Organizational alignment on a data strategy is essential to realizing the transformative impact of applying an organization’s data to its fullest potential. This is easier said than done, despite there being a general alignment amongst an organization’s leaders on the transformative opportunities to apply their data. Why is it hard for an organization to align on a data strategy? What are the top-line considerations for an organization’s leadership to avoid or break out of the deadlock states that hinder the acceleration of data value creation? What is the breakthrough path for ‘The Data Strategy Alignment Conundrum’?     In this episode, you’ll learn:        Should we centralize, de-centralize, or federate our data transformation investments? How Karthik built and bootstrapped Microsoft's internal data office The cultural alignment and how to think about connected data The challenges that come with being a data-driven organization   Some questions we ask:       What is data strategy?  What informs the compliance and security requirements that organizations work towards? How can you get data investments to evolve in most organizations? What do we need to do to responsibly accelerate our data value creation opportunities?    Guest bio    General Manager of Enterprise Data at Microsoft, Karthik Ravindran, has delivered a modern cloud-native data and analytics foundation on Microsoft Azure for Microsoft's own digital transformation. He also standardized and scaled enterprise data governance to democratize data and applications responsibly. Leading data transformation engagements with Microsoft, Karthik works with customers and partners on data modernization strategies, architecting a cloud-native data and analytics foundation, and scaling data governance for responsible data democratization.      Resources:    View Karthik Ravindran on LinkedIn  View Patrick LeBlanc on LinkedIn                    Discover and follow other Microsoft podcasts at microsoft.com/podcasts  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.