2023 Women Leaders in Technology: Danielle Beringer

Danielle is an enterprise technology executive and data integration strategist driving high-performance agile teams to deliver business value. Her career emphasis over the last 25 years is application development, holistic data management, next-generation analytics, enterprise data literacy, Artificial Intelligence/Machine Learning innovation and cloud modernization. She is presently a Managing Director in the KPMG Lighthouse Engineering organization, focused on the Modern Data Platform, positioning data and analytics services with clients, and expanding data-related alliances.

Danielle's commitment to advancing data accessibility and collaboration at scale is based on successfully unifying business and information systems to work in union on strategic data initiatives. Her prior role as Regional Data Officer for Nissan North America has given momentum to her consulting career, with data literacy & digital fluency at the core.

What has been the biggest factor in your success so far?

The most important factor in my success has been the progressive evolution and growth from my early career as a programmer to enterprise architecture, to specialization in data integration, to building and leading teams delivering large-scale solutions…all rooted in collaboration and trust. Incrementally pursuing new challenges with strong leaders and mentors gave me the pathway to build effective teams, which has been the key to my success as a technical leader. I invest in my teams and believe in a servant leadership model to cultivate talent and drive value through teamwork and innovation.

What do you enjoy most about your career in the consulting industry?

I enjoy the broad array of clients, domains, technologies, and delivery teams that I have the privilege to work with. There is never a shortage of technology challenges, and I'm energized by the opportunity to help my clients and KPMG to think big and bold about our approach to solving them. I love to open the aperture for clients, showing them that common data frustrations are shared among many leading organizations. Fostering a data culture dramatically changes how people work, for the better…and initiating that transformation through our offerings is essential. It's an exciting time to be in technology – there's incredible innovation in the market, a rethinking of data for value, and an accelerated focus within our firm on new products that deliver value and impact for our clients.

What is your proudest achievement to date?

As I reflect on my career, my proudest achievement has been enacting lasting change through technology, specifically using data as a catalyst. I established the first ever Regional Data Officer role at Nissan, building and leading an amazing team of data & analytics delivery professionals that scaled over six years to include a global team. This growth included a modernization of the entire data & analytics stack, taking on enterprise architecture, refactoring knowledge worker roles, and pursuing cloud strategy for North America. It was an incredible trajectory beyond our original footprint, and it is sustained by both demand and value to lines of business.

At KPMG, I'm proud of the swift progress we've made in launching our Modern Data Platform (MDP) and taking it to market with an entirely new approach across our service lines. It's been very fulfilling to channel my past experiences into a professional services setting, helping multiple clients across all domains with their data modernization initiatives, and building a value-added product. This work is an extension of my passion for helping people with data, and the MDP offering is a very important direction for our firm that I'm proud to support.

What's the best advice you've ever been given?

The best advice I have been given is to "bring people along on the journey" – whether it is a functional pursuit, an organizational change or a complex technical solution. My own version of this advice that I carry forward is "people support what they help create." I strive to be inclusive and encourage cognitive diversity in problem-solving by bringing clients, customers, and peers along together in the journey of innovation. As people invest their time and focus together, it raises the quality of the end product and enables long-term adoption. This approach also fosters a mentorship mindset, creativity, and humility in helping others feel engaged and actively contributing to the outcome.

What does this recognition mean to you?

It's an honor to be nominated in a field of talent that represents many technical disciplines and leaders. When I joined KPMG in early 2022, making the transition from industry to consulting brought new challenges such as building my network and brand, delivering value quickly, and setting a roadmap to maximize impact. To be recognized as a change agent, making an immediate impact in consulting, and driving positive outcomes with clients means a great deal to me personally and professionally, as well as to my firm who has entrusted me with this next-generation work.