AGENTIC LEADER by DATAMASTERCLASS.COM Reserve a Seat
Invite-Only Workshop for Data & AI Leaders

Data MasterclassNYCDec 22026

Building the Enterprise Context Layer and Agentic Capabilities

The agentic roadmap your CEO is asking for is built on the data & AI foundation you own. So, how do you build your agentic capabilities fast and reliably? An invite-only workshop for Data & AI leaders: small groups under the Chatham House Rule, mastermind-style, working on your own agentic capability strategy. Practitioner-focused: for leaders, by leaders. We share what's working in real life.

Wed, Dec 2, 2026 12:00 PM – 6:30 PM EST 199 Water St, Financial District
Apply Now & Reserve a Seat See the Programme Hosted by Marla Dans, Tom Redman and Dr. Alexander Borek · Invite only · Free of charge · The Data Puppets are coming!
22
Seats
Peers at one table. Not an audience.
Free
Invitation Only
No fee. Leaders only.
2
Mastermind rounds
Groups of five or six. Your case, a coach, a workbook.
8
Leaders on Stage
Marla Dans, Tom Redman, Scott Taylor, Karthik Ravindran, Gregory Redman, Alexander Borek, plus two more New York Data & AI leaders. And the Data Puppets.
Two leaders in conversation
Room of Data & AI leaders cheering
Rooftop mastermind table
Leader panel on stage
Printed workshop workbook
Leaders greeting each other
Speaker presenting
Small group discussion
Participants laughing
Rooftop social
Briefing on AI readiness
Workbooks on the table

Finally in the US

Europe's Fast Track for Data & AI Leaders Comes to New York.

Since 2023Data Masterclass workshops in Berlin, Frankfurt, Düsseldorf and Prague, with Vienna, Munich and Copenhagen next. Small rooms, leaders only, rated 4.8 / 5 by participants in Prague. December 2 is the first edition on this side of the Atlantic.

Data Masterclass Europe 2026 main stage, Berlin
Data Masterclass Europe 2026 · Berlin
Mastermind table on the rooftop
Leader panel
Audience asking questions
Leaders only. Every question is a real case.

This event was the ultimate investment for my career development and for my success as a data leader.

JG
Jochem van GrondelleHead of Data Architecture & Data Engineering

Data Masterclass gave us clarity, external input, and community support. They accelerated our transformation and strengthened alignment between data and AI leadership.

JN
Julia NiestrathHead of AI, Deutsche Bahn

Alex and Aleksejs don't sugarcoat. They gave us clarity, courage, and discipline to lead bold transformations others wouldn't dare touch. They cut through the noise and helped us focus on real impact.

AK
Dr. Alexandra KochendörferHead of Business Applications & Enterprise Architecture, Heraeus

It was amazing, looking forward to being a part of this again in the future. Great initiative to speed up data adoption in Europe.

RR
Rob ReemersHead of Data & Analytics

Hear it from the leaders themselves: Video Stories from Data Masterclass Members

Our Partners

Why this session

Agents Are the Biggest Demand Your Data and AI Function Has Ever Had.

The CEO wants agents. The agents want trustworthy data, clear ownership, governed context and a platform that can carry them. That puts Data & AI leaders on the critical path together, whether the organisation chart reflects it yet or not.

We only share what we have seen working in practice.

The shift

Your Data Now Has a New Consumer: Software That Acts.

Dashboards tolerate a vague definition or a stale table. An agent that books, approves or answers customers does not. The bar for data quality, lineage and access just moved, and it moved into your remit.

The method

Independent Briefing, Then Your Own Case.

The Data Masterclass format: a research-based briefing, small mastermind tables, printed workbooks, a leader panel. Slower and deeper than a conference. You leave with your own plan, not our slides.

The room

Twenty-Two Data & AI Leaders at One Table.

Chief Data Officers, Chief AI Officers, Heads of Data, AI, Governance and Platform from enterprises. Admission by application so every table can talk openly about what actually broke.

Mastermind round on the rooftop
Mastermind round · groups of five or six, one coach, one workbook
Leaders in a small-group discussion
Printed workbook with frameworks

What we work on together

Two Things Data & AI Leaders Own in Every Agentic Roadmap.

The briefing sets the arc from agentic strategy to the enterprise context layer and agentic capabilities, seen from the Data & AI function. Then we work in small groups, mastermind-style: each leader brings their own situation, the table works it through with a coach and a workbook.

Leaders working on the context layer at a mastermind table

Group exercise 1

Building the Enterprise Context Layer

Agents fail on context long before they fail on models. Your data products, the glossary, the metric definitions, the policies and the access rules your function already governs are exactly what an agent needs, in a form it can use. Making data products AI-ready is data governance's next job.

  • AI-ready data products: clear semantics, quality guarantees and contracts an agent can rely on
  • Context inventory: business definitions, metrics, policies, permissions
  • From data governance to context governance: ownership, operating model and a 90-day path to a shared context layer
Briefing on AI readiness by business function

Group exercise 2

Designing the Agentic Platform

Your platform was built for people reading reports. Agents read continuously, act on what they read, and cost money per call. Which platform decisions belong to the Data & AI leader, and which stay with IT.

  • Build, buy or sovereign: the platform choice and its total cost
  • Trust, access and cost control as capabilities the Data & AI function owns
  • From pilot infrastructure to a governed foundation the business can rely on

A Look Inside the Workbook

Frameworks from Practice, Not from Slideware.

A selection from the Data Masterclass agentic training material. Every framework here comes from implementations we have run with enterprise teams. On December 2 you work through them on your own case.

The agentic capability portfolio: big bets, self service, foundations
01The agentic capability portfolio: big bets, self service, foundations
Which agentic bets are big enough to change the P&L
02Which agentic bets are big enough to change the P&L
The target operating model for an agentic organisation
03The target operating model for an agentic organisation
Designing human-agent collaboration: map the work, not the org chart
04Designing human-agent collaboration: map the work, not the org chart
Programmatic by default, agentic by exception
05Programmatic by default, agentic by exception
Context is the moat: models are commodities, enterprise context is proprietary
01Context is the moat: models are commodities, enterprise context is proprietary
Standardised data and KPIs an agent can rely on
02Standardised data and KPIs an agent can rely on
AI-ready data products: findable, trustworthy, owned, testable, versioned
03AI-ready data products: findable, trustworthy, owned, testable, versioned
Process context: your operating model, machine-readable
04Process context: your operating model, machine-readable
Assembling context: the smallest high-quality set wins
05Assembling context: the smallest high-quality set wins
Governed write-back: only trusted knowledge goes back in
06Governed write-back: only trusted knowledge goes back in
Four agentic architecture layers
01Four agentic architecture layers
Five golden paths for building agents at scale
02Five golden paths for building agents at scale
Four numbers per agent system, every week
03Four numbers per agent system, every week
1 / 5

Programme · all times Eastern

One Afternoon. Built to Finish with a Plan.

A workshop, not a conference. We start with lunch so the room knows each other before the work begins. The social afterwards is where the real comparisons happen.

Get-Together Lunch & Opening Ceremony

Lunch at the venue, introductions around the table, and the official opening of the first Data Masterclass in the US.

Leaders meeting over lunch

Opening Keynote: To Succeed with AI, You've Got to Nail the Basics

Why most agent projects inherit the data problems nobody fixed, and what to do first. Based on Tom's Harvard Business Review article.

Tom Redman

Tom Redman giving a keynote

Keynote: The Data Puppets Take Over Data Masterclass

The Data Puppets are coming to New York. Scott Taylor and his cast make the case for data management the way nobody else can: simple, memorable and impossible to forget when you pitch it to your own board.

Scott Taylor, The Data Whisperer, with the Data Puppets

The Data Puppets

Break

Leader Briefing: From Agentic Strategy to the Enterprise Context Layer and Agentic Capabilities

Independent, research-based. What Data & AI leaders have to change in strategy, context, governance and platform when agents become the primary consumer of enterprise data.

Marla Dans and Dr. Alexander Borek

Leader briefing on stage

Mastermind Rounds: Group Exercises 1 and 2

Groups of five or six apply the frameworks to their own organisation, guided by a coach and a printed workbook. Every leader leaves with their own notes, not ours.

Table coaches from the Data Masterclass faculty

Mastermind round

Break

Leader Panel: AI Adoption and Foundations

Talk-show format. What worked, what was quietly rolled back, what they would decide differently now.

Led by Marla Dans · with Tom Redman, Karthik Ravindran, Gregory Redman, Dr. Alexander Borek and two more New York Data & AI leaders (to be announced)

Leader panel

Closing Keynote: A.I. HOPE – The Work of Leadership to Build a Future Worth Creating with AI

What leaders owe their organisations when AI changes how work gets done, and how to lead toward a future people want to build.

Karthik Ravindran

Karthik Ravindran

Social

Drinks and conversation. The part of the day people remember.

Evening social

Programme as of October 2026. Session titles may be refined with the panel.

Speakers

Leaders Who Have Done the Work.

Marla Dans

Marla Dans

Host · Leader Briefing · Leads the Leader Panel

Built Chief Data Officer functions from scratch at several financial institutions, starting at JPMorgan. Community builder (Women Data Professionals, Women's Bond Club NY). Now fractional data transformation leader and researcher on agentic AI governance.

Tom Redman

Tom Redman

Host · Opening Keynote · Leader Panel

"The Data Doc." President of Data Quality Solutions, author of Data Driven and People and Data, long-time Harvard Business Review contributor. Three decades on the data problems that AI now makes impossible to ignore.

Dr. Alexander Borek

Dr. Alexander Borek

Host · Leader Briefing · Leader Panel

Founder of Data Masterclass. Former data & AI leader at Volkswagen Group and Zalando; strategy consulting background. Coaches enterprise data and AI leaders across Europe and runs the Agentic AI Leader Program.

Scott Taylor

Scott Taylor

Keynote · The Data Puppets

"The Data Whisperer." Helps enterprises tell their data story to the people who fund it. Creator of the Data Puppets, who explain data management to executives better than any slide.

Karthik Ravindran

Karthik Ravindran

Closing Keynote · Leader Panel

General Manager, Enterprise Data and AI at Microsoft. Led Microsoft's own Enterprise Data Office and built product and engineering for Microsoft Purview Data Governance. Today runs worldwide go-to-market for Azure Data.

Gregory Redman

Gregory Redman

Leader Panel

Technical Program Manager at Google, leading AI adoption inside Google. Brings the view from inside one of the companies shaping how enterprises adopt AI.

CDO, Chief Dog Officer of the Data Puppets

CDO – Chief Dog Officer

Special Guest · The Data Puppets

Arrives with Scott Taylor and the rest of the Data Puppets. Has strong opinions on data quality, governance and who left the treats in the data lake.

Who gets a seat

Invite Only. Leaders Only.

This Is for You If

  • You lead data or AI, or a core part of it, in an enterprise: CDO, CDAO, CAIO, Head of Data, AI, Governance or Platform
  • The business is asking you to "make the data ready for agents" and you want a plan, not a slogan
  • You want to work through it with peers at your level

Probably Not If

  • You are coming to sell rather than to work on your own case
  • You are an engineer or architect looking for a technical build session
  • You can only drop in for the keynote

Venue

Thirty-Five Floors Above the Seaport.

A boardroom high above the East River, with room for twenty-two leaders. Two blocks from Fulton Street station (2, 3, 4, 5, A, C, J, Z).

199 Water Street, Room 35C
New York, NY 10038

Doors open 12:00 PM. Lunch, coffee and the evening social are included.

Room 35C at 199 Water Street: long boardroom table with chairs
Room 35C · 199 Water Street · reserved for December 2

Apply Now & Reserve a Seat

Twenty-Two Seats, No Fee. We Confirm Within Three Working Days.

Tell us who you are and what you are working on. The workshop is invite only and limited to enterprise Data & AI leaders, so every table can talk openly.

Free of charge. Seats are confirmed personally by your hosts.