Andrew Bittner
BU President and GM, Data Analytics Group
Taylor
Andrew Bittner is a 17-year veteran at Taylor Corporation, a place that rewards risk taking and curiosity. He started off as a part-time customer service rep in college, and a meandering path gave him the opportunity to start and grow the data analytics operation at Taylor Corporation.
Andrew is an alumni of Minnesota State University and the University of Notre Dame, and enjoys cheering on their hockey and football teams, respectively. He and his wife, Mary, have six children (four boys, two girls, ages 6 to 18).
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Give us a brief overview of the path that led to your current role.
Taylor is an employer that places a high emphasis upon developing internal employees. I am very much a beneficiary of that approach. I went from being a customer service rep, to getting a chance to do manufacturing quality control, to being a supply chain analyst (where my boss bought me books, so I could teach myself to program).
I then had a chance to move into various leadership roles as a finance director and then a supply chain management director. In 2015, though I'd been in various roles where I'd done analytics, I got my first analytics role, performing BI development to support due diligence and integration efforts on the acquisition of our next largest competitor.
From there, we started our first data warehousing team in 2017, and then in 2019, we started a business intelligence and data science team. In 2023, I merged these teams with our customer-facing data service companies to form the Data Analytics Group, which I now oversee.
What is one of your guiding leadership principles?
Accountability is proportionate to empowerment; empowerment is proportionate to accountability. Additional resources need to be received with an understanding of the increased expectations that come with them.
Increased expectations should be accompanied with the resources necessary to fulfill them. When resources and expectations are out of alignment, that misalignment needs to be communicated openly, and one or the other needs to be reset. This principle applies for manager-to-employee, employee-to-manager, and leader-to-leader, etc.
What is the greatest challenge your particular C-level role is facing today, and how are you addressing it?
We are at a key inflection point in our strategic data analytics team growth here at Taylor. We have increased our data professional staff count from about 15 to 40 in the last four years.
Given some of the extrinsic macroeconomic challenges we face, namely with clients in the retail industry, we are having to shift toward a much more modest growth approach than before. We are spending extensive time in validating the financial impact of applications we have built or are building (to the extent of hiring an in-house finance director); and are having to persuade other executive leaders of not only the inevitability of GenAI fundamentally shifting our markets, but then also our need to invest in staffing and software to keep pace.
What is the key to success for someone just starting out in your C-level role?
The key to success is to practice what you preach: have a clear measurement for success and stick to it. Namely, financial monitoring of value is essential. Clearly identify how you will financially monitor all key initiatives.
Some projects have clear revenue growth and cost savings you can tie to them, but many (or most) do not. Figure out what financial measuring makes sense, and what other clearly defined qualitative benefits are derived from a given effort. Ensure agreement with your funders that these are the right measures of success, and that hitting certain thresholds or levels on those metrics will be equated with success. Then make sure you are consistently updating those measurements.
How do you measure success as a leader?
A successful leader provides clearly demonstrable organizational value from the function or team they lead. A true leader does this by clearly defining success, building a culture capable of attaining that standard and bringing the best of their team members to achieve those goals.
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