Before dashboards, automation, or AI, comes something more important — understanding and trusting your data. In this session, Elise Teixeira explores the critical early stage of any transformation: studying your data, asking the right questions, and learning how to translate them into structured solutions using Excel. Drawing from real-world experience navigating corporate silos, compliance constraints, and legacy systems, Elise shows how Excel - and its built-in tools like Power Query, data modeling, and VBA - can support data clarity, structure, and smarter decision-making. This session is ideal for teams still working in Excel who want to break down silos, improve data reliability, and lay strong, sustainable foundations for digital transformation.