Alation and First San Francisco Partners Form Partnership to Deliver Best Practices for Modernizing Data Governance with Data Catalogs

REDWOOD CITY, Calif. — September 9, 2018 – Alation Inc., the data intelligence company, and First San Francisco Partners, a business advisory and information management consultancy, today announced a strategic partnership to meet the needs of Chief Data Officers (CDOs) seeking to bring trust to data-driven decisions. The partnership focuses on delivering new, field-tested methodologies for agile and modern data governance, made possible by data catalog technology.

The partnership between Alation and First San Francisco Partners represents a commitment to providing data and analytics leaders, including CDOs, with field-tested best practices that incorporate data cataloging into holistic data governance practices. The first generally available methodology from the two companies will focus on building governed practices for agile data acquisition in the enterprise, followed by a second offering focusing on data stewardship for the optimized use of data.

“The role of the CDO has never been more complex nor more important to the goals of the business. As organizations look to leverage the business value of data across the information supply chain, governing metadata and data catalogs are becoming more pivotal to the success of analytics programs,” said Kelle O’Neal, CEO and founder of First San Francisco Partners. “As the pioneers of the data catalog market, we’re excited to partner with Alation to provide CDOs with the methodologies needed to power an agile approach to governance.”

First San Francisco Partners brings some of the leading minds in data governance, including Kelle O’Neal and Malcolm Chisholm.

“With data taking an increasingly prominent role in business strategy, there is a growing tension between how data is architected and what the business needs to execute on strategy. With data catalogs, we are at the point where we can reach enterprise-wide data literacy and create new approaches to data governance that open the doors to the democratization of data,” said Malcolm Chisholm, CIO at First San Francisco Partners. “That’s why we’re working with Alation to help CDOs address the unique challenges presented by self-service.”

The partnership comes on the heels of the release of Alation TrustCheck, a new set of features delivering agile stewardship by embedding best practices and compliance rules right into the workflow of data consumers. TrustCheck integrates directly with third-party business intelligence tools through native APIs and is immediately available through Alation Compose, Tableau Server and Salesforce Einstein Analytics. The partnership will ensure Alation customers can implement TrustCheck in the context of a complete corporate governance strategy.

For a deeper perspective on the strategic partnership between Alation and First San Francisco Partners, read the blog from Stephanie McReynolds, VP of marketing at Alation.

Read more about data catalogs at Alation online: alation.com.

About First San Francisco Partners

First San Francisco Partners is a business advisory and information management consultancy dedicated to helping companies leverage their data to improve strategic decision-making, reduce risk, create operational efficiencies and fuel unprecedented business success. Founded in early 2007 by international business expert Kelle O’Neal, First San Francisco Partners’ mission is to enable organizations to turn their information into value.