CDO Matters Podcast

🎙️ Episode 110 · November 2026Start Small, Then Scale: Huntington Bank's Data Governance Success StoryNot sure where to start with master data or governance? One bank started with the low-stakes data first and built from there.📌 In this episode:- Why Huntington started with reference data: lists of values, not customer records- Moving on to householding, including trusts and wealth relationships, refreshed every 15 minutes instead of overnight- Cutting duplicate customer records from 15–18% to 3%, against an industry benchmark of around 10%- The dotted-line governance model that got traction after centralized and decentralized attempts stalled💬 The takeaway: "To be results oriented is then to take action and give momentum to what the actual data quality … measures are telling you." — Shaun RankinAbout the host + guestMalcolm Hawker is a former Gartner analyst, Chief Data Officer at Profisee, Editor-in-Chief of CDO Matters on Substack, and host of the CDO Matters Podcast.Guest: Shaun Rankin is SVP of Information Governance at Huntington Bank. He leads the bank's customer master, reference data and commercial party relationship data.🔗 Watch + full transcript: https://profisee.com/podcast/start-small-then-scale-a-banks-data-governance-success-story/Subscribe to CDO Matters Monthly → https://profisee.com/cdo-matters-community/#join-communityFollow Malcolm on LinkedIn → https://www.linkedin.com/in/malhawker/Guest → https://www.linkedin.com/in/shaunrankin

Context is at the top of the hype cycle, and every vendor claims a piece of it. Malcolm Hawker, former Gartner analyst, argues trust needs two equal parts. Meaning: the system knows what you're asking, like what counts as an active customer. Truth: the answer is right, including whether Acme Inc and Acme Co are one customer or two. He shows how Anthropic, building Claude into its own analytics, learned more context doesn't fix truth. Investing in semantic layers but not in accurate data? This one's for you.

Joe Reis, data engineer, architect, and author of Mixed Model Arts, joins Winfried Etzel, Equinor data specialist and author of Data Governance in the Wild. They explore why AI agents demand a first-principles rebuild of data modeling and governance, how concurrency revives big data’s three Vs, and why guardrails, accountability, human oversight, and corporate governance must be reimagined for an agent-driven world.

Kelle O’Neal, CEO and founder of First San Francisco Partners, joins the conversation on governing AI decisions. They explore why data ownership falls short, how autonomous agents complicate accountability, and why every automated decision needs a named human. They also examine decision rights, RACI frameworks, regulatory expectations, organizational friction, and the promise of governance as code.

Nick Zervoudis, a data product management consultant and founder of Value from Data and AI, explores why data teams need to think like product builders. They unpack product managers versus product owners, the limits of service-desk models, and whether data democratization and literacy truly create value. They also examine measuring outcomes, prioritizing business impact, and serving both human users and AI agents.

Donna Burbank, founder of Global Data Strategy, joins a candid conversation about why executives are already discussing data governance, even when data leaders miss the moment. They explore replacing “data literacy” with business literacy, escaping jargon, communicating AI and governance simply, and treating workarounds as collaboration opportunities. Donna also shares why curiosity, storytelling, humility, and assuming positive intelligence matter.

Andreas Blumauer, SVP at GraphWise and founder of the Semantic Web Company, is an expert in semantic web standards and enterprise knowledge graphs. He explains why vectors alone fall short for enterprise AI. He compares RDF and property graphs and shows how knowledge graphs enable metadata-rich exchanges, governance, MDM integration, and practical, use-case-driven starts for AI-ready data.

Most CDOs talk about data products. Very few approach them the way a product manager would starting with customer need, validating demand, and building only what people will actually use.📌 In this episode:Why scalability without proven demand is a bridge to nowhere and how CDOs fall into that trap constantlyWhat "outside-in" product management looks like in a data function and why it changes everything about how you prioritizeHow Jonathan Reeve's team at BetaNext links financial data assets to create insights clients didn't know they neededWhy influence and storytelling aren't soft skills for data leaders they're the job💬 The takeaway: "You hold the keys to the kingdom. If you're managing data better, you've got the power to influence innovation, product direction, and where investment goes." — Jonathan ReeveAbout the host and guestMalcolm Hawker is a former Gartner analyst, Chief Data Officer at Profisee, Editor-in-Chief of CDO Matters on Substack, and host of the CDO Matters Podcast. Jonathan Reeve is Chief Product Officer at BetaNext, a financial services data company.🔗 Watch + full transcript: profisee.com/podcast/data-as-a-product-summer-replaySubscribe to CDO Matters Monthly → https://profisee.com/cdo-matters-community/#join-communityFollow Malcolm on LinkedIn → https://www.linkedin.com/in/malhawker/Guest → https://www.linkedin.com/in/jonathan-reeve-5a62271/

A Delaware state court ruling rewrote the rules on corporate liability and CDOs are directly in the crosshairs. This is our most-played episode ever, and if you haven't heard it, now's your moment.📌 In this episode:What the Delaware Chancery Court ruling means for data leaders and why fiduciary duty now extends to every corporate officer, not just the board and CEOWhy bad data quality is no longer just an operational problem it's a legal and reputational one, with real personal liability attachedWhy AI is rapidly eliminating the "zone of ambiguity" that data leaders have operated in for decadesWhy aligning your data function closer to the CFO might be the smartest career move a CDO can make right now💬 The takeaway: "Compliance and audit and regulatory risk drives a lot of investment in business. It always has. Don't be afraid of using this as a lever." — Malcolm HawkerAbout the host and guestMalcolm Hawker is a former Gartner analyst, Chief Data Officer at Profisee, Editor-in-Chief of CDO Matters on Substack, and host of the CDO Matters Podcast. Mark Stouse is CEO of Proof Analytics and a former Fortune 500 CMO with extensive experience as an expert witness in data-related litigation.🔗 Watch + full transcript: [profisee.com/podcast/a-state-court-ruling-just-changed-the-game-are-cdos-ready-summer-replay]Subscribe to CDO Matters Monthly → https://profisee.com/cdo-matters-community/#join-communityFollow Malcolm on LinkedIn → https://www.linkedin.com/in/malhawker/Guest → https://www.linkedin.com/in/markstouse/

They unpack why most enterprise data is unstructured and not AI-ready. They contrast measurement-focused data with meaning-focused narratives that Gen AI needs. They argue governance must span structured and unstructured data and become probabilistic. They recommend product managers, value engineers, and unified metadata to build context for AI.