CDO Magazine’s annual Columbus Leadership Summit gathered a cross-section of senior data, analytics, AI, and digital decision-makers at the Renaissance Columbus Downtown Hotel on April 16. Bringing together around 200 leaders across financial services, healthcare, life sciences, retail, and consumer sectors, the gathering fostered meaningful dialogue on emerging trends, operational challenges, and the evolving demands of leadership in a fast-changing technological and regulatory landscape.

The program featured more than 50 speakers leading keynotes, focus groups, and panel breakout discussions, tackling everything from rethinking human oversight for autonomous AI and securing data across its full lifecycle, to embedding governance into operations and shifting from experimentation to value realization. These sessions spotlighted practical use cases and governance approaches shaping resilient, trusted, and value-driven data and AI strategies.

The three keynote sessions stood out:

• Governing the Gap: AI Strategy, Accountability & the Leaders Building What Comes Next – Raivo Murnieks, State of Ohio – Department of Administrative Services State Chief Data Officer; Bharath Prabhakaran, University of Cincinnati VP & Chief Digital Officer, and Jenni Wheeler, Cardinal Health VP, Data Office
• CDO Matters 100th Episode: A Special Live Recording | Mastering Unstructured Data – Malcolm Hawker, Profisee Chief Data Officer
• How Data, AI and Security Converge to Transform the Modern Company – Thomas Mazzaferro, Cyera Chief Data Officer
• Beyond AI Pilots: A CDO’s Guide to Building Enterprise‑Ready Data Foundations for AI – Dale Mumper, IBM Principal Data Platform Architect

CDO Magazine thanks the host city Co-Chairs of the Columbus Leadership Summit for their leadership:

• Scott Peachey, Huntington National Bank SVP, Segment Data Officer 
• Brian Shea, MedOne Healthcare Partners, Chief Information Officer
• Drew Smith, Chief Data & Analytics Officer (former OhioHealth, Little Caesars Pizza, IKEA)

Sharing his experience, keynote speaker Murnieks says, “The role of a Chief Data Officer is continuously evolving and becoming even more important with the advancements and evolution of generative AI. The Columbus Leadership Summit was a great opportunity to learn how experienced data leaders, representing a cross-section of industries, are working to address current and future data management needs. Generative AI is not only transforming workforce productivity and customer experience capabilities, but also the way we need to manage and account for unstructured data.”

On a similar note, keynote speaker Wheeler says, “Hearing from executive leaders across various industries provided invaluable, practical perspectives on navigating these complex shifts. It was truly time well spent, offering a unique opportunity to gain the strategic foresight and actionable insights essential for leading in today’s rapidly evolving landscape.”

Keynote speaker Prabhakaran agrees, “The CDO Magazine Columbus Summit was an outstanding event and provided a great opportunity to connect with and learn from data and AI leaders across various industries and locations.”

“I really enjoyed being part of the panel ‘Stop Piloting, Start Delivering’ where we had a great discussion around how we can scale beyond AI pilots and deliver ROI. In addition, I was honored to moderate an amazing closing keynote panel discussion around the importance of ‘Governance.’ Finally, I was humbled to receive the Top 25 Ohio Data and AI Leader award, which I accepted on behalf of our outstanding Digital Technology Solutions team and University of Cincinnati,” Prabhakaran adds. 

He shares his key takeaways:

• Agentic AI is here but requires a key focus on visibility into our data landscape (and sprawl) coupled with a major focus on security and other controls.
• Many organizations are challenged with how to scale beyond AI pilots and need to focus on how AI aligns to their strategic direction and plan to ensure the use cases are directly supporting their business success outcomes.
• Governance needs to be a forethought and not an afterthought both on the Data and AI fronts.
• There is some amazing and innovative work and thought leadership coming out of Ohio and the Silicon Heartland is definitely rising!

Co-Chair Smith points out that he came away enthused and inspired by how deliberate folks are in operationalizing AI. “What I mean is,” he says, “Yes folks are acting with urgency and seizing on the massive advancements in AI in the last couple of years, and folks are building the necessary processes and structures to enable continuous delivery, continuous improvements. If you relied only on the popular press, you’d think we are, as a field, careless. We are not.”

“Specifically, Malcolm’s framework of AI as both measurement (ML, etc) and meaning (Gen AI, LLM) continues to rattle in my head, ring true and guide me as I think how to scale AI in complex environments,” Smith adds.

According to Nate Murray, Fifth Third Bank SVP & Chief Data Officer, “It was a fantastic day connecting with industry peers learning about moving from the pilot phase to production phase with AI! Keynotes regarding modern data & the convergence of well-governed data and its impact on speed to value was great!”

For Co-Chair Shea, the CDO Magazine Leadership Summit delivered exceptional value through thoughtful insights from industry leaders and candid peer‑to‑peer discussions. “The opportunity to network with fellow executives and innovative solution providers made the experience both practical and impactful,” he says. 

Lexy Smith, CDO Magazine Community Director, highlights,“The Columbus Leadership Summit delivered exactly the kind of conversation this industry needs right now. The leaders in that room weren’t theorizing — they were sharing hard-won lessons from inside their organizations, talking candidly about scaling AI beyond the pilot stage, what responsible governance looks like under real pressure, and what it actually means to lead a data organization in 2026. The depth of expertise across sectors in Columbus, and the genuine willingness to go there in those conversations, made this one of the most valuable rooms I’ve had the privilege of producing. This community is the real deal.” 

Summing it up, Malcolm Hawker, Profisee Chief Data Officer, notes, “The CDO Magazine Leadership Summit in Columbus was an inspiring day of great presentations, peer insights, and networking. My top takeaway is that we’re seeing more companies make some incredible traction with AI, but that many of us continue to struggle with making the jump from POC to production. It’s clear that AI requires new ways of solving our biggest challenges, and that old models and frameworks are increasingly outdated. CDOs are writing the AI playbook on the field, which means that opportunities to share insights on what works (or doesn’t) through peer communities are more important than ever before.”

Special thanks to Cyera, IBM, Profisee, Everpure, Tiger Analytics, AlignAI, Agility Partners, Dataiku, Ohalo | Data X-ray, Turgon, Buckeye DAMA, The Data Lodge, and Data Society for their partnership in making the event a success.

Executives speaking at the CDO Magazine Columbus Leadership Summit included:

Steve Bartos, Worthington Steel VP, Digital Transformation, AI & Data; Scot Burdette, ABB Global Division Chief Information Officer; Tim Cunningham, Grange Insurance Chief Information Officer; Scott Dennull, Grant Thornton International Ltd Director, CORE IT Operations & Support; Dinakar Deshmukh, GE Aviation VP, Data Science & Analytics; Junell Felsburg, The Columbus Foundation Sr. Director, Cyber Security & Infrastructure; Lesley Garrison, JPMorganChase Executive Director; Gaurav Goel, Cardinal Health Head, Data Strategy & Transformation; Rob Golden, Great American Insurance Group Chief Data & Analytics Officer; Michelle Grimm, Fifth Third Bank SVP, Sr. Director, Data Engineering; Baldev Ghuman, TechCU Head, Data & Analytics; Suman Gummudala, Ashland Global SAP & AI Transformation Lead; Jeff Jacobs, Grange Insurance VP & Chief Technology Officer; Ryan Kean, Total Quality Logistics Chief Information Officer; Dinesh Kumar, Centria Healthcare VP, BI & Data Analytics; Nan Li, Citizens Bank SVP, Data & AI Product Strategy; Mark Marshalek, former Farmers Insurance Head, Data Solutions; Raivo Murnieks, Ohio Department of Administrative Services State Chief Data Officer; Nate Murray, Fifth Third Bank SVP & Chief Data Officer; Jonathan Paul, Fifth Third Bank VP, IT Director, Data & AI Governance; Scott Peachey, Huntington National Bank SVP, Segment Data Officer; Duane Powell, City of Hilliard Chief Information Officer; Bharath Prabhakaran, University of Cincinnati VP & Chief Digital Officer; Kishore Ravilla, Premier Health Partners VP, Chief Technology Officer; Michael Reznik, The Baldwin Group Head, Data & Analytics; Sandeep Rustagi, University of Mississippi Medical Center Chief Data Analytics Officer; Shubha Sampath, Federal Home Loan Bank of Cincinnati Chief Data Analytics Officer & VP; Russ Scoville III, Sentara Health Chief Data Officer; Brian Shea, MedOne Healthcare Partners Chief Information Officer; Michal Slominski, The Wasserstrom Company Executive VP, Information Technology; Corwin Smith, Wallick Head, Data, Analytics & AI; Drew Smith, former Chief Data & Analytics Officer (OhioHealth, Little Caesars Pizza, IKEA); Brad Stokes, TriplePoint MEP VP, Information Technology; Payal Thakur, JobsOhio Sr. Director, Enterprise Analytics/CDO; Tracie Cleveland Thomas, KeyBank SVP, Enterprise Digital Transformation Executive; Sasha Verbitsky, Simon Property Group SVP, Data Science, Analytics, Digital; Jenni Wheeler, Cardinal Health VP, Data Office; Justin Windle, First Citizens Bank SVP & Head, Data Oversight; Rehgan Bleile, AlignAI Co-Founder & CEO; Kyle DuPont, Ohalo CEO & Co-Founder; Jacob Haning, Impower.ai Practice Director, Data & AI; Malcolm Hawker, Profisee Chief Data Officer; Kaycee Lai, Everpure VP, AI, Analytics & Data; Paul Mason, Everpure Sr. Director, Global AI Alliances; Thomas Mazzaferro, Cyera Chief Data Officer; Dale Mumper, IBM Principal Data Platform Architect; Nigel Newton, Dataiku Principal Advisor, Business Transformation; Kamlesh Singh, Tiger Analytics Regional Sales Head; Ankur Varma, Turgon CEO; Anthony Losanno, CDO Magazine SVP, Sales; and Lexy Smith, CDO Magazine Community Director.