In this episode of How I Met Your Data, Anjali and Junaid sit down with Tony Shaw, Founder & CEO of DATAVERSITY - the force behind Enterprise Data World (EDW) and DGIQ. Tony traces the early origins of a “metadata conference” that became a global learning platform, then gets candid about what actually moves the data profession forward: cycles, culture, and community.

We dig into how conference content evolves (remember when data modeling was the headliner?), why governance remains a business function first, and how AI is reshaping both programming and the attendee experience; think smarter discovery of talks, better content matching, and, perhaps someday, intentional networking that beats hallway serendipity. Tony also shares the story behind DATAVERSITY’s Women in Data focus and why younger, more global audiences are changing the room—for the better.

• The origin story: buying a tiny “metadata” event and building DATAVERSITY into a global education platform

• Surviving economic cycles: training, travel, sponsorship, and how digital finally scaled during COVID

• What’s changed (and what hasn’t): the rise, fall, and return of semantics; AI’s pull on modeling and governance

• Governance as a business sport: why DGIQ draws nearly 50% of non-IT leaders

• Global signals: banks in Uruguay winning best-practice awards; Saudi Arabia’s push on data & AI capability

• AI at conferences: from content discovery to future attendee matchmaking (and the privacy guardrails we’ll need)

• Women in Data: mentorship, career design, and programming that’s open to everyone, but designed to meet real gaps

You lead data/AI programs, run governance in the messy middle, or care about how our field learns—together. Also useful if you’re deciding whether to bring your non-data peers to a data conference (short answer: yes).