Training & Speaking

Your People Know the Governance Plan. But Can They Execute When It Matters?

It’s one thing to develop a fire mitigation plan and know where the exits are. It’s something else entirely to perform when the fire breaks out. That’s what Frontline Governance Training does — it puts data stewards, data owners, and AI product owners through realistic governance scenarios so they build the reflexes to govern effectively when the real situations hit.

For CDOs & Executive Teams

Frontline scenario training that embeds governance into your organization’s muscle memory. C-level awareness programs that secure leadership buy-in. Tailored to your maturity, industry, and team.

For Conferences & Training Centers

Keynotes, half-day tutorials, full-day workshops, and multi-day seminars that consistently earn top ratings and repeat invitations — from Washington DC to London to San Diego.

A New Training Category

What Is Frontline Governance?

Governance doesn’t live in a framework document. It lives in the daily decisions of the people closest to the data.

Frontline Governance is the practice of embedding governance capability into the roles that actually touch data every day — data stewards, data owners, AI product owners, data quality analysts, and business domain leads. These are the people who decide whether a data quality issue gets escalated or ignored, whether metadata gets documented or skipped, whether an AI model gets properly validated or quietly pushed to production.

Most organizations invest in governance structures at the top — policies, committees, steering groups — but underinvest in the people who have to make governance real on the ground. Frontline Governance Training closes that gap by giving these roles the awareness, the skills, and the practiced reflexes to govern effectively in the moment — not just in theory.

Think of it as the fire drill for data governance. You don’t wait for the fire to find out if your people know what to do.

Roles We Train

  • Data Stewards
  • Data Owners

  • AI Product Owners

  • Data Quality Analysts

  • Business Domain Leads

  • Data Governance Officers

  • Metadata Managers

  • Compliance & Risk Leads

  • Chief Data Officers

  • Chief AI Officers

  • and many more…

The Fire Drill Principles

Traditional Training Teaches the Plan. Scenario-Based Training Tests the Reflexes.

The difference between awareness and capability is practice under pressure. Here’s how scenario-based Frontline Governance Training compares to what most organizations are doing today.

TRADITIONAL GOVERNANCE TRAINING

  • Teaches governance concepts, frameworks, and definitions through slides and lectures.

  • Participants understand what governance is — but don’t know how to do it when it matters.

  • Like reading the fire safety manual — useful, but not the same as knowing how to perform during a fire.

  • Knowledge fades within weeks. Behavior doesn’t change.

SCENARIO-BASED FRONTLINE TRAINING

  • Places participants inside realistic governance situations where they must act, decide, and produce.

  • Participants practice the actual tasks: documenting metadata, escalating issues, monitoring quality, validating AI models.

  • Like a fire drill — it builds muscle memory so governance becomes a reflex, not a concept.

  • Behavior changes because the practice is visceral. People remember what they did, not what they heard.

What The Scenarios Look Like

Real Governance Situations. Real Decisions. Real Practice.

Every scenario is designed to simulate a governance moment that your frontline people will encounter on the job. They don’t observe — they perform.

DATA STEWARD SCENARIO

A supplier master record was duplicated during a system migration last week. Procurement is now issuing double payments.

Identify the duplicate. Verify which record is the golden source. Flag the affected transactions. Escalate to the data owner with the impacted scope. Execute the merge procedure. Document the resolution.

DATA OWNER SCENARIO

Finance discovers that product revenue is being reported under different category codes across three regions. The quarterly close is in five days.

Validate the approved product taxonomy. Identify which regions deviated. Escalate the misalignment through the data issue process. Coordinate the correction with regional stewards. Confirm the fix before the close deadline.

AI PRODUCT OWNER SCENARIO

Marketing pushed a recommendation engine to production without completing the AI intake process. It’s already live for 50,000 users.

Flag the non-compliance. Complete the retrospective risk classification. Assess EU AI Act exposure. Recommend to the governance committee: continue, pause, or roll back.

DATA QUALITY ANALYST SCENARIO

The same three quality metrics have been red for six months. The steward keeps marking them “acknowledged” and does nothing.

Build the escalation package with evidence and business impact. Escalate to the data owner. Log the inaction. Trigger the accountability review.

METADATA MANAGER SCENARIO

A vendor integration just went live. The project team skipped metadata documentation. Business users are querying data with no definitions, no lineage, no ownership.

Raise the exception. Retroactively capture the metadata. Update the catalog. File the process adherence report so it doesn’t happen again.

CROSS-FUNCTIONAL SCENARIO

A third-party data breach has exposed personal data. The DPO is involved. Legal is asking who signed the data sharing agreement. The board wants answers by Friday.

Activate the incident response process. Coordinate across data, IT, legal, and compliance. Produce the incident report. Prepare the board communication. Assign corrective actions with owners and deadlines.

CHIEF DATA OFFICER SCENARIO

You’re 8 months in. The operating model is live but adoption sits at 30%. Business leaders attend governance board meetings but don’t follow through. The CEO asks in a leadership meeting: “What’s the return on our governance investment?”

Pull the adoption metrics. Diagnose why the business isn’t moving. Decide whether this is an escalation problem, an incentive problem, or a design problem. Formulate your intervention. Answer the CEO in business outcome language — not governance jargon.

CHIEF AI OFFICER SCENARIO

Internal audit flags one of your three production AI models as potentially high-risk under the EU AI Act. The business unit calls it “just a recommendation tool” and refuses to slow down. The DPO disagrees. Your board AI governance update is in two weeks.

Re-assess the risk classification. Resolve the dispute between the business unit and the DPO through the arbitration process. Update the AI risk register. Prepare the board update showing the current risk posture across all three systems — including what you’re doing about the disputed one and why.

Executive Programs

C-Level Awareness Training.

Frontline governance only works when leadership understands it, supports it, and holds the organization accountable for it. This program ensures they do.

Making the Case for Governance — at Board Level

The single biggest reason governance programs stall is lack of sustained executive sponsorship. Leaders approve the budget but don’t understand what governance actually requires from the organization — in culture, in behavior, in accountability. This program changes that.

Designed for CEOs, CDOs, CAIs, CDAIs, CIOs, CFOs, DPOs, and board members, it translates governance from a technical discipline into a strategic capability they can champion with conviction — because they understand what it produces, what it costs to ignore, and what their role is in making it stick.

What We’ll Cover

  • Why governance programs fail — and what leaders do differently in the ones that succeed.

  • Data and AI as business assets: what it actually means for decision-making, risk, and competitive advantage.

  • The EU AI Act: what the C-suite needs to know, what to ask the CDO, and what to report to the board.

  • The economics of governance: how to frame the investment case in language the CFO responds to.

  • The leadership behaviors that make or break governance adoption across the organization.

  • AI governance for non-technical leaders: understanding risk without needing to understand algorithms.

Full Training Catalog

Specialist Programs for Practitioners and Teams.

Every program is built around application. Participants don’t just learn what governance is — they practice building it. They leave with tools, templates, and operating structures they can deploy immediately.

Data Governance Sprint™ Training

Your governance program is either stuck, nonexistent, or collecting dust. This training teaches your team the full Sprint methodology hands-on — so they can design, restart, or rebuild governance themselves, in weeks instead of quarters.

AI Governance Sprint™ Training

AI is already in your organization. The question is whether anyone is controlling it. This training teaches your team the full AI Sprint methodology hands-on — so they can stand up AI governance themselves, fast enough to matter.

AI Governance & the EU AI Act

What the EU AI Act means for your organization — and what to do about it. Risk classification, conformity assessments, documentation requirements, and human oversight obligations. Practical compliance, not legal theory.

DAMA-DMBOK® & CDMP® Training

There’s no better way to learn the DAMA-DMBOK® than from the person leading the new version 3.0. Prepares teams for the CDMP® exam while making the content immediately usable.

ADGP® — Applied Data Governance Practitioner training

The course Mathias co-developed at Dataversity — now available as a training program. Bridges the gap between governance theory and organizational reality. For governance practitioners who need to deliver, not just understand.

Data & AI Strategy

How to build a data and AI strategy the board approves and the organization follows. Strategic framing, investment case design, and translating technical ambition into language that lands with CFOs and CEOs.

Pragmatic Governance for SMEs

Governance without the enterprise overhead. Practical ownership, quick-win policies, and the minimum viable governance structure that creates real accountability — designed for teams with limited resources and no dedicated data office.

Conference Speaking

Keynotes, Seminars, and Workshops That Fill Rooms and Earn Top Ratings.

For Conference Organizers & Training Centers

Mathias delivers practical, high-energy sessions that blend governance frameworks with real-world scenarios and hands-on exercises. Audiences leave with tools they’ll use at work — not inspirational quotes they’ll forget. Mathias has spoken at every major data governance conference in the US and Europe, and he’s consistently invited back because the sessions produce results.

Available Formats

  • Keynote (30–60 min)

  • Half-day tutorial (3–4 hours)

  • Full-day workshop

  • 2-day seminar

  • Panel moderation & participation

Past Speaking Engagements

  • 2026: DGIQ & EDW — San Diego, US
    2-day seminar: The Governance Sprint: Build Data and AI Governance in Weeks, Not Months

  • 2026: DWH & BI Summit — Utrecht, NL
    Keynote + full day workshop on Data Governance Sprint and AI Governance

  • 2026: Data Modeling Zone — San Francisco, US
    Keynote: AI Governance, Responsible AI, and Data Governance

  • 2025: DGIQ & EDW — Anaheim, US
    2-day seminar: Integrating Data and AI Governance
    Frameworks to Ensure Ethical, Compliant, and
    Effective AI Practices

  • 2025: Data & AI Conference — London, UK
    Half-day + full-day workshops on AI Governance, Responsible AI, and Data
    Governance

  • 2025: Data Modeling Zone — Phoenix, US
    Keynote: Mastering Quick Wins in Data
    Governance

  • 2024: DGIQ — Washington DC, US
    Half-day tutorial: From Zero to Hero: Mastering Data Governance with Limited Resources

  • 2024: Data & AI Conference — London, UK
    Full-day workshop: Mastering Quick Wins in Data Governance

  • 2024: DGIQ — San Diego, US
    2-day seminar + keynote panel: Mastering Tomorrow’s Challenges

  • 2024: Enterprise Data World — Orlando, US
    2-day seminar: Data Governance Strategy and Design Sprints

  • 2024: DG & MDM Conference — London, UK
    Half-day workshop: Designing Your Own Perfect Data Governance Workshops

  • 2023: DGIQ — Washington DC, US
    Half-day + full-day tutorials on Data Governance Strategy and Design Sprint methodology

Upcoming 2026

  • 2026: Data & AI Conference — London, UK
    November 2026

  • 2026: DGIQ & AI Gov — Providence, US
    November 2026

Let’s Talk

Two Ways to Work Together.

Corporate Training

Frontline Governance scenarios, C-level awareness, Sprint workshops, or specialist programs — tailored to your organization.

Conference Speaking

Book a keynote, tutorial, or workshop that fills rooms and gives attendees tools they’ll actually use.