Qlik’s Chief Learning Officer Passionate About Promoting Data Literacy Using a Variety of Methods

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executive portrait
Image via Qlik.
Kevin Hanegan.
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Qlik, the data integration and analytics company headquartered in King of Prussia, provides software to empower people to make meaningful discoveries that drive actual change. It helps individuals and organizations find insights in their data to answer business questions. Qlik’s vision is to create a data-literate world, one where people, businesses, organizations, and governments tackle their most complex challenges with data.

At Qlik, a team of curriculum developers builds curricula and offers training to ensure business partners, customers, and employees receive the skills they need to thrive in their businesses and careers.

It should be no surprise that someone with title of Chief Learning Officer, like Qlik’s Kevin Hanegan, is so passionate about teaching others.

“In college, I was a tech guy — Computer Science, Math, and Statistics — and got a few jobs right out of college for computer programming,” he said. “But I always had a passion for business and learning, so I went back and got a master’s in Organizational Performance and Workplace Learning, which is how you improve performance within the workplace.”

Hanegan, along with his team, helps educate three stakeholder groups: professionals in the company’s large partner network, customers, and its own employees.

Since he arrived at Qlik in 2014, however, Hanegan has seen the role of Learning Officer evolve into other areas of learning beyond just technical aspects or product training.

“We are not just training people how to implement and use our products,” he said. “For them to fully benefit from the products, there are additional skills, like data literacy, that they require. Data literacy is the ability to read, work with, analyze, and communicate with data. Our software helps people work with data, but technology alone can’t answer key business questions, so we need to provide them the right education and the right mindset.”

Today, Qlik offers a robust set of educational offerings for Data Literacy, aimed at any role within an organization, including executives.

Hanegan is also helping employees at Qlik up-skill and learn skills that are currently needed in today’s workplace.

“Even though I have a tech background, one of my current passions is how to help individuals in this time of information overload, constant change, and stress,” he said. “Teaching people how to adapt and evolve their mindsets is key.”

Hanegan created a series for Qlik employees, called the Qlik Mindset, which aims to do just that. With webinars on such “up-skilling” topics asActive Listening,” “Communicating Better,” “Emotional Intelligence,” “Mitigating Bias,” “Challenging Assumptions,” and “Enterprise Thinking,” the Qlik Mindset Seriesdemonstrates the value the company places on employee education and career advancement.

As technology continues to change and evolve, it is these forever skills that will remain necessary and help individuals adapt to all the change.

“We want to promote from within and ensure our employees have the skills and mindset to be successful,” said Hanegan. “Sometimes, there are technical skills someone might need, but more often it is these forever skills that will help individuals along their progression at Qlik.”

Hanegan’s passion led him to host an webisode series called Know Your Data, with the aim to help individuals understand the data that we see across the news and elsewhere in our daily lives.

“In today’s world, where there is so much data used in the news, it can be really hard to understand what the meaning is,” said Hanegan. “The series helps educate people so they can make informed decisions about what they see and what it means for them. We started these episodes two years ago when COVID emerged.”

The series created episodes about “flattening the curve,” “efficacy,” and “effectiveness.” Since then, the series has evolved past COVID into other topics. One recent episode discussed understanding “cookies” on websites.

Whether he is helping develop a new training curriculum, creating a new episode for his Know Your Data series, or on a call with potential customers explaining how Qlik’s products can help them get the most out of their data, Hanegan continues to find a passion in learning, promoting data literacy to his partners, customers, and fellow employees, and helping everyone evolve their mindsets.

“I love the mix of educating people and marrying it with business, and also marrying it with a little bit of my technical background,” he said. “Every day is different.”

Learn more about Qlik.

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