AI & Data Strategy Practice
We design the operating model. Then we build the thing it governs.
Darren Kian advises enterprise teams on AI and data governance, and ships the pipelines, platforms, and agentic systems that operating model actually has to run on. Most advisory work stops at the framework. This practice also writes the code the framework would need to review.
Experience behind the practice
- years leading enterprise data & AI governance programs
- 12+
- years leading enterprise data & AI governance programs
- pipelines migrated in a single platform program
- 7,500+
- pipelines migrated in a single platform program
- annual value from one governance automation build
- $1.0M
- annual value from one governance automation build
- largest cross-engagement team led at once
- 27
- largest cross-engagement team led at once
What the practice does
Two disciplines, one team
AI & data governance operating models
Design and stand up the frameworks that make an enterprise AI or data platform auditable — lineage, quality, access, compliance — built to be used, not filed. Includes hands-on platform governance (Unity Catalog, Purview-style metadata and lineage tooling).
Data & AI platform strategy
Build-vs-buy calls, migration roadmaps, and architecture decisions for Snowflake, Databricks, and Azure/AWS data platforms. The kind of call that's expensive to get wrong at enterprise scale.
Agentic AI systems, built not just advised
Hands-on delivery of agent infrastructure: MCP tool servers, agent-to-agent payment protocols, and Claude-native application logic. The practice ships the same category of system it advises on.
Proof of work
What the practice has built
The badge says what's live and what's still a prototype. Either way, it runs — none of it is a mockup or a slide deck.
project-x402
prototypeLetting an AI agent pay for a tool call, the same way it would call the tool itself.
SetlBox
liveA moving-tote rental business, built and operated solo, that takes real bookings and real payments.
TuteliaCare
liveMatching families to in-home caregivers shouldn't be a phone tree.
Church operations platform
liveDonation reconciliation shouldn't require a volunteer squinting at a bank statement.
Renewed Birth
livePostpartum support in Canada shouldn't stop at the hospital discharge.
Senior Concierge
prototypeAging-in-place care coordination shouldn't mean five phone calls between the family and the concierge.
Car Rental
prototypeA rental rate that's structurally guaranteed to never be the expensive option.
LegacyNest
prototypeEstate administration for a grieving family shouldn't run on a spreadsheet and a lawyer's inbox.
Metadata Scrubber
prototypeStripping a photo's metadata after you've already shared it is too late.
How this practice works
- Governance that gets used. A framework nobody opens didn't ship.
- The practice builds the systems it advises on — agentic infrastructure included, not just policy for it.
- Claims on this page are specific and checkable: pipeline counts, dollar figures, response codes. Not adjectives.
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