The Data Governance Control Tower
Many organizations believe that centralizing data governance equals control.
So they build a control tower: policies, standards, councils, ownership models.
Meanwhile, in daily reality… data still flies everywhere.
Not because people don’t care.
But because governance lives too far away from where data is actually created and used.
That distance creates:
- low adoption
- unclear ownership
- zero incentives
- lots of “local optimizations”
You can’t govern data from the tower alone.
Real governance works when it’s embedded in workflows, data products, and decisions. Not when it’s documented in isolation.
Less control from above.
More guidance where the work happens.
