About EDM Council

John Bottega is the President of the EDM Council. He began working with the Council as an industry contributor in 2005 and served as Chairman from 2007 to 2014. He joined the Council’s executive team as a Senior Advisor in 2014 and took over as the Chief Executive in 2017.

John is a senior strategy and data management executive with more than 40 years of experience in the industry. Over his career, John has served as Chief Data Officer in both the private and public sectors, serving as CDO for Citi and Bank of America, as well as for the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, and head of data management for the US Department of the Treasury’s Office of Financial Research (OFR).

Mike is a Co-Founder of the EDM Council and served as the first Chairman and active Board member since inception in 2005. Mike joined in 2015 as a Senior Advisor and served as the COO from 2020 to 2023, to lead Industry Engagement strategy, new member services and Council Operations.

Previously, Mike was the CEO of GoldenSource and held key executive roles at CheckFree (Fiserv), D&B and Oracle.

Carole has managed the operational support of the EDM Council business and its member firms, since 2008.

In January 2022 Carole established our Member Support Service team, responsible for ensuring that the EDM Council members get the support they require and value from their membership.

Chids Mahadevan leads financial operations at the Council as the Chief Financial Officer. Chids has extensive financial management experience in the healthcare and technology industries. He has held senior positions at Applied Therapeutics (SVP Finance), BioXcel (VP Finance/CAO), GoldenSource (SVP Finance) among others. His experience includes leadership and participation in M&A activities, capital acquisition and IPO.

Chids is a licensed CPA and Chartered Accountant.

Mark joined the Council in 2017 and is currently Chief Technology Officer. In this capacity, Mark works with council members, staff and our partners to apply innovative technologies in support of the council’s focus areas. His recent accomplishments include the successful launch of the council’s new web platform – EDMConnect.

Prior to joining the Council, Mark was the Chief Operating Officer of the GoldenSource Corporation for 10 years. He has also held numerous senior management positions in technology, operations and general management spanning both private and public companies

Eric Bigelsen is a leader in Sales, Business Development, Product Management, Strategy, and Marketing with a successful career that spans over 30 years. He helps financial institutions manage risk, make better trading and investment decisions, and improve operational efficiency, including regulatory compliance, through the use of data, research, analytic tools, and technology solutions. He has held senior-level positions at Moody’s Investors Service, Fitch Solutions, Cube Content Governance, and SmartStream Reference Data Utility. He has a proven ability to identify opportunities, develop new relationships, develop products and services, lead successful teams, and execute strategies in established and new markets that lead to significant revenue generation, growth, and client satisfaction.

Mr. Bigelsen also has a successful consulting company, Infinity Resource Group, where he advises companies on sales, business development, marketing, and corporate finance strategies. He serves on the Board of Directors of several organizations including a spirits company, Fortaleza Tequila, and a pediatric cancer research foundation, WOLF. He lives in Brick, NJ with his wife of 33 years, and has three daughters.

Jim Halcomb is Head of Product Management for the EDM Council. He is a strategy, data management, and cybersecurity executive with 30 years of international business experience.

Jim has worked with the Council since its inception in 2005, eventually leading the initial research and development of the DCAM from late 2011 to 2014.

Colin is a senior executive and consultant with 30 years’ experience in financial services. He specialises in architecture, data governance and data management, most recently as head of data architecture for the investment banking divisions of RBS and HSBC and as head of enterprise architecture for Willis Towers Watson.

Colin combines an enthusiasm for all things data with experience in software development, technology operations and management of major change programmes.

Diana L. Ascher works at the intersection of information practice and policy. As head of research and senior advisor on data ethics and responsible artificial intelligence to the EDM Council, Dr. Ascher helps ensure the world's leading organizations develop ethical data management policies and practices. She is the founder of the Information Ethics & Equity Institute, which bridges information studies research and praxis through accredited programming for data and information workers.

Previously, Dr. Ascher gained expertise in information science research and instruction as director of the IS Lab at UCLA and manager of the UCLA Anderson Laboratory in Behavioral Decision Making; and in data and knowledge management, custom-publishing technologies, and financial communication and literacy at American Funds, Bloomberg, and the Fuqua School of Business at Duke University. Early in her career, she wrote for the Durham Herald-Sun, the Charlotte News & Observer, and WTVD News.

Dr. Ascher earned a Ph.D. in information studies at UCLA; an M.B.A. from the Peter F. Drucker Graduate School of Management at Claremont Graduate University; and a B.A. in Public Policy with concentrations in journalism and international policy from Duke University as a recipient of the Benjamin N. Duke Leadership Scholarship

Jan Kroh has 30 years of professional experience in the management consulting (strategy formulation and implementation), business development, acquisitions, alignment, integration and transformation of business organizations, complex program and project delivery – including systems integration, and more recently – development and implementation of business and operating strategies as well as sales.

In his career, Dr Kroh has worked for some of the largest consulting and technology firms, such as Andersen Consulting / Accenture, IBM, T-Systems (technology arm of Deutsche Telekom) and Cap Gemini.

Jan’s mission in the Data Innovation Lab is to promote and grow the concept of Collaborative Ontology/Knowledge Graph Development programs, as well as a variety of collaborative project initiatives in the space of AI and DLT.

Dr Kroh has earned a PhD in artificial neural networks and digital signal processing from the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow, Scotland, completed a custom-designed MBA program from Kellogg School of Management, and an MSc in nuclear and medical electronics from the Warsaw University of Technology in Poland.

Michelle and her team manage all global marketing communications, public relations and events production for EDM Council. This includes driving key initiatives such as the DataVision events and EDMWebinars, media relations activity, and marketing campaigns and content for EDM Council programs such as DCAM, CDMC, ESG Data and training.

Jim is a seasoned Corporate General Counsel and Litigator admitted to practice in multiple states, federal and appeals courts including the Supreme Court of the United States. Jim began his career on Wall Street over thirty years ago.

Shaun is a senior advisor with the EDM Council and official certified trainer across the DCAM, CDMC and OKG training courses who has over 20 years global experience across London, Europe and Australia within the domains of data management, BI, business and data architecture, knowledge graphs and cloud technology from global investment banks including Merrill Lynch/Bank of America, Credit Suisse and Deutsche Bank. Where most recently Shaun has led innovative global data foundation programs for the two leading Nordic banks, SEB and Nordea.

As one of the leading data management and analytics strategists across Europe, Shaun helps organisations build strong data cultures and deliver business value using Data- Analytics- AI via bridging Business and Technology.

Where Shaun’s passion lies in educating teams around data best practices and accelerating the adoption of the important 'next gen' data competencies across organisations in the enabling technologies such as Artificial Intelligence, KnowledgeGraphs & Graph Technology, Semantics and Cloud Data Platforms.

Across the data, architecture & technology industry, Shaun is a long standing member of the EDM Council and FIBO teams, the founder and leader of the Europe Business Architecture Guild Community and currently head of the Europe Data Leadership Circle. Shaun is an Aussie who now lives in Stockholm, Sweden with his wife and 2 boys. While also a passionate cyclist and a proud ambassador for Hintsa Performance.

Rob Wentz is a Senior Advisor of Product Management for the EDM Council. He began working with the Council in 2014 as a vendor contributor and KPMGs Executive sponsor, data evangelist and DCAM Authorized Partner leader until joining the Council in 2023.

Previously, Rob was a senior practice leader and executive with over 35 years of experience advising his Fortune 1000 clients in sustainable data management and advanced analytics programs. Over his advisory career, Rob has served clients in both private and public sectors and across many industries for KPMG, KPMG Consulting, BearingPoint and PwC.

Kyle is a passionate data evangelist, sales executive and industry speaker focused on developing global business & sales strategies and driving revenue in the exploding data management marketplace. Kyle’s data management journey started eleven years ago with the EDM Council as an original team member that built and launched the Data Management Maturity Model (DMM) with Carnegie Mellon/SEI and has continued with the DMM through the CMMI Institute and ISACA. Over the last six years Kyle has been engaged with CMMI Institute/ISACA driving the global strategy and sales for the DMM, CMMI and Medical Device Discovery Appraisal Program (MDDAP) product lines. Prior to his data focus, Kyle has a successful track record of building and leading profitable public and private commercial professional services organizations specialized in the IT consulting, staffing, and recruiting industry ranging from start-ups to $80 M.

Kyle is the founder of the Data Excellence Group, a data management advisory firm.

Elisa is a consultant with Thematix Partners LLC and graduate-level lecturer in computer science, focused on data management, data governance, knowledge representation, and decisioning systems. Her consulting practice includes business and information architecture, knowledge representation strategies, and ontology design, development, and training for clients in financial services, government, manufacturing, media, pharmaceutical, and retail domains. Recent projects have focused on use of ontologies to drive natural language processing, machine learning, interoperability, and other knowledge graph-based applications.

At the EDM Council she is lead ontologist for the Financial Industry Business Ontology (FIBO), and is working with the team on other new ontology and knowledge graph initiatives for the OKG Innovation Lab.

Elisa represents knowledge representation, ontology, information architecture, and data management concerns on the Object Management Group (OMG)’s Architecture Board, is co-editor of the Ontology Definition Metamodel (ODM), Languages, Countries, and Codes (LCC), and Application Programming Interfaces for Knowledge Platforms (API4KP) standards, and a contributor to a number of other ISO, W3C, and OMG standards. She is also a member of the Technical Oversight Board and participates in the OAGi Industrial Ontology Foundry activity developing standardized ontologies for manufacturing. She holds a B.S. in Mathematics and Computer Science from UCLA, and an A.M in Linguistics from Stanford University.

Pawel Garbacz is a full professor in the Department of Foundations of Computer Science (John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin, Poland), where for more than twenty years he has been instructing hundreds of students on the principles of knowledge representation.

His research interests cover a wide range of topics, including formal verification of ontology quality, modelling temporal relations in Semantic Web ontologies, developing ontology-driven relational metamodels, semantically enhanced search algorithms, etc. He also pioneered research on developing applied ontologies for the humanities.

Denise is a senior Member Support Manager with the EDM Council, her focus it to fully engage with the council members supporting organisations to advance their data programs. She has previously held various roles in supporting organization’s data strategy and data implementation objectives. Denise has worked in Client Training, Specialist Sales and Customer Service roles always with a data focus, she brings a wealth of experience providing excellent customer support and relationship management to her role.

Nana is the Executive Administrator supporting the Council’s President and Co-Founder, Mike Meriton and John Bottega. Nana has over 10 years of experience as an Executive Assistant and previously worked at Blackstone for 5 years.

Alex focuses on supporting the engagement of the EDM Council global members for the Americas. She brings 8+ years of experience across information technology, retail, and construction industry, along with a comprehensive understanding of customer service, communication, technical issue resolution, process improvement, and customer support best practices.

Sadie is a part of the EDM council member support team. Sadie is responsible for offering support to member organizations, training administration and support with billing and invoices.

Prior to joining the Council Sadie worked in the financial services for eight years.

Robert Rummel provides account management and sales services for all USA EDM Council members and prospective members. Robert has over 20 years experience of providing similar services to the financial markets industry

Paul is the Canadian Regional Advocate for the Enterprise Data Management Council. He has over 20 years of experience in the Financial Services industry as a trusted partner and catalyst for change in supporting complex, transformational initiatives that are underpinned by well designed and governed data management processes.

Paul is based in Toronto where he works as an independent consultant through Maple Peak Group Inc. He also serves on the Canadian Regulatory Technology Association's Board of Directors. Paul assists the EDM Council on a part-time basis providing on the ground support to our Canadian membership.

Andrew Chmaj has a background in finance, initially from 10 years working in treasury/capital markets at Chemical Bank, First Chicago and Nomura, trading foreign exchange and currency options as well as marketing them to major fund managers and corporates in Europe.

Subsequently, he spent 25 years in various roles at Moody’s, where he headed European sales of research and data products and built relationships with major UK and continental European investors. Andrew is based in London.

Preeti is the Regional Advocate for India. She has 20 years of pan India and Overseas experience in business development, strategic alliance, customer relationship and training in various industries ranging from IT & ITES, Finance, Education, Startup & Skills Ecosystem.

Preeti is supporting the Council with membership activities and bringing high-quality data management best practices, training and eLearning certification programs to the Indian region.

David is the Regional Advocate and evangelist for the Asia Pacific (APAC) Region. David has over 20 years of enterprise solutions and data management experience supporting Financial Institutions and Large Enterprises cross Industry.

David is based in Singapore and will assist the EDM Council on a part-time basis with membership activities and initiatives in the APAC region.

Bhaskar Nair is a Regional Advocate for Australia and New Zealand. He is an experienced Sales and Business Development Executive having managed client relationships in Australia, New Zealand, Asia Pacific and USA. He worked with Moody’s Investor Services, lead sales teams with Fitch Solutions and Creditsights in Australia and Singapore.

Bhaskar is based in Sydney and will assist the EDM Council on a part-time basis with membership activities and initiatives.