Knowledge Cast by Enterprise Knowledge Mike Ferguson - CEO of Intelligent Business Strategies
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Jan 22, 2026 Mike Ferguson, CEO of Intelligent Business Strategies and longtime data and analytics leader, reflects on four decades in data management and conference leadership. He talks about the resurgence of the semantic layer with AI, the chaos from vendor-specific metadata silos, the push for stronger data governance and provenance, and why enterprise ontologies may offer a unifying layer.
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Early Career With Database Pioneers
- Mike Ferguson recounted early career work with Edgar F. Codd and Chris Date that launched his focus on relational databases and analytics.
- He then described joining Teradata to build massively parallel databases that shaped his analytics trajectory.
Building Big Data London
- Mike described founding Big Data London in 2016 and growing it into Europe's largest data conference with thousands of delegates.
- He tied that event experience to observing the rise of AI and renewed interest in unstructured data.
Structured and Semantic Worlds Diverged
- Early BI 'universes' and the semantic web were separate efforts that attempted to make data business-friendly.
- Those camps rarely met until recent AI needs forced structured and unstructured approaches to converge.