EP 12 — How blending cell phone data with distribution systems drove 4% sales growth without changing products

Kjersten Margaret Moody's 4% sales uplift in Southeast Asia came from a data combination most CDOs overlook: cell phone movement patterns merged with internal distribution data. The insight was brutally simple yet invisible until the data revealed it. Convenience stores next to elementary schools were being restocked for night shift workers instead of parents picking up kindergarteners.

Kjersten Moody, now CEO of North America at Elai and former CDO at Unilever, State Farm, and Prudential, walks through the mechanics of this win and why it represents a broader problem: most business strategies don't actually require AI to succeed, which means your data initiatives lack the forcing function of incentive alignment. Her governance framework from State Farm cuts through the bureaucracy paralysis: cars have brakes so they can go fast, not slow down.

Topics discussed:

• Merging cell phone movement data with internal distribution systems to identify restocking mismatches by location type

• Structuring data office charters with explicit "what we don't do" boundaries to prevent scope creep and mission drift

• Aligning AI initiatives to business strategy through incentive structures rather than relying on voluntary adoption

• Building cross-functional teams that balance institutional knowledge with external thinking while screening for collaboration over brilliance

• Establishing shared KPIs with CFOs and P&L owners instead of data office vanity metrics

• Implementing governance frameworks that define clear operational boundaries to enable faster deployment cycles

• Replacing passive-aggressive meeting culture where verbal agreement doesn't translate into resource commitment or execution

• Accelerating business domain expertise by attending customer industry conferences instead of data and analytics technical events