When Joel Dunahoe heard “that’s interesting,” he knew the dashboard was dead in the water. For Joel, Director of Analytics North America at Covetrus, analytics has to be “insightful,” meaning it tells stakeholders something they didn’t already know. In this episode, Jodi talks with Joel about what it takes to get there: joining data across silos, dealing with messy source systems, telling the story behind the analysis, and hiring analysts based on the stage of work the team actually needs.
From reporting to insight
Getting to “insightful” usually means connecting data that was not built to work together. Joel gives the example of a tax-prep business that already knew how many returns it completed and how much revenue it made. The more useful question was productivity by office, which meant looking at how many employees each office had and what kind of training those employees had. To do that level of analysis, Joel said, “you had to go and talk and pull data from these silos of the organization to make that happen.”
The friction point: data quality
Data quality is the friction point Joel keeps coming back to. Even with better tools, the hard part is often getting different data sets to connect cleanly, especially after acquisitions. As Joel puts it, “every company that you acquire has their own way of doing things.” Different ID structures, naming conventions, source systems, and no clean primary key can all get in the way. Tools may let teams work faster, but as Joel says, “it doesn’t always get you to a faster and better answer.”
Hiring for the stage of work your team needs
That is why hiring analysts is not just about finding someone who knows the right tool. Joel breaks the work into four stages: understanding the source data, getting it into a usable state, building the analytic solution, and telling the story. “Not everybody is equally good in all four stages.” A team that needs help cleaning up messy source data may need a different analyst than a team that already has clean pipelines but needs someone who can build dashboards and explain the “so what” to stakeholders.
You will want to hear this episode if you are interested in…
- How analytics moved from enterprise reporting to business insight [05:41]
- Why joining data across silos is still hard, even with better tools [08:08]
- How Joel’s team separates data management, advanced analytics, and analyst work [10:59]
- The four stages of analyst work and why they matter when hiring [12:30]
- How Joel uses storytelling to evaluate analytics candidates [15:08]
- The “so what” principle and why a dashboard has to explain why it matters [16:40]
- Why curiosity matters in analytics and how Joel looks for it in candidates [20:43]
- What the analytics hiring market looks like from Joel’s seat [24:11]
“Curiosity has to be an innate skill set, especially in the analytic space, because there are so many questions that are at the top of mind, not answerable immediately, and you’ve got to go off and figure out how to get that question answered.” – Joel Dunahoe.
About Joel Donahoe
Joel Dunahoe is an analytics leader with over two decades of experience shaping analytic strategies for Fortune 500 companies and other leading organizations. He has delivered analytics solutions across sales, marketing, product development, finance, and technology, giving him a broad view of how data supports business decisions and commercial performance. Joel is Director of Analytics North America at Covetrus, where he leads data-driven teams focused on data management, advanced analytics, and analyst-driven reporting solutions.
Outside of work, Joel is an avid soccer player, book reader, podcast listener, and craft beer enthusiast.
Connect with Us
- Connect with Joel Dunahoe: Joel’s LinkedIn Profile
- Connect with Tech Talent Today host Jodi Kulek Mayer: Jodi’s LinkedIn Profile
- Visit Clearmont Technologies for IT staffing and search: ClearmontTech.com
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