A Day in the Life of a CDO: Bob Sparshatt, Former Chief Data Officer, Equifax
Jul 29, 2024 | 3 minsData executive, Bob Sparshatt, parted ways with Equifax’s Australian operation in March after spending more than seven years in senior data roles at the credit bureau’s Melbourne-based subsidiary.
Sparshatt had previously worked at Australian credit agency, Veda, which was acquired by Equifax in February 2016. This was just over a year before Equifax’s US-based parent company fell victim to a devastating breach in which the personal data of almost 150 million customers was accessed by hackers.
Although no Australian customers were affected, the breach had a major impact on the organisation’s reputation globally.
“I think we were lucky in that we had started a data governance program 12 to 18 months before [the attack], so we were well set up to respond,” he tells ADAPT.
Equifax has now recovered from that attack and saved its reputation while also making significant strides on the data front. Sparshatt says that over the…