CDO Magazine’s San Francisco Leadership Dinner on February 27, brought together senior data, analytics, and AI executives to exchange knowledge on “Harnessing the Power of GenAI.” Conversations revolved around measuring business impact, overcoming adoption barriers, and staying ahead of ethical and regulatory shifts.

Executives examined real-world outcomes from GenAI, including operational efficiencies and enhanced decision-making, while also addressing integration hurdles, workforce adaptation, and regulatory concerns. The event fostered valuable knowledge-sharing, equipping leaders with insights to drive responsible AI adoption.

Deepa Harnalli, Forge SVP, Global Head, Data, AI/ML & Analytics Platforms and standing Chief Data Officer, shares the following takeaways:

1. AI adoption challenges are universal: Regardless of industry — whether fintech, healthcare, payments, retail, or entertainment — leaders face similar challenges in adopting AI in larger organizations. The common themes include securing clean, trustworthy data, ensuring governance and compliance, and addressing AI bias. The discussions reinforced that every department must step up to leverage AI for operational efficiency, risk mitigation, and strategic acceleration.

2. The critical role of data governance and security: BigID provided an insightful overview of how organizations can proactively discover, manage, and protect their data while ensuring compliance. With the increasing complexity of multicloud, hybrid cloud, and on-prem data environments, businesses need unified platforms to maintain data visibility and control while automating privacy and security measures.

3. Peer learning and continuous evolution are key: The roundtable discussions and meetups provided an invaluable opportunity to exchange real-world experiences, discover new tools, and refine AI and data strategies. As AI and data technologies evolve rapidly, staying engaged with industry peers helps organizations remain agile, adopt best practices, and drive innovation more effectively.

“These sessions are a great reminder that AI and data governance are not just IT concerns but enterprise-wide imperatives that require cross-functional collaboration,” Harnalli adds.

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Reflecting on the event, Patrick McQuillan, Visa Sr. Director, Global Head, Data Governance & Data Lifecycle Management, says: “It is essential to come together and have these types of honest, warm-hearted discussions as practitioners. We always come away learning about how to utilize new tools and trends in the industry to our advantage, and to craft solutions that best impact our customers. In the end, we are all here to make the data make sense, to become the source of truth for our organizations’ decision-making, and to drive investment in sustainable and meaningful ways for our customers.”

Sharing his take, Kiran Mysore, Sutter Health Chief Data & Analytics Officer, says: “The CDO Magazine dinner in San Francisco was set against a stunning backdrop overlooking the ocean and Alcatraz, with a gorgeous sunset and fantastic food and service. This made for a great environment to dive into rich conversations around AI — how to measure its ROI (which is hard), balancing qualitative and quantitative benefits, and the challenge of valuing future capabilities we can’t yet fully envision. We also discussed the opportunity in prompt engineering to get more from GenAI and the critical need for responsible AI, especially in areas like research, medicine, and education. Overall, it was a thoughtful, engaging discussion with a group that truly understands this space and embraces the spirit of innovation that Silicon Valley is known for.”

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Anthony Losanno, CDO Magazine SVP, Sales, says: “We hosted a fun and lively discussion around AI, the legal and moral implications of its implementation, and how to measure ROI to drive further investment. Education around prompt engineering will be critical to the successful use of GenAI and organizations must train their employees to get the most out of it as implementation continues to grow.”

Stephen Gatchell, BigID Sr. Director, Data Advisory, sums up the event saying, “CDO Magazine executed an all around excellent event from the venue, to the attendees, and the selection of topics to engage the attendees. Great venue, great food, great attendees, and great discussions.”

Special thanks to BigID, SqIDBM, and The Data Lodge for their partnership in making the event a success.

Deepa Harnalli, Srujana Kaddevarmuth, and Patrick McQuillan are members of the San Francisco Executive Board. Harnalli is also a member of CDO Magazine’s Global Editorial Board.

Executives attending the CDO Magazine San Francisco Leadership Dinner included: 

Anya A’Hearn, Blue Shield of California Director, Data Visualization & Democratization; Akshaya Aradhya, Osilar VP, Engineering, AI, ML, Data, InfoSec; Ozlem Bishop, Renaissance Park Corporation Chief Data Officer; Lee Davidson, Morningstar CDAO, VP, Data; Michael Doll, Guitar Center VP, Data; Karin Golde, GraphIQ Chief Data Officer; Deepa Harnalli, Forge SVP, Global Head, Data, AI/ML & Analytics Platforms, standing Chief Data Officer; Srujana Kaddevarmuth, Walmart Group Director, Artificial Intelligence Center of Excellence; Ercan Kamber, former Angi Chief Data Officer; Brijesh Kalidindi, Blue Shield of California Sr. Director; Shadabb Kanwal, Charles Schwab MD, Digital Data & Analytics; Sravya Madipalli, Grammarly Sr. Manager, Growth; Patrick McQuillan, Visa Global Head, Data Governance; Kiran Mysore, Sutter Health Chief Data & Analytics Officer; Jack Pfeiffer, Fermata Energy VP, Data Science & Software; Ronak Shah, Apna Chief Technology Officer; Lori Sherer, Chairwoman, Women in Data Science Worldwide; John Shields, ETR Director, Data Strategies & Insight; Pooja Singh, 84.51 Director, Data Science; Seema Singhal, ConnectIQ Chief Digital & AI Officer; Brianna Zhao, Warner Brothers Games Head, Data Insights; Stephen Gatchell, BigID Sr. Director, Data Advisory; Lindsay Henry, SqlDBM VP, Sales; Kyle Pullman, SqlDBM Enterprise Data; Ray Testa, BigID RVP; Brad Tips, BigID Sr. Director, Partner Management; Steve Bangsund, CDO Magazine Program Director; Gerri Caveness, CDO Magazine Program Director; Anthony Losanno CDO Magazine SVP, Sales.