and analytics behind each race had her at "It's Lights Out"!