William Harvey Inmon

Recognized by many as the father of the data warehouse, Inmon wrote the first book, held the first conference (with Arnie Barnett), wrote the first column in a magazine, and was the first to offer classes in data warehousing. He created the accepted definition of a data warehouse, and his approach is often characterized as a top-down approach.

He created the Corporate Information Factory Website to educate professionals and decision makers about data warehousing and the Corporate Information Factory, which describes the larger information architecture into which warehousing fits. Inmon has also served as the creator of the Government Information Factory, as well as Data Warehousing 2.0. He also created the first fold-out wall chart and conducted the first classes on data warehousing.

Inmon is a prolific author on the building, usage, and maintenance of the data warehouse and the Corporate Information Factory, including over 1,000 articles in journals and newsletters. His advances have included the creation of DW 2.0 and the development of technology for including unstructured textual data into the data warehouse—the world's first "textual ETL". In 2007, he was named by Computerworld as one of the ten people who most influenced the first 40 years of the computer industry.