Marc Peelman

“Because every colleague is ‘on board‘, we realized the new data strategy unusually quickly”

The National Bank of Belgium, an essential organization in Belgian society, is in the middle of a transition in becoming a data-driven organization. The driving force of that revolution: Chief Data Officer Marc Peelman. An experienced CDO with the heart of a coach.

What does inspiring & coaching leadership mean to Marc?

“By assuming a coordinating role, I succeed in turning a top-down decision – the choice for data-driven working – into a bottom-up participatory process. That makes the challenges achievable. Within the National Bank, the data maturity of the employees is very diverse and we have hierarchical structures that we have to decouple from the logic of the data value chain.

I attribute the fact that we realized a completely new data governance in a short time to the coaching way in which I lead the project: I ensure that employees feel part of the whole. I let them, in a way that suits the person, seek out and push their boundaries, and congratulate them on the results they’re achieving. In this way, their ambition grows and they become more autonomous in finding solutions.”

Which personal achievements is Marc most proud of?

“My deep focuses are transversal stakeholder management and strong communication. For me, these are the keys to involving all National Bank employees in a major change project like the new data strategy.

As a result, it was possible within a year to shape the new governance structure, to finalize the new data and information architecture and to make the strategy concrete. We work in small, agile teams and each employee clearly sees what his/her work contributes to. Because we literally involve everyone and respect the ‘elasticity‘ of each colleague, we were able to get this done in an unusually short period of time for this organization.”