Four years ago, Jodi Morton, vice president of data governance and management at Freddie Mac, received an important request from Freddie Mac’s EVP of single-family, Dave Lowman: “Go fix our data problem.”

Since then, Freddie Mac has morphed into a company harnessing the power of comprehensive data and advanced analytics like never before. Morton identified four things to fix Freddie’s data problem: collaboration, communication, culture and changing management.

Morton built her team from the ground up, partnering with internal and external stakeholders and vendors to determine what the best practices for data governance and management were. This led her to implement a number of innovative ideas to make Freddie’s data problem into a blue-chip asset. Some highlights include the re-platforming of both the Freddie Mac Servicer Performance Profile and Manager Series applications as part of its Single-Family Datamart family, and automating electronic data system operational reporting on Freddie’s Big Data and Analytics Platform.

Morton’s powerful leadership resulted in Freddie winning Informatica’s Innovation Award for Governance and Compliance last May.