Data governance & compliance
The non-negotiable foundation of every CDO's agenda: governance frameworks, data quality, Master Data Management, lineage, GDPR and global privacy regulation, data contracts, and data risk management.
Most data governance programs are theater. A council that meets quarterly, a policy nobody reads, a compliance checkbox that satisfies auditors and protects no one. This block is for the CDO who refuses to run that circus.
You start with frameworks that actually earn their keep. DAMA-DMBOK stripped down to what matters, a Data Governance Council built to make decisions instead of slides, and ownership models where stewardship and accountability are real, not assigned to a committee. Then you fix the foundation. Data quality dimensions that expose why 'good enough' quietly erodes trust across the org, Master Data Management in practice with styles, tools, and the Golden Record, and lineage and metadata so you always know where your data was born.
Regulation is not optional and neither is your fluency. You will work through the ten GDPR mistakes CDOs make on repeat, navigate the CCPA, LGPD, and AI Act patchwork without panic, and push past compliance toward data ethics that build institutional trust. Then you modernize. Data contracts as the new quality standard between teams, shift-left governance embedded in the engineering pipeline, and a clear-eyed comparison of Alation, Collibra, and DataHub.
Finally, you prepare for the day it goes wrong. A breach playbook for the first 72 hours, data classification and zero-trust access control, and the insider threats and shadow IT that no strategy paper ever mentions.
This is governance that engineers respect, auditors approve, and executives fund. You leave able to defend your data, your decisions, and your reputation. Governance stops being the department that says no and becomes the reason the business can move fast without breaking things.
What you'll master
- Build a Data Governance Council that makes real decisions instead of producing slides
- Assign data ownership, stewardship, and accountability that actually holds across the org
- Implement Master Data Management and lineage so you trust every Golden Record
- Navigate GDPR, CCPA, LGPD, and the AI Act without slowing the business down
- Introduce data contracts and shift-left quality into the engineering pipeline
- Select the right data catalog by comparing Alation, Collibra, and DataHub on merit
- Execute a breach playbook and zero-trust access model under real pressure
Modules
Covers how to structure governance frameworks, councils, and ownership models that work in practice.
Covers data quality dimensions, master data management, and lineage and metadata practices.
Covers GDPR, global privacy regulations, and data ethics beyond pure compliance.
Covers data contracts, shift-left quality, and modern data catalog tooling.
Covers breach response, data classification, access control, and insider and shadow IT risks.