Group 1001’s Gu Xie Is Leading the Organization to Be Data Centric in Decision Making

Gu Xie, Head of Data Engineering for Group 1001, is already making huge waves as he approaches one year on the job, leading the transformation of the organization to become data-centric. Gu built an innovative platform from the ground up, focused on new capabilities and data to enable analytic outcomes and empower teams.

“We’re working hard to win the hearts and minds of users to enable their business outcomes with data at the forefront,” Gu said. “Whatever they didn’t have before, we can enable for them. Decisions are no longer made by a gut feeling. Data is driving the decisions. You would expect this in high-tech companies, but now it’s also for our insurance companies.”

Gu’s goal is to use a modern data stack, which is a collection of tools and cloud data technologies used to process, store, and analyze data, to provide Group 1001 teams with the ability to deliver insights.

Gu utilizes his management information systems degree and 10+ years of experience at PIMCO, consulting, and now Group 1001, to lead the industry. He has quickly become a subject-matter expert when it comes to the modern data stack. He has been featured on numerous podcasts and panels on how to gain velocity with minimal upfront investment and how productivity is increased with his modern data stack. Less troubleshooting equals more time for new insights.

“Since I’ve built this platform, I’ve seen the development cycle go from six to three months down to two weeks,” Gu said. “That’s incredibly empowering for an organization. We’re spending less time figuring out how to acquire data and more time analyzing and creating value for users. Knowing what tool to use for specific purposes allows us to meet our goals more quickly.”

A recent success included a partnership with Gainbridge’s Vice President of Marketing, Adam Harrington. Gu was able to access different data sets to show digital marketing spending versus overall sales revenue and customer acquisition. The process took about two weeks to produce the MVP view of Gainbridge’s digital landscape, the pace of the sales cycle, and unique key performance indicators to add increased insights into the customer.

Gu was also the first presenter for a new IT Enterprise Architecture internal series, Tech Talk. The purpose was to educate, empower, and connect business and technology members. Gu presented about scaling data analytics with Snowflake, with 65 participants, and had great feedback.

Gu’s next opportunity is expanding these services to the entire organization. With a team of four, they are deciphering how to deliver these valuable tools and apply these capabilities across different business groups.

“I’m excited to see inklings of our work popping up,” Gu said. “It’s great working with various business operations to increase visibility. So how do we expand and deliver these tools so other teams can benefit from the R&D we’ve done and enable the organization to apply these capabilities across the board? It’s a great opportunity.”