Kansas City Data Professionals (September 2026)

We’ll look at how the shift from traditional BI to AI/BI has made governed semantics a prerequisite for AI, not a compliance afterthought. We’ll cover why data quality, observability, and MDM matter more as AI agents start acting on data instead of just displaying it, and why most agentic AI failures to governance gaps, not technical ones. We’ll close with an underdiscussed shift: Modern data platforms move managed Postgres into their platforms in 2026, erasing the old wall between apps and analytics and what that means for governance going forward. Expect a field-tested take, not theory: lessons from running governance and delivery teams at once, and a playbook for getting the business bought into governance without feeling slowed down. Speaker Bio Matt Crouch is a senior data leader with 25+ years building enterprise data ecosystems and leading teams through complex transformations across financial services, healthcare, and transportation. His work has spanned data governance, data architecture, data security, analytics and data services leadership. Matt holds an MBA from the University of Kansas, a BS in Computer Information Systems from DeVry University, and DeepLearning.AI certifications. He is based in the Kansas City area and speaks and posts on data governance, modern data platforms, and AI-enabled operating model. Outside of Data he enjoys, scuba diving, health and fitness and muscle cars. Agenda: 5:30 - 5:45 - Arrival & Open Networking 5:45 - 6:30 - Intro & Presentation 6:30 - 7:00 - Open Networking