CDO BFSI Agenda Day 2
Receive pre-printed GenAI prompts and share tweaks and improvements with other delegates over breakfast.
Data democratisation fails when frontline staff lack literacy or breach controls, while specialist data teams drown under ad-hoc requests. A scalable talent model has become board-level priority and the only solution. CDOs must now develop controllable and accountable IT literacy to drive productivity, free up resources, and enable innovation from all business functions.
Success depends on employees fluent in both business context and technical delivery – balance sheets and Python. Yet the talent market offers few such hybrid profiles. CDOs are now looking to offer credential paths, internal gig-marketplaces and reward opportunities that retain such staff without Silicon-Valley-esque pay checks.
Tech teams come up with visionary ideas; Business units chase next quarter’s numbers; mis-alignment results in mid-project funding cuts, leaving everyone frustrated. CDOs step up to the challenge, and bridge technical data expertise with solid business objectives to drive both innovation and growth.
Corporate culture tends to only showcase wins, leaving recurring mistakes unaddressed and often unacknowledged across functions and geographies.
A cyber espionage scandal triggers a data sovereignty standoff. Washington, Brussels and Beijing each rush through emergency measures to safeguard citizen data and critical AI. Overnight, companies see cross border data flows pipes taxed, throttled and scrutinised.
Imagine this:
• U.S. & EU impose a $0.10 per GB “Data Integrity Levy” on all outbound traffic; traffic must transit new government inspection gateways, adding ≥ 200 ms latency.
• China & India retaliate with a 12 % “Digital Export Duty,” plus in country processing rules for any personal or transaction data.
• The Basel IV “Sovereign Data Addendum” now demands proof that you can run core workloads locally within 60 days or face capital surcharges.
• Rules take effect in 30 calendar days; non compliance fines reach 4% of global turnover.
Split into three teams - your scenarios:
• Blue Team: Your CEO is already under investigation for previous data privacy breaches.
• Green Team: A marquee GenAI wealth management launch is scheduled across all regions in 90 days.
• Yellow Team: Your CFO orders a 30 % cut to group wide storage costs to offset new tariffs.
Each team has to:
1. Identify the first systems to break when tariffs and latency hit.
2. Draft one board ready action ensuring legal and technical readiness within the 60 day window.
3. Vote on the most urgent cross team fix.
Each table’s nominated leader shares their findings with the room, so every CDO walks out with a single, concrete next step, before the new levies land.
Agentic AI is the next leap beyond GenAI: autonomous digital “workers” that execute complex processes at software speed and near-zero marginal cost. Yet no UK bank or insurer has moved past pilot stage. Knowledge gaps, shaky data foundations and governance anxiety stall progress while early movers eye dramatic operating leverage. CDOs need to lay out and execute pragmatic agentic AI development and deployment roadmap before rivals out-automate them.
Data teams get excited by POCs, yet many fail to clear the final hurdles of risk and funding approval, as well as operational integration. As a result, time and money is wasted, innovative ideas get shelved, the board loses faith in data leadership and the data department once again gets branded as a high-expense cost centre. CDOs need to ensure they have clear strategies for POC selection and product implementation to create a better ROI for their business.