Quentin CasaresData and AI leadership for regulated growth

Advisory

Buy a defined executive outcome before buying a large programme.

The best starting point is a live decision: trusted reporting, regulatory evidence, AI governance, portfolio-company diligence, or a leadership gap with board-level consequences.

Recommended entry point

Executive data & AI confidence review

Ten business days, £6,000 fixed fee, and a board-ready view of what is true, what is exposed, and what should happen over the next 90 days.

Review the 10-day diagnostic

Fixed-scope offers

Clear scope, price, timing, evidence, and boundaries.

Each offer stands on its own. A larger mandate follows only when the findings and business case justify it.

Fixed-scope diagnostic

Executive data & AI confidence review

A ten-business-day independent review of whether the organisation's data, reporting, governance, and AI controls can support the decisions now being asked of them.

£6,000

10 business days

Board and ExCo intervention

Board AI governance workshop

A focused half-day session that turns AI governance from abstract policy into explicit decision rights, materiality thresholds, evidence, and board oversight.

£5,000

Half-day workshop plus preparation and readout

Portfolio value and risk review

Data & AI diligence for PE

A rapid, independent assessment of whether a portfolio company's data and AI capabilities support the investment thesis, expose hidden execution risk, or create a practical value-creation route.

From £15,000

10 business days per portfolio company

Explore products and resourcesTake the readiness diagnostic

Broader mandates

When the evidence supports a larger intervention.

These engagement shapes remain available for organisations that already understand the problem and need senior ownership across delivery.

CEOs, CFOs, boards, and PE operating partners

Executive data and AI strategy review

A focused review of whether the data estate, governance model, AI agenda, and reporting stack can support the next commercial or regulatory objective.

Discuss this mandate

Scale-ups, regulated firms, and transformation leaders

Fractional data and AI leadership

Hands-on senior leadership for organisations that need credible data direction before, during, or after hiring a permanent executive.

Discuss this mandate

Banks, insurers, fintechs, and regulated enterprises

Regulatory data confidence programme

A structured path from weak evidence and inconsistent metrics to inspectable controls, stewardship, lineage, and data quality management.

Discuss this mandate

Commercial leaders, CTOs, CDIOs, and transformation sponsors

Commercial data platform acceleration

A pragmatic build vs buy and delivery plan for data products that support growth, margin, retention, pricing, risk, and operating efficiency.

Discuss this mandate

Core competencies

What every engagement actually draws on.

Scope and price describe what you buy. These eight capabilities describe what does the work once the engagement starts.

01

Deep governance expertise

Designing and embedding an operating model rather than writing policy. The test of governance is whether decisions change, evidence exists, and ownership holds once the programme team has gone.

  • Charters, decision rights, and forum design that survive reorganisation
  • Policy translated into standards, controls, and day-to-day process
  • Adoption measured by evidence produced, not documents published

02

UK GDPR and Data Protection Act knowledge

Connecting legal principles to the operational processes that carry them: ownership, lifecycle, incident handling, and individual rights. Legal advice stays with counsel; the operating design is the work here.

  • Lawful basis, purpose limitation, and minimisation expressed as data controls
  • Records of processing, retention schedules, and DPIA routes that are actually used
  • Personal data breach and rights request processes with defensible timelines

03

Responsible AI

Governing AI use cases across the whole lifecycle, from intake and risk tiering through approval, deployment, monitoring, and retirement, so adoption speeds up without accountability falling behind.

  • Single intake route, materiality thresholds, and proportionate risk tiering
  • Approval gates, human control, and evaluation criteria fixed before deployment
  • Monitoring, drift and incident triggers, and a planned route to retirement

04

Leadership

Setting direction, developing people, and creating accountability without becoming the bottleneck. The measure is whether the function still runs well when the leader is out of the room.

  • Clear accountabilities and a decision path that does not route through one person
  • Capability building and succession inside data, governance, and AI teams
  • Performance managed against outcomes the business recognises

05

Senior influence

Chairing disagreement, bringing a decision to closure, and escalating proportionately. Senior rooms rarely lack opinions; they lack a way to convert them into a recorded decision with an owner.

  • Framing contested trade-offs so a committee can actually choose
  • Closing decisions with owner, date, and evidence recorded
  • Escalation calibrated to materiality rather than to volume

06

Regulated financial services

Working to the evidential standards regulated firms are held to: three lines of defence, internal audit, supervisory engagement, and demonstrable customer outcomes.

  • Evidence packs that withstand second line challenge and internal audit
  • BCBS239, FCA, PRA, and Consumer Duty expectations translated into controls
  • Findings and remediation tracked to closure with traceable artefacts

07

Global and matrix working

Adapting Group standards to local obligations without creating an isolated national framework. Local divergence should be deliberate, documented, and defensible to both the centre and the local regulator.

  • Group policy adopted locally with recorded, justified variations
  • One control set serving both Group assurance and UK supervisory expectations
  • Influence across matrixed reporting lines with no direct authority

08

Business translation

Turning regulatory and technical constraint into commercial language, and commercial ambition into requirements engineers and risk teams can act on. Both directions matter; most governance stalls because only one is done.

  • Obligations restated as cost, revenue, and risk exposure the ExCo can weigh
  • Business intent turned into data, control, and delivery requirements
  • Board and regulator narratives drawn from the same underlying evidence

How I work

A structured sequence from diagnosis to embedded ownership.

Every engagement starts with the decision at stake, not the technology. The output is designed to be board-readable and executable.

  1. Diagnose

    Inspect the evidence: data estate, governance posture, reporting quality, and where commercial or regulatory decisions are failing.

  2. Frame

    Separate immediate control risks from strategic architecture choices; translate technical gaps into board-readable consequences.

  3. Decide

    Agree the sequencing: what must be fixed first, where to invest, which vendor or platform decisions can be deferred without cost.

  4. Embed

    Deliver a 90-day plan with clear ownership, governance forums, and measurable milestones that survive beyond the engagement.

Working together

Common questions about engagements.

Practical answers to the questions that come up before a first conversation.

How do engagements typically start?

With a brief, confidential conversation about the specific decision or risk at hand. Most mandates begin as a focused diagnostic - a structured review of the data estate, governance posture, or AI agenda - before scope and phasing are agreed. There is no standard onboarding package; the starting point is shaped by the problem.

How do you handle confidentiality and NDAs?

All enquiries and engagements are treated as confidential by default. NDAs are signed before substantive discussions begin, and engagement terms include explicit data handling obligations. Regulated and PE-adjacent contexts, where information barriers and dual-role sensitivities apply, are handled with appropriate care.

What does an advisory engagement look like in practice?

A typical engagement has three stages: a structured discovery phase (interviews, document review, evidence inspection), an analysis and synthesis phase that produces a board-readable findings pack, and a sequenced action plan with clear ownership. Fractional engagements add ongoing leadership - team direction, vendor management, and governance forums - on a retained basis.

Who do you usually work with?

CEOs, CFOs, boards, and PE operating partners who need independent assurance on a data or AI decision. CTOs, CDIOs, and transformation directors commissioning a structured review. Regulated firms needing fractional data leadership during a search or restructure. The common factor is a consequential decision that requires evidence, not opinion.

How are engagements scoped and priced?

Engagements are scoped by objective and deliverable, not by time-and-materials. The Executive data & AI confidence review is £6,000 fixed fee over 10 business days. Fractional data & AI leadership starts at £8,500 per month. The Products and services page shows the current scope, timing, output, and price for each productised offer.

Can you work inside regulated or audited environments?

Yes. The majority of the work is in financial services, insurance, and public sector organisations where FCA, PRA, BCBS239, GDPR, and internal audit requirements shape what evidence is acceptable. Deliverables are designed to withstand regulatory and board scrutiny, not just internal review.

Qualified mandate

Bring a live data, AI, governance, or transformation problem.

The first conversation tests fit, scope, evidence access, and the smallest intervention that could materially improve the decision.

Discuss a live mandate

Confidential by default · NDA-ready · GDPR-aligned