Mastercard's Implementation Approach

Mastercard didn't roll out governance to everyone at once — they started with a small set of stewards, onboarded the assets those stewards cared about, and defined what makes something a "data product." By curating experiences for different user personas and measuring engagement continuously, they iterate based on real usage rather than assumptions about what users need.

Key takeaways:

• Start with early adopters and stewards, not company-wide rollouts — partner deeply to solve real problems first

• Prioritize asset onboarding based on what stewards care about, not trying to catalog everything at once

• Define clear criteria for what makes something a data product and what metadata others need to see

• Curate user experiences for different personas — privacy users need different views than business unit analysts

• Measure engagement constantly and iterate — just because you think something works doesn't mean it does