As part of our ongoing Leadership Connect Series with Teranet’s thought leaders, our latest feature is with Derek Tinney, Director of Data Products.
1. Can you tell us a little bit about your career and how it brought you to your current role?
Aside from a brief stint as a lumberyard shipper, my career has been focused in and around computer systems and information technology. I’m a software developer by training but have always moved towards solutions and leadership in my various roles.
I started in software development, worked for a couple of companies in the healthcare software vendor space, and moved through various roles from code development to tech support through database administration into product architecture and finally sales support. Some of my employers have been proven software providers where I saw the value of procedural rigour and predictable releases, while others have been startups that underscored the value of ideation, outside-the-box thinking and taking on anything and everything that needed doing. I also worked for myself as an independent consultant where I learned about the real value of measuring your own work and being accountable to your personal brand.
My last stint as a private consultant led me to Teranet. Some Teranet employees knew me from my previous role at Landcor. When I left there, I did a year consulting with Teranet to articulate their Western Canadian opportunities and essentially define the need for someone to be hired out West to help support the success of Teranet’s Commercial Solutions in that region.
I joined Teranet in a Business Development role focused on growing our presence in the west. I’ve enjoyed five years in that role, learned a lot and worked with great people but solution leadership beckoned again and I’ve landed back on the technical side in my new role which already feels great.
2. What Data Products are you responsible for?
I’m responsible for our ‘off the shelf’ Data Products such as Automated Valuation Model (AVM), Teranet-National Bank House Price Index (HPI), MIV (Mortgage Interest Verification), MRV (Mortgage Registration Verification) as well as LendView and the new Climate Change product.
Our AVM and HPI products support the ongoing valuation of individual properties as well as the valuation of the properties at the portfolio level. Both have national coverage and are focused on changes in market price but reflect different levels of granularity in their analysis. Our AVM is delivered primarily through our PurView product while the HPI is a standalone product created with our partner the National Bank of Canada and delivered monthly and quarterly to a host of subscribers.
MIV and MRV both help our customers confirm the presence (or absence) of their mortgage charges on titles in Ontario and typically run in large batches for our mortgage lending clients. These are the types of products that fulfill the reconciliation cycle so critical to ensure that mortgage portfolios are accurate and up to date. For Ontario mortgages, MIV and MRV support that due diligence.
LendView is a product which is presented as a data analytics dashboard for the mortgage market in Ontario. Leveraging our commercial data rights to the Ontario property registry data we provide unique insights and analysis from this data. From Market Size, to Market Share to Switch (how mortgages ‘switch’ between Lenders) we’re able to display metrics to empower businesses with data that is key to their understanding of their market performance in the context of their geography and competitive segments.
Our newest product (currently under development) is a climate change offering. We’re working with a strong partner in this area who will be able to score the risk associated with extreme weather (a natural consequence of global warming) from a ‘bottom up’ standpoint. That means that at a very granular level we are able to determine the risk from a number of factors including extreme wind, mudslides, wildfire, flooding and several more. We leverage our national property information, market valuation and mortgage data to map that risk into ‘value at risk’ metrics and tail loss analysis. This is an emerging area of risk analysis and there’s a lot of focus on it right now across the entire lending sector.
3. We refer to Teranet as having authoritative data. Can you elaborate on the data that Teranet has and the value it delivers?
As the operator of the electronic land registration system for the Province of Ontario, Teranet has a mandate to implement and maintain high standards of data and data handling processes. To be consistent with this we source data from our peer organizations across Canada, that means other Provincial land registries and assessment functions. If further data coverage is needed, we prioritize our data procurement around coverage and accuracy.
Authoritative data means that the data is collected and verified by trusted sources, most likely provided by the governmental ‘single source of the truth’. This is especially important for our clients because it means the data we provide in our reports is professionally collected, verified, categorized and distributed. Our authoritative data starts with the official registry data, to which is added structural data (house information) and property information from assessment agencies across Canada and complemented with value added data from professional data services in the address, demographic and neighbourhood spaces. It’s a big job and I’m really pleased to have a new data team structure in place to ensure that Teranet high data standards are consistently maintained.
4. What are you and your team focused on for the rest of 2022 and into 2023?
My role is to provide the strategic vision for these products so I’m leveraging a lot of my career experience to get that right and ensure all of the product lines are well positioned to succeed and support our corporate goals.
Obviously the new product on the block to help our customers better manage their risks associated with climate change is getting a lot of time right now and it’s great to feel the support of all of the related teams and individuals participating on this journey.
Heading into 2023 we’ll want to see growth from the MIV and MRV products, improved accuracy and market utilization on the AVM front, new capabilities from HPI, additional features added to LendView and some baseline customer subscriptions from the new climate change suite of products.
One of my sisters has a motto: “Keep your head, heels and standards high”, I’m not rocking heels, but I’ll take the balance.
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