York's data governance program eyes capabilities, not control
York University has focused its data governance program more on solving data quality, access and trust issues for end users than on controlling their data use.
Data governance often gets a bad rap in organizations: End users see it as an effort to control what they do with data. The data governance team at York University deliberately set out to avoid creating that perception.
"Control is not a word we use in data governance at York at all," said Patrick Cernea, director of data strategy and governance at the university in Toronto. "Instead of trying to stop people from doing things, it's more of a way to help them do their jobs better."
To be sure, the governance program aims to tighten data processes at York. The program's six core goals include eliminating data silos and shadow databases and ensuring regulatory compliance through proper data classification and policies governing data collection, use and retention.
But governing data and how it's used "is not the endpoint," Cernea said during a webinar hosted by the Data Governance Professionals Organization (DGPO) this month. "We aren't here for data governance's sake. We're here to solve data issues through data governance."
That's reflected in the program's four other goals:
Enhancing data intelligence for better decision-making.
An internal user survey conducted before the governance initiative began in 2020 showed problems in all those areas, Cernea said. Almost 50% of the respondents said relevant data was hard to find in York's systems, and sizable percentages also cited a lack of clear data definitions, access to required data and trust in the data that was available to them.
Data issues become a pressing priority
A subsequent review found that, with data ownership decentralized across the university, data quality was inconsistent. Clear accountability for data and guardrails on its management and use were also lacking, according to Cernea. He said addressing the data issues became a priority due to a $2 million digital transformation project and the growing use of analytics and AI applications at York.
We aren't here for data governance's sake. We're here to solve data issues through data governance.
Patrick CerneaDirector of data strategy and governance,
York University
Now, there are 830 common data definitions in a metadata repository the data governance team created, and 310 data elements have been classified, with more to come as privacy reviews are completed. Data trustees and data stewards have been assigned to all 21 data domains and 45 sub-domains that York prioritized for governance, and 130 governance rules have been formalized across the university.
Cernea said a follow-up user survey showed double-digit improvements in views of data findability, definitions and access, and a 6% increase in the share of users who think data is trustworthy. Externally, York won the 2026 DGPO Data Governance Best Practice Award, which recognizes a governance program for its business value and technical excellence.
A six-year implementation process
But getting data governance at York to where it is now was a long journey spanning six years, from May 2020 to April 2026.
Years 1-2
Cernea worked with various stakeholders for two years to lay the foundation for the governance program, splitting his time between that and his existing BI strategy role. Key upfront tasks included:
Creating data governance and data quality playbooks.
Identifying data trustees and stewards.
Separate committees were established with the trustees -- senior executives accountable for data in specific domains -- and the stewards, who work at the sub-domain level.
Years 3-4
The program formally took shape in its third and fourth years. During that period, the university promoted Cernea to his current position full-time and hired a chief data officer to oversee the governance program and other data initiatives. It also hired a data governance analyst to create a three-person team that leads the program alongside the two committees.
Implementation milestones in Year 3 included developing a data governance charter, a comprehensive data and analytics strategy, an institutional data quality framework and associated quality process maps.
In Year 4, the team drafted a data governance policy, launched an internal data definitions website and created a data and analytics community of engagement. The CoE was designed to help build a stronger data culture at York through quarterly sessions on using data and resolving problems, Cernea said.
Years 5-6
After a multi-stage review process, York's board approved the data governance policy in December 2025. In Years 5-6, the governance team also developed a data literacy course and created multiple governance-related training videos. Other notable steps included documenting data quality rules and standardizing a set of governance metrics at the institutional level. Operationally, data governance was embedded into the university's planning, budgeting and performance management processes.
Technology's role in the governance program
Cernea said the metadata repository that underpins the governance program is built on Data Cookbook, a cloud-based SaaS application. The repository serves as a data catalog, capturing metadata and data lineage information from a Databricks-based data lakehouse running in the Azure cloud. It also contains a business glossary, a data dictionary, data classifications and data quality rules.
A separate Data Hub repository and portal provides access to public and restricted datasets, along with information about them. The governance team also developed a Data Navigation Assistant chatbot that maps data products by domain and by category -- such as interactive dashboards and static reports -- to help Data Hub users find what they're looking for.
While these tools are key components of the data governance program for end users, Cernea said improving data literacy, through both the literacy course and the data and analytics CoE, was especially critical to the program's acceptance.
"If you can establish data literacy early on, people are not going to push back as hard when the data governance policy comes," he said. By the time York's policy was approved, he noted, users already understood the importance of effective governance and data quality.
The CoE sessions don't focus directly on data governance; Cernea said they're practical meetings on topics such as available dashboards and potential ways to increase student retention based on data analysis. The sessions aren't just presentations -- they include panels, case studies, open discussions and collaborative workgroups. Attendance has reached full capacity at all but one, according to Cernea.
"This is how we make data governance fun, for lack of a better word," he said.
Solving user problems is key to governance success
Ultimately, Cernea sees resolving data gaps and problems that hinder users from working effectively as the biggest selling point for a governance program.
"Data governance is often seen as slowing things down," Cernea said. "But you can say, 'No, we're doing the opposite. We're enabling people to speed things up and do their jobs better.'" That, he added, "makes data governance more of a capability than a compliance effort."
It's a view shared by other forward-looking data governance leaders.
Carol Henry, senior director of data governance and analytics at Longo Brothers Fruit Markets, made a similar point to Cernea's in a session during Dataversity's Enterprise Data Governance Online 2026 conference in January. Longo's, a supermarket chain in Southern Ontario, launched its data governance program in late 2022. Henry, previously the company's HR director, began by interviewing more than 20 executives across all business units about key business decisions, required insights and data challenges.
For Henry, understanding business priorities, strategic initiatives, core KPIs and data-related pain points was critical to developing a governance strategy that balances more effective data management with increased business agility. "If data governance isn't aligned with that, it won't succeed," she said.
Craig Stedman is an industry editor at TechTarget who edits and writes articles on data technologies and processes. He has covered enterprise IT for more than 40 years.
