Your organization has dashboards, scorecards, and governance processes for data quality. But when bad data slips into production, reaches decision-makers, or feeds AI systems the wrong context, those measurements alone do not stop the damage. This session is about closing that gap.

The stakes are higher than most teams realize. In practice, analytics and AI often fail not because the models are weak, but because the data underneath them is untested, poorly described, and insufficiently governed at the point where mistakes actually enter the system. Our own survey of working data engineers found that the top reason teams do not test their data is not tooling or skill. Nobody gives them the time or budget. Quality gets measured. It rarely gets enforced.

Chris Bergh shares six practical practices that move data quality from reporting to enforcement, helping teams catch problems earlier, reduce downstream blame, and make data more reliable for both people and AI. Drawing on work with enterprise data teams in pharma, health care, and manufacturing, this session focuses on the operational habits that matter most: testing before production, stronger metadata, clearer ownership, broader quality coverage, and controls that turn standards into action.

Attendees will leave with a self-assessment they can use with their teams right away, a framework for identifying where their current program is strong or exposed, and clear language for explaining to leadership why data quality must move beyond dashboards if the organization wants trustworthy analytics and trustworthy AI.

Speaker: Christopher Bergh, CEO Head Chef, DataKitchen

Christopher Bergh is a Founder and Head Chef at DataKitchen, where he is leading DataKitchen’s Agile Data initiative. Chris has more than 25 years of research, engineering, analytics, and executive management experience. Previously, Chris was Regional Vice President of the Revenue Management Intelligence group in Model N. Before Model N, Chris was COO of LeapFrogRx, a descriptive and predictive analytics software and service provider. Chris led the acquisition of LeapFrogRx by Model N in January 2012. Prior to LeapFrogRx, Chris was CTO and VP of Product Management of MarketSoft (now part of IBM), an innovative Enterprise Marketing Management software vendor.

Prior to that, Chris developed Microsoft Passport, the predecessor to Windows Live ID, a distributed authentication system used by hundreds of millions of users today. He was awarded a U.S. Patent for his work on that project.

Before joining Microsoft, he led the technical architecture and implementation of Firefly Passport, an early leader in Internet Personalization and Privacy. Microsoft subsequently acquired Firefly. In addition, Chris led the development of the first travel-related e-commerce website at NetMarket.

Chris began his career at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's (MIT) Lincoln Laboratory and NASA Ames Research Center. There, he created software and algorithms that provided aircraft arrival optimization assistance to Air Traffic Controllers at several major airports in the United States.

Chris served as a Peace Corps Volunteer Math Teacher in Botswana, Africa. He has an M.S. from Columbia University and a B.S. from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Chris is an avid cyclist, hiker, reader, and father of two teenagers. He can be found at linkedin.com/in/chrisbergh.