How Daimler Trucks North America, Commonwealth Bank of Australia, and Marks & Spencer Became Alation’s 2025 Data Radicals Award Winners

Alation’s 2025 revAlation global conference series spanned three continents—with stops in Chicago, Sydney, and finally London on November 12—bringing together hundreds of data and AI leaders from around the world. Across these events, one theme echoed in every conversation: the future of business belongs to those who turn trusted data into action.

The 2025 Data Radicals award winners this year are:

• Edgar Gallo of Daimler Truck North America (DTNA)

• Gertraud Denscher of Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA)

• Stephanie Capp of Marks & Spencer (M&S)

Each recipient was recognized for their transformative use of Alation to drive innovation, accelerate AI readiness, and spark cultural change. These three global winners stood out as proof that metadata isn’t just the foundation of data governance—it’s the key to unlocking the next era of intelligent enterprises. Their stories share a powerful truth: Without metadata, there is no AI.

In this new era defined by automation and AI agents, metadata has emerged as the unseen engine of trust. Through metadata, AI agents gain the context they need to deliver accurate, trusted results. And increasingly, organizations are recognizing that metadata is what makes AI transparent, accurate, and reliable. Each honoree represents a different facet of that evolution: building trust, activating intelligence, and democratizing access.

Activating metadata for AI at DTNA

For Edgar Gallo, Chief Data Officer at Daimler Truck North America, the future of data leadership lies in activation—turning governance into action and metadata into movement.

When he joined DTNA, Gallo saw an opportunity to evolve from compliance-driven data management to AI-driven innovation. His team’s journey began with Alation in 2019 to establish governance and compliance foundations—supporting GDPR, CCPA, and financial transparency. But the real shift came when metadata became the engine for AI.

As Gallo puts it: “No metadata, no AI.”

That principle defines DTNA’s transformation. The company’s data architecture now supports AI agents that predict maintenance needs, optimize supply chains, and unlock new service opportunities across the manufacturing industry.

By treating metadata as infrastructure—not inventory—Gallo and his team have made data governance the launchpad for automation. They’ve shown that trustworthy metadata doesn’t slow innovation—it scales it.

Building the governance intelligence layer at CBA

At Commonwealth Bank of Australia, Gertraud Denscher, Senior Product Owner, is leading the charge to make governance intelligent.

CBA established Alation as the “governance intelligence layer”—the authoritative hub connecting governance insights, quality metrics, and compliance indicators across the bank’s vast cloud data ecosystem. The platform delivers the information needed to certify data products at scale, making trusted data a living part of daily operations.

Under Denscher’s leadership, Alation isn’t just a catalog—it’s the enterprise knowledge layer that powers decision-making. By connecting business and technical metadata, critical data elements, and lineage, CBA ensures every certified data product is built on a foundation of integrity.

Her work exemplifies what it means to be a Data Radical: driving value, influencing platform evolution, and proving that governance can be both rigorous and agile.

Democratizing data at Marks & Spencer

At Marks & Spencer (M&S), Stephanie Capp, Platform Experience Lead, faced a different challenge: reigniting adoption and rebuilding trust after an on-prem catalog lost momentum.

Her mission was to create one intuitive destination for trusted data—a single source of truth that empowers data citizens to discover, collaborate, and make decisions faster.

Through content review, simplification, and user training, Capp and her team transformed how M&S’s Data, Digital & Technology teams engage with data. Thousands of outdated articles were purged. New usage patterns began to emerge. Steady growth followed as employees across the business began turning to Alation as their go-to platform for data discovery.

Today, M&S’s catalog underpins the company’s AI and data strategy, enabling teams to fulfill the brand’s digital drive. The result is not just higher adoption—it’s a culture shift.

By making data intuitive, Capp has effectively made governance invisible while making the value it produces visible to the entire organization.

From documentation to transformation

Across industries, this year’s winners prove that metadata is not a side project—it’s the strategy.

• DTNA activates metadata to fuel AI agents.

• CBA connects governance to business value.

• M&S democratizes trusted data for every employee.

Each story showcases how metadata can turn compliance into confidence and data into decisions. Together, they form a blueprint for AI-ready enterprises—organizations where metadata makes every action traceable, every process scalable, and every outcome trustworthy.

Defining the future of intelligent enterprises

As CEO Satyen Sangani shared, the Data Radicals Awards celebrate “trailblazers who are transforming their organizations and doing groundbreaking work with data and AI.”

These leaders aren’t just building data programs—they’re redefining the future of intelligent business. They understand that AI is only as good as the metadata that powers it.

Their success marks a new era: one where governance isn’t a gate, but a growth engine, and where the most radical thing a data leader can do is build trust from the ground up.

Because in the end, as this year’s Data Radicals remind us—No metadata, no AI.

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