In this moment, excerpted from his main stage panel, Tom Gerdes, CIO, The Heico Companies LLC, explained that addressing enterprise data risk requires a cross-functional governance framework that exposes hidden data practices, creates accountability, and establishes processes for remediation.
Key Takeaways
Data Governance Must Be an Enterprise Discipline: Effective governance cannot belong solely to IT, leadership, or the business. Gerdes emphasized bringing those groups together to examine enterprise data practices and confront difficult questions about how information is being managed.
AI Raises the Stakes for Hidden Data Risk: Organizations may have data exposures they do not even know exist, particularly as AI makes more information discoverable. Gerdes pointed to developers creating multiple copies of databases as an example of how unmanaged data can proliferate quietly across the enterprise.
Governance Turns Discovery Into Remediation: A governance framework creates a structured way to surface problems without discouraging disclosure, then determine how to clean them up. From there, organizations can establish new processes, introduce additional frameworks, and bring in expertise where needed.


