Industry Ignited Podcast

How to Turn Governance into Competitive Advantage: Morgan Templar on Healthy Data, Healthy AI | Ep. 20

Leeanne Aguilar, Ph.D.

In this Industry Ignited episode, Dr. Leanne Aguilar interviews Morgan Templar, CEO of First CDO Partners and founder of Get Governed, on how to build healthy data that powers trustworthy AI and real business results. Morgan shares the pivotal lessons that took her from paper-bound healthcare ops to enterprise Chief Data Officer, then breaks down practical playbooks: diagnosing data debt vs tech debt, mapping unstructured data (email, SharePoint, chats) to reduce legal risk, and using knowledge graphs + ontologies to align definitions at scale. She outlines an AI readiness checklist for CEOs, continuous monitoring to prevent model drift and bias (EU AI Act, NIST-aligned), and how to move from “using AI” to “doing AI” with agents that improve data quality, governance, and ROI. If you’re a leader aiming to make AI safe, useful, and profitable, this conversation is your blueprint.