Updated with replays and recaps! On April 9, 2025, Secoda hosted Data Leaders Forum (DLF), a one day, online conference for leaders and innovators in data governance. 

Data governance has a branding problem. It’s slow, bureaucratic, and frankly, can be rather painful. 

But in 2025, data governance is crucial. With AI transforming how we work with data and regulations evolving faster than ever, governance is moving from a compliance afterthought to a core business function.

At Data Leaders Forum on April 9, we showcased how modern governance can be fast, scalable, modern, and actually help teams move forward. With 10 speakers who are data governance experts in their respective fields, we shared techniques, frameworks and tools that they are using to bring data governance into the future.

If you missed the live event, don't worry—all four sessions are now available to watch on demand. In this article, we’ve summarized the key themes and ideas that came up across panels. 

These conversations weren’t just about what’s coming, they were about what leading teams are already doing today.

TL;DR: The big shifts happening now in data governance

✅ Governance is getting proactive.
Companies are embedding governance into workflows, not bolting it on after. From industries like healthcare to energy, speakers emphasized that governance is moving upstream to support AI, drive efficiency, and reduce risk—without slowing down teams.

✅ Ownership is everyone’s job.
Whether you call them data stewards, domain leads, or product owners, teams are decentralizing responsibility for data quality, access, and documentation. And they're seeing better engagement and faster scale because of it.

✅ AI-readiness = governance-readiness.
Panelists agreed: governance isn’t just a compliance play. It’s the foundation for trustworthy AI. Without strong metadata, ownership, access controls, and context, AI systems falter. And with them? Those systems fly. Think faster, pain free audits, high confidence decision making, and AI outputs you can actually trust.

✅ Security and agility can co-exist.
Especially in high-risk industries like healthcare, finance and energy, teams are designing governance systems that protect sensitive data and enable innovation. From policy automation to fine-grained access control, tooling is catching up to the challenge.

✅ Culture change is a feature, not a bug.
Governance only works when people actually use it. Speakers share how their teams are investing in education, change management, and even gamification to shift data culture and boost adoption.

What we covered

🔑 Secoda’s Spring ‘25 keynote

with Krzysztof Urban (Director of Data, Lichtblick) & Parag Shah (VP of Data, CarGurus)

We unveiled Secoda’s new governance capabilities focused on automation, access control, and audit readiness—and explored how governance has shifted from a defensive chore to a strategic enabler. Highlights included real-world insights from data leaders and Secoda customers at CarGurus and LichtBlick on building buy-in, decentralizing stewardship, and using data quality scores to drive accountability.

🧬 Privacy, trust & AI in healthcare 

with Jess Carney (Director of Data Engineering, Brooklyn Data Co.) & Tyler Fischella (Director, Data and AI Governance, Onix)

Balancing patient privacy and AI enablement is no small feat. This panel unpacked automation strategies (like dynamic masking and policy-as-code), attribute-based access control, and why cataloging PHI effectively is a prerequisite—not a nice-to-have—for AI in healthcare.

💸 The future of data governance in finance & identity

with Beatrice Dlesk (Data Governance Lead, ID.me), Clint Shannon (Sr. Director, Corporate Systems, Alegeus), Chad Sanderson (CEO, Gable.ai)

In highly regulated industries like finance, governance has long been a necessity. But now it can also be a competitive edge. From aligning governance to strategic business threads to scaling federated stewardship, the panelists shared how they’re embedding governance into workflows and making it visible, measurable, and indispensable, and shared tips on how to start a governance program from scratch.

⚡Smarter governance for the future of energy

with Shane Coleman (Chief Data Security Evangelist, Cyera)

Energy companies face a unique challenge: governing legacy systems while modernizing rapidly for AI, security, and compliance. This fireside chat dove into governance for operational technology, AI model hygiene, audit readiness, and using risk-based prioritization to reduce business disruption without slowing innovation.

Looking ahead

The future of governance isn’t checkbox-driven…it’s value-driven. 

Across every panel, one thing was clear: the best data teams are using governance to move faster, not slower. They're building trust, enabling AI, and creating systems that scale—not stall—under pressure.

Missed a panel? Catch up with the recaps above, and share with your team to kickstart your next governance initiative.