Event: De-Risk Without De-Valuing: Turning Governance into an AI Growth Engine
Missed the event? Catch up now.
Turning Governance into an AI Growth Engine
On 20 January, we brought together a room of data, AI and business leaders at the Databricks London office to tackle a problem most organisations are living through right now:
Plenty of AI ideas. But not enough of them are high-impact, reusable, production-ready use cases, because the data foundations, governance and prioritisation aren’t pulling in the same direction.
If you couldn’t make it, catch up on the highlights and watch the full panel from our leading experts.
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Benedetto Conversano is the former Chief Information Officer of Diageo, one of the world’s leading premium drinks companies. In his role as CIO, he was responsible for enterprise technology and information systems at a global scale, supporting Diageo’s operations across markets, brands, and functions. His experience spans large, complex organisations where technology, data, and business transformation intersect.
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Richard Masters is Vice President of Data & AI at Virgin Atlantic. In this role, he leads the airline’s data and artificial intelligence agenda, focusing on how data capabilities can support commercial performance, operational efficiency, and customer experience within a global aviation business.
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Maria Zervou is Chief Data and AI Officer at Databricks. She works with organisations across industries to help them define and execute their data and AI strategies, focusing on how modern data platforms can enable analytics, machine learning, and AI at scale.
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George Bettsworth is Head of Data Science at the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO). He leads the department’s data science activity, focusing on how applied data science can strengthen decision-making and delivery across policy, programmes, and operations in a complex, global organisation.
Turning governance into an AI growth engine
This was a straight-talking discussion across sectors, what’s working, what’s getting stuck, and how leaders are choosing the next AI bets without gambling on low-quality data or unclear value.
What you’ll hear in the session:
- How leaders are prioritising AI use cases based on measurable business outcomes
- What “good governance” looks like when the goal is speed and scale, not bureaucracy
- How to move from one-off experiments to reusable AI assets
- The patterns showing up across industries and what you can learn from them
Next event: April 21st 2026
Following the success of our session in January, we're hosting another at Databricks HQ in April.
If you want first access to the speaker-line up and to register your place at this event, then complete the form below and we'll email you the details.
