51: Data Renovations with Liz Crowe

Imagine your organization is a house. The tech stack is the pipes in the house, and the data is the water that flows through the house. When building a house, there are lots of things to take into account to build a successful plumbing system. The same goes for data - your tech stack needs to be correctly accepting the data from the business process that feeds it, you need to size the pipes adequately to allow the data to flow from point A to point B, and you need to have the right tools on the backend to get the water out of the pipes and make the water usable and palatable. 

Come listen in as Liz Crowe talks through her insightful analogy between data flow in an organization and plumbing in a house, and what she's doing to revamp the city's data analytics. She talks through barriers, lessons learned and the goals she hopes to achieve. 

Liz Crowe joined in the City in August 2022 as the Director, Urban Analytics & Innovation (Urban AI). She is responsible for championing the use of data and modern data analysis, visualizations, and storytelling to provide a much more engaged approach to performance improvement and change management. Liz is an economist and researcher, who is passionate about civic tech, data and the possibilities they hold for Cleveland. An experienced data manager, she has years of experience in economic development, nonprofit management, venture capital, and the private equity industry.

Most recently, Liz served as Principal of Data Governance & Analytics at JumpStart, Inc. Prior to joining JumpStart, Liz worked as a Research Associate at the Urban Institute in Washington, D.C. where she conducted primary research on the role of government programs and private organizations in supporting low-income families in the U.S. Topics included, cash and in-kind assistance programs, the U.S. social safety net, poverty, inequality and social policy. Liz also worked at the Congressional Research Service at the U.S. Library of Congress, where she provided nonpartisan research assistance to members of Congress and their staff.

Liz has a Ph.D. in Public Administration and Policy from the School of Public Affairs at American University, as well as Master of Arts from the Department of Economics at American University.