Cole Nussbaumer Knaflic tells stories with data. She is the founder and CEO of storytelling with data (SWD) and author of the best-selling book, storytelling with data: a data visualization guide for business professionals (Wiley, 2015), which has been translated into a dozen languages, is used as a textbook by more than 100 universities, and serves as the course book for tens of thousands of SWD workshop participants. For nearly a decade, Cole and her team have delivered knockout interactive learning sessions highly sought after by data-minded individuals, companies, and philanthropic organizations all over the world. They also help people create graphs that make sense and weave them into compelling stories through the popular SWD blog, podcast, and monthly challenge.

Prior to SWD, Cole’s unique talent was honed through analytical roles in banking, private equity, and as a manager on the Google People Analytics team. At Google, she used a data-driven approach to inform innovative people programs and management practices and traveled to Google offices throughout the US and Europe to teach the course she developed on data visualization. Cole has acted as an adjunct faculty member at the Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA), where she taught Introduction to Information Visualization, and regularly guest lectures at prominent universities in the US and beyond.

Cole has a BS in Applied Math and an MBA from the University of Washington. When she isn’t ridding the world of ineffective graphs, Cole is undertaking the adventures of parenting three young children with her husband at home in the Midwest and on travels abroad.