The New Data Leader Playbook: How to Win the First 90 Days
Hiring your first Head of Data? Their first 90 days decide if they drive ROI or drown in dashboards. Here’s the executive playbook to set them up for success.
Ali Z.
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CEO @ aztela
Table of Contents
If your new Head of Data spends their first 90 days building dashboards, you didn’t hire a leader. You hired an expensive analyst.
I see it again and again in mid-market firms:
A shiny new “Head of Data” starts.
They inherit a backlog of reporting requests.
They spend months firefighting pipelines and chasing ad hoc asks.
By month six, the CFO is asking: “What did we actually get for this hire?”
By then, it’s too late.
The first 90 days are make-or-break. Done right, your Head of Data becomes a strategic partner who drives revenue, compliance, and trust. Done wrong, they become a very expensive backlog manager.
This playbook shows you how to set them — and your organization — up for success.
Step 1: Align on Business Outcomes (Not Tools)
The first question every new data leader must ask:
“What outcomes are we driving with data?”
If your CEO, CFO, and COO can’t answer that, your Head of Data is doomed to chase tasks instead of delivering outcomes.
Examples of alignment:
CFO → Improve financial reporting accuracy for board audits.
COO → Streamline supply chain forecasting.
CRO → Increase sales productivity with cleaner pipeline data.
Tie this to governance: if you don’t align on outcomes early, you’ll later struggle with consistent definitions of “margin” or “customer” across teams.
Step 2: Deliver One Quick Win in 90 Days
You don’t prove value by boiling the ocean. You prove it with one critical win.
The mistake most Heads of Data make is trying to solve everything at once. Six months in, nothing is finished. Trust erodes.
Instead:
Pick one high-stakes problem (revenue reconciliation, compliance reporting, pipeline accuracy).
Deliver in 60–90 days. Speed matters as much as outcome.
Show ROI, not dashboards. Example: “This reporting fix reduced manual reconciliation time by 50 hours per month.”
That win buys trust and runway. It’s the difference between being seen as overhead and being seen as essential.
Step 3: Kill the Backlog
Your new Head of Data isn’t a help desk.
If they spend their first 90 days drowning in ad hoc requests, they’ll never escape.
How to fix it:
Say “no” or “not now.” 80% of dashboard requests deliver little value.
Push to self-service. Give Marketing its own sandbox.
Enforce prioritization. Every request must rank against business outcomes.
Without prioritization, even the best hire will drown.
(See also: Why BI Dashboards Fail Adoption)
Step 4: Establish Core Definitions
Here’s why board decks fall apart:
Sales says one ARR number.
Finance says another.
Marketing has a third definition of “customer.”
This isn’t a tech problem. It’s a governance problem.
Your new Head of Data must:
Define and document 3–5 core metrics (revenue, margin, pipeline, churn).
Enforce ownership (Finance owns finance data, Sales owns pipeline data).
Communicate definitions company-wide.
Without this, no dashboard will ever be trusted.
Step 5: Set Org Model & Ownership
Where the data leader sits matters.
If they report to IT, they become ticket-takers.
If they report to Finance, they stay narrow.
If they report to the COO, they align across business operations.
The best model for mid-market? A hybrid:
Business leaders own accuracy (Sales = pipeline, Finance = margin).
Data leader + stewards enforce definitions, lineage, and governance.
This prevents endless finger-pointing and makes accountability real.
(See also: Where Should the Data Team Report?)
Step 6: Communicate in Exec Language
Dashboards don’t win budget. ROI does.
If your Head of Data shows charts to the CFO, they lose. If they show financial impact, they win.
Examples:
“This work saved $500,000 in revenue leakage.”
“This change reduced compliance risk by 80%.”
“This initiative eliminated 40 hours of manual work per month.”
Every project must tie to revenue, risk, or efficiency.
Step 7: Build a Repeatable Playbook
The final step in the first 90 days: don’t just win once. Build a framework to win again and again.
That means:
A system for prioritizing requests.
A governance model with ownership.
A communications rhythm with executives.
A 12-month roadmap aligned to outcomes.
Without this, your Head of Data defaults back to firefighting.
The Blunt Truth
Your new Head of Data doesn’t need to build a platform in year one. They don’t need 100 dashboards.
They need to:
Align with business outcomes.
Deliver one critical win.
Kill the backlog.
Set standards.
Prove ROI.
The first 90 days decide whether they become a strategist — or just another backlog manager. Don’t let your investment get wasted.
Schedule a Data Strategy Assessment and make sure your new data leader succeeds from day one.
