Alation, the leader in enterprise data intelligence, announced Nina Marila, Head of Data Science at Finnair, was recognized by Constellation Research on its 2022 Business Transformation 150, an elite list of executives leading business transformation efforts around the globe.

Digital leaders have been greatly challenged this year by a perfect storm of disruptions due to COVID-19, generational shifts in the workforce, a hypercompetitive new customer experience landscape, and the relentless march of exponential digital change, among other factors. The BT150 nomination process took these influences to heart this year to ensure the list genuinely reflects today’s world and leading trends.

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“This is a collective honor for myself and the entire team at Finnair, validating the importance of having high-level visibility into our data”

A believer that data science and AI are at the forefront of the most meaningful changes happening in the world, Nina combines her expertise in data science, design thinking, and business to create business value for the airline through data science methodologies. Nina is being recognized for spearheading Finnair’s AI program, which was established to support operations to run efficiently, drive the best customer experience in different, changing situations, and help operations adjust in the ever-changing COVID-19 era.

Over the past year, by using Alation, cross-functional teams have been able to share information about their data and models to support the airline’s Operations Control Center. With Alation, Finnair has full access and visibility into data – from flight, financial, and customer, to third-party weather, and runway capacity data – and teams build models that provide recommendations in different situations while taking network effects into consideration. For example, if a flight is delayed, it means the aircraft can be late for the next flight, and crew could be delayed for their next flight, gate availability shifts, and of course, passenger experience is impacted.

“This is a collective honor for myself and the entire team at Finnair, validating the importance of having high-level visibility into our data,” Marila said. “By utilizing data in a new way to create intelligent recommendations, we are supporting data-driven decision making in a variety of situations. By partnering with Alation and existing platforms, Finnair is able to document and share the logic of models, which creates trust in the accuracy of recommendations. Now we can build models that provide recommendations and consider all network effects to ensure our customers have the best experience possible.”

“We are proud to work with Nina and help Finnair build a data culture that empowers their teams to make data-driven business decisions,” said Satyen Sangani, CEO and co-founder, Alation. “Hundreds of leading organizations such as Exelon, Fifth Third Bank, and Vattenfall rely on Alation to unleash the potential of their data, improve operations, and drive positive customer experiences.”

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Recognition as a BT150 winner has emerged as a differentiator in recruiting as forward-thinking organizations recognize that BT150 winners are some of the most sought after and battle-tested executives in the market,” proclaimed R “Ray” Wang, founder and CEO at Constellation Research. “The pandemic created tremendous opportunities for technology and business leaders to kick off and turbocharge their transformation projects. Many of this year’s BT150 winners have created new business models, launched new offerings, and found their way into the C-suite.”

“In curating the next generation of Business Transformation 150 executives from our network, we emphasized those who are successfully navigating the historic challenges of the last year, while still effectively guiding their organizations to transform and evolve,” said Constellation. Research’s VP and Principal Analyst, Dion Hinchcliffe. “I am excited to help them tell their stories to the world over the next year as we share from these leading lights in the digital world the many innovative ways they lifted their organizations up and propelled them into the future. I’m very proud of this year’s highly diverse group of BT150 inductees.”

Nominations from peers, industry influencers, technology vendors, and analysts powered the six-month selection process. Each executive on the list demonstrates an understanding of how the business environment is transforming in response to digital and exponential technologies, and these leaders are actively preparing their companies to excel during and after the transformation.