---
title: "Starting with foundations: New York Life's Atlan implementation"
url: "https://atlan.com/regovern-watch-center/starting-with-foundations-new-york-life/"
description: "Rahul Bakhshi from New York Life shares their early implementation lesson: link governance outcomes to business outcomes, not textbooks."
keywords: "atlan, data governance, regovern 2025, regovern watch center"
---

> Atlan is hosting Context Conference, bringing together the leaders and builders at the frontier of giving AI the context it needs to understand their business. It runs online on October 28, 2026, from 11:00 AM to 2:00 PM ET. Atlan co-founder Prukalpa Sankar opens and closes the day. Leaders from AstraZeneca, BNY and Verizon share why they invest in context and what they get from it. Registrants get early access to The AI Context Gap, a new study from MIT Technology Review Insights. Register: https://atlan.com/context-conference/

Re:Govern 2025 highlight from Atlan's [Re:Govern watch center](https://atlan.com/regovern-watch-center/): **Starting with foundations: New York Life's Atlan implementation**. Rahul Bakhshi from New York Life shares their early implementation lesson: link governance outcomes to business outcomes, not textbooks. Speakers: Rahul Bakhshi (VP, Data & Technology, New York Life).

Watch: the recording plays on the page, and continuing past the preview requires an email - [watch at https://atlan.com/regovern-watch-center/starting-with-foundations-new-york-life/](https://atlan.com/regovern-watch-center/starting-with-foundations-new-york-life/).

## Speakers

- **Rahul Bakhshi**, VP, Data & Technology, New York Life. Rahul governs data for New York Life, a 180-year-old institution built on trust. He's modernizing that foundation with AI-powered classification, automated quality checks, and governance designed to enable 12,000+ agents. His mandate: protect what matters while accelerating business value through responsible AI.

## Companies

- **New York Life**: With $1.2T in life insurance and $808B in assets under management, New York Life isn't just America's largest mutual insurer - they're building cloud-first AI infrastructure that transforms 180 years of data into customer experiences that drive revenue.

## What's inside

Every data governance practitioner says the same thing when building foundations: link to business outcomes and listen to what customers ask for. Don't build a catalog just because it's governance 101. If analysts struggle finding data and that's what customers demand, then build the catalog first - but let customer demand guide the roadmap, not data governance textbooks.

Key takeaways:

- Starting with foundations means linking governance outcomes directly to business outcomes, not following best practices blindly
- Don't do data for the sake of data - build what solves real customer pain, not what governance playbooks prescribe
- If analysts struggle finding data and customers demand discoverability, then build the catalog first as your foundation
- Customer demand should guide your roadmap at every stage, not theoretical governance maturity models
- Early implementation success comes from listening to users and solving their actual problems, not checking governance boxes

## More from Re:Govern 2025

- [How Regulated Business are Moving Governance Beyond Compliance](https://atlan.com/regovern-watch-center/regulated-industries-beyond-compliance/) (highlight)
- [How New York Life Points Governance to Business Value](https://atlan.com/regovern-watch-center/new-york-life-business-value/) (highlight)
- [How EasyJet Scaled Governance with an MVP Approach](https://atlan.com/regovern-watch-center/easyjet-mvp-approach/) (highlight)
- [Nasdaq's "Anchor Client" Rollout Strategy](https://atlan.com/regovern-watch-center/nasdaq-anchor-client/) (highlight)
- [How Invitation Homes Measures Data Product Success](https://atlan.com/regovern-watch-center/data-product-success/) (highlight)
- [Nasdaq's Core Governance Reporting Metrics](https://atlan.com/regovern-watch-center/nasdaq-reporting-metrics/) (highlight)
- [Mastercard's Team Model Behind Modernization](https://atlan.com/regovern-watch-center/mastercard-data-governance-blueprint/) (highlight)
- [Mastercard's Implementation Approach](https://atlan.com/regovern-watch-center/mastercard-implementation-approach/) (highlight)
- [Inside General Motors Metadata Lakehouse](https://atlan.com/regovern-watch-center/gm-metadata-lakehouse/) (highlight)
- [Inside Deutsche Boerse's Model for Federated Governance](https://atlan.com/regovern-watch-center/deutsche-borse-federated-governance/) (highlight)
- [How CME Turned Vendor Selection into a Data Strategy](https://atlan.com/regovern-watch-center/cme-vendor-selection-data-strategy/) (highlight)
- [Modern Data & AI Governance Blueprint](https://atlan.com/blueprint) (resource)

Talk to Atlan: [book a demo](https://atlan.com/forms/talk-to-sales-contact/) or [see the product tour](https://atlan.com/demo/).