Rafa Flores’ career has come full circle.

In 2016, he joined Treasure Data (which rebranded earlier this year to Treasure AI) as the company’s second-ever product hire.

At the time, Treasure Data was just getting off the ground as a data management company. The company soon found an opportunity in the CDP space, a label it wore proudly for many years.

The trouble, said Flores, is that “people don’t see the value in the data foundation” and end up wondering, “Why am I paying for this?”

The accolades instead go to the activation systems, which actually launch the campaigns, he added.