BearingNode CEO Joins Financial Services Leaders at FIMA 2025

BearingNode Marketing Team
16 minutes ago
3 min read

Last week, BearingNode CEO Daniel Rolles participated in FIMA 2025 at The Kia Oval in London, Europe's premier event for Data Strategy, Governance, and Architecture leaders in Financial Services.

The two-day conference brought together over 80 influential speakers, including Chief Data and AI Officers from Societe Generale, Deutsche Bank, HSBC, and Santander UK, alongside practitioners from leading institutions across Europe.

Key Themes from the Conference Floor

Throughout the conference, three critical themes emerged that are reshaping how Financial Services organisations approach data and AI:

AI Observability Is the New Frontier

Beyond traditional Data Observability, organisations now need visibility into how AI systems—including agentic AI—consume data and make decisions. As Luke Pearce, Chief Data and AI Officer at Santander UK, demonstrated in his keynote presentation, this isn't optional anymore—it's foundational to responsible AI deployment at scale.

The distinction matters: AI Governance without AI Observability is just "policy and hope". Multiple sessions reinforced this reality—GenAI adoption simply doesn't work without both governed data foundations and the observability infrastructure to track how AI systems actually behave in production.

This creates a dangerous asymmetry. Organisations are implementing sophisticated AI Governance frameworks whilst their traditional Data Governance capabilities lack basic observability. The AI Engineering community is building comprehensive lineage tracking and quality monitoring—essentially reinventing what Data Governance should have provided. Meanwhile, governance teams struggle to prove value without observable impacts.

Data Mesh Requires Operating Model Change, Not Just Technology

"Build it and they will come" continues to be a fallacy in data transformation initiatives. Data Mesh and data products require fundamental shifts in how teams work together. The technology, as multiple roundtable discussions confirmed, is actually the easy part. The challenge lies in changing organisational behaviours and decision-making patterns—a Connected Operating Model approach rather than purely technical implementation.

Lineage Automation Driving Open Standards Adoption

As Data Lineage automation becomes essential for both compliance and AI Governance, Open Standards like OpenLineage are moving from "nice to have" to critical infrastructure. Vendor lock-in becomes untenable when organisations need automated lineage across their entire ecosystem—particularly as AI systems introduce new complexity into data flows.

The Convergence of Data Governance and AI Governance

Hallway conversations throughout both days confirmed what BearingNode is seeing with clients: the convergence of Data Governance and AI Governance is accelerating faster than many organisations realise. Both communities are solving mirror-image problems—they need trustworthy data with traceable lineage. The institutions positioned to win are those treating observability and Open Standards as strategic investments, not merely compliance checkboxes.

As Daniel shared in his conference reflections, whilst many vendors at the conference are OpenLineage compliant, few were leading with this capability. "Why isn't Open Standards compliance a headline feature yet?" he noted on day one. "The industry needs to make interoperability and vendor neutrality more visible to buyers."

[IMAGE: BearingNode at FIMA flyer]

Beyond Policy and Hope

A consistent message across sessions was the inadequacy of "policy and hope" as a strategy—and this applies equally to Data Governance and AI Governance. Organisations need to embrace uncertainty rather than attempting to manage it out, but this requires solid governance infrastructure and observability capabilities that enable safe experimentation.

As one opening panel discussion highlighted, data and AI projects need a fundamentally different navigation approach. They cannot succeed on governance policies alone; they require real-time visibility into how systems actually consume and transform data.

This isn't about choosing sides between the Data Governance and AI Engineering communities. The convergence is accelerating because regulatory requirements like BCBS239 and emerging AI Governance frameworks demand similar infrastructure. OpenLineage adoption offers a game-changing opportunity for shared standards that serve both worlds.

Looking Ahead

The FIMA 2025 conference demonstrated that Financial Services leaders are moving beyond theoretical discussions about AI Governance to practical implementation challenges. The questions are no longer about whether to invest in AI Observability or adopt Open Standards, but how to do so effectively whilst maintaining the pace of innovation.

BearingNode's Data & Information Observability (D/I O11y) framework addresses exactly these challenges, helping organisations build both the governance infrastructure and observability capabilities needed for responsible AI deployment without sacrificing agility. By bridging Data Governance and AI Engineering perspectives, we help Financial Services organisations navigate this convergence with vendor-neutral, interoperable architectures.