GreenBook Future List Honoree Beth Rogers Shares Her Inspiration

Outside of insights, what are your passions and interests?

I am committed to inspiring students, especially young women, to pursue STEM careers. To support this commitment, I am involved in the Kentucky Girls STEM Collaborative, for 6 years I have been a Marine Science Super Saturdays 3rd and 4th-grade teacher at Western Kentucky University, am an active member of the Bowling Green Junior Woman’s Club, and train people in the community to SCUBA dive as a certified instructor.

The WKU Super Saturdays program is orchestrated by The Center for Gifted Studies at WKU. It is a great way for 1st through 8th-grade students in our community and surrounding communities to take classes on a topic that they are highly interested in outside of their regular class curriculum.

I started teaching Super Saturdays Marine Science classes during grad school at WKU. Through this program, it is amazing to have the opportunity to teach young students about the ocean and STEM careers. Many of them have never been to the ocean and when I am teaching them about it, it’s like introducing them to a whole other world. It’s such a dream to know that I have the opportunity to make an impact on students and be a part of their journey.

Additionally, I regularly speak to students about my unique STEM career journey at local elementary, middle, and high schools and universities.

 

Who is your career role model or source of inspiration?

Dr. Angela Shiflet. She was a professor and the department head of Computer Science at my undergraduate alma mater, Wofford College. She encouraged me to pursue an emphasis in computational science after understanding my interests in math and science. She was a strong advocate for women in computer science fields and helped instill the confidence I needed to take my first computer programming courses. Her guidance and faith in me are just what I needed to spark my career journey and inspired me to mentor students and professionals to help them find fulfilling and rewarding careers and interests.

 

If you could go back in time to when you first started your career, what advice would you give to your younger self?

Follow your instincts, trust yourself, be confident and go for your dreams.

Always be persistent, tenacious, and take the initiative to seek out opportunities and mentors when you are following your career goals and trying to be successful.

 

Be flexible and ready to adapt to different challenges because many of those challenges may be a blessing in disguise.

Do not be afraid to go for opportunities that are outside of your comfort zone because those can lead to the most personal and professional growth.

If you become a leader, be a servant leader and the kind of leader you would want to follow.

Be ready to help others: see the need, seize the opportunity and serve without expecting anything in return.

 

What advice do you have for folks hoping to start a career in insights?

Data Science insights field, it is so important to have foundational knowledge in applied mathematics, statistics, data analytics and visualization, machine learning and computer science or data engineering. Next, build upon that foundational knowledge by applying your learnings to real world examples through an internship or university program. Additionally, one of the most important keys to success in an insights career field, is be able to communicate and present complex results to cross-functional teams in a clear, succinct manner that helps team understand exactly how to act upon those results to lead to successful data-driven decision-making. "}" data-sheets-userformat="{"2":769,"3":{"1":0},"11":4,"12":0}">For people interested in the Data Science insights field, it is so important to have foundational knowledge in applied mathematics, statistics, data analytics and visualization, machine learning and computer science or data engineering.

Next, build upon that foundational knowledge by applying your learnings to real-world examples through an internship or university program. Additionally, one of the most important keys to success in an insights career field, is be able to communicate and present complex results to cross-functional teams in a clear, succinct manner that helps team understand exactly how to act upon those results to lead to successful data-driven decision-making.

 

What do you think the key characteristics or qualities of a leader are? How does this play into MRX?

Honesty, transparency, and trust are all highly important qualities of a leader. A large part of my team’s success depends on collaborative teamwork and gaining trust from our business partners to act on our results. To gain trust, we must spend time listening and learning from our business partners and understand how to communicate our results effectively in a clear, concise manner. As a manger, I have my team participate in daily standup meetings and monthly retrospectives to make sure everyone is informed on our current projects and has the chance to add their input on ways to continually improve our processes. Additionally, a leader must focus on creating a collaborative and inclusive team culture. Building collaborative partnerships with other departments and teams in the company is imperative to my team’s purpose of fostering data-driven decision-making.

As a leader, I’m incredibly motivated to continually learning new business knowledge and increasing the business knowledge acumen of my team so we can better understand the needs of our partners and develop insights that they can easily act upon. In terms of my team, I have always been mindful of creating and evolving an authentic team culture where everyone feels comfortable expressing their opinions and ideas, understands their purpose and impact and they have opportunities to continually learn and have fun. By investing in this type of culture, we have created a highly productive and efficient team that supports each other and has a passion for helping the company be as successful as possible.

 

Where do you see the future of insights heading in the next 10 years?

As cloud data architecture continues to evolve, it will continue to be quicker, easier, and cheaper for companies to collect, store, and compute data. The need for data analysts, data engineers, data scientists, data translators, and cybersecurity and data governance professionals will continue to grow as more and more companies understand how to harness the power of data insights to drive major business initiatives.

Business professionals across organizations will need to have high analytical acumen to be able to make quick, informed decisions with real-time or near real-time insights. As insights professionals, we must be ready to quickly adapt to new technology and help drive the data strategy for our organizations to take full advantage of this continued data evolution.