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Sigma brought our teams, our platforms, and our data together into one shared, collaborative space. That has changed everything.
—Eileen Smith, SVP of Data & Analytics at Cboe
I’m Eileen Smith, Senior Vice President of Data & Analytics at Cboe Global Markets. I lead our global data organization—analytics engineering, quantitative research, business intelligence, and our AI Center of Excellence. Our mission is to empower decision-makers with fast, reliable, actionable data.
Cboe is one of the world’s largest exchange networks, known for pioneering standardized, exchange-traded stock options. We process hundreds of billions of transactions across five continents daily. We’ve built a powerful data platform to support it—three petabytes in Snowflake and counting.
Our workflows couldn’t keep up with the pace of the markets we serve. Then Sigma came along.
But until recently, our workflows couldn’t keep up with the pace of the markets we serve. Then Sigma came along.
Before Sigma, we had the cloud, and we had the data. But we didn’t have the tools to make the most of either one.
Our legacy business intelligence platform simply couldn’t handle the size or complexity of our Snowflake environment. We had to work with summarized data instead of the real thing, and couldn’t drill into trade-level details. That meant we were often making high-stakes decisions without the full picture.
We were often making high-stakes decisions without the full picture.
Business stakeholders wanted to move faster, but most didn’t have SQL or Python skills. So they waited on the data and analytics team, or they simply exported data to Excel. That introduced governance issues, version control chaos, and security risks. Teams duplicated work. Everyone had their own spreadsheet, and there wasn’t a shared source of truth. It wasn’t just inefficient—it was costly.
We needed a new kind of platform—something that could scale with the cloud, support secure self-service, and meet people where they already worked. That’s what led us to Sigma.
At first, we thought Sigma was just a data exploration tool. But it quickly proved to be much more: dashboards, planning, scenario modeling, automation, write-back—wrapped in a familiar spreadsheet interface.
Sigma scaled with our data, not against it.
And most critically, it’s cloud-native. That meant it could handle the volume and complexity of our Snowflake environment with no problem. It scaled with our data, not against it.
One of our first use cases was also one of our most painful: a finance daily dashboard. Cboe operates across five geographies, each functioning as a separate regulated entity. Finance data was siloed and fragmented. Before Sigma, teams manually pulled data from multiple systems, stitched it in Excel, and emailed reports. It took 3-4 hours every day and was prone to errors.
With Sigma, we have one trusted, real-time view of financial performance. The impact was immediate.
With Sigma, we built a live dashboard on top of Snowflake that pulls in revenue data across all business lines. No more manual work. No more version issues. Just one trusted, real-time view of financial performance. The impact was immediate:
What made Sigma stand out wasn’t just the feature set—it was the fact that it met people where they already worked. Our finance team didn’t have to learn SQL, and they also didn’t need a new mental model. They just opened Sigma and got to work.
Once we saw results, we went all in. We onboarded our first users in January 2024. By October, the migration was complete. In less than 12 months, we doubled BI adoption. Today, over 50% of Cboe uses Sigma—and demand keeps growing.
Today, over 50% of Cboe uses Sigma—and demand keeps growing.
Here’s why it worked:
We had full exec buy-in. Sigma’s team delivered excellent support. My team led the charge–adopting early, training others, and proving value fast. That finance win gave us momentum.
We also planned ahead. We structured Snowflake access and built the pipeline strategically. That prevented rework and made onboarding easier.
What Sigma unlocked for us isn’t just a better way to report. It’s a fundamentally better way to operate.
Even first-time analytics users are now onboarding. Sigma’s spreadsheet-like UI makes it easy. Teams that used to rely on static dashboards are now exploring and answering their own questions.
In other words, we didn’t just migrate BI. We transformed how we actually engage with data.
This wasn’t just a platform switch. It was a complete mindset shift.
In less than a year, Sigma made Cboe a radically more data-driven organization. It gave us the scalability we needed to match the speed and size of our Snowflake environment and made analytics easily accessible. And because it’s accessible, people actually use it.
What’s really changed is the way we talk about data.
What’s really changed is the way we talk about data. With our old BI tool, dashboards were static, so you could only see what the builder decided to show you. Sigma flipped that model. Now, anyone can explore, drill, and uncover insights in real time. One dashboard can lead to ten new questions—and answers. It’s made our conversations sharper and our decisions faster.
Meetings used to be about slide decks. Now they’re live working sessions inside Sigma.
Meetings used to be about slide decks. Now they’re live working sessions inside Sigma. Instead of waiting on analysts or wading through exports, people are walking into rooms with the answers, or knowing how to get them. Sigma brought our teams, our platforms, and our data together into one shared, collaborative space. That has changed everything.
We’re a little more than a year in, and the momentum is only building. We’re continuing to scale what works, and we’re also expanding into new use cases that bring data even closer to where decisions happen. What Sigma unlocked for us isn’t just a better way to report. It’s a fundamentally better way to operate.
