The Data Fabric Show | Featuring Joyce Myers, CDO of MTSI
The role of the Chief Data Officer (CDO) is evolving. It’s no longer just about governance, compliance, or keeping the data house in order—it’s about unlocking business value, driving innovation, and making data work smarter for organizations. But what happens when a company brings in a CDO for the very first time? That’s exactly what we explored in the latest episode of The Data Fabric Show, where Kaycee Lai sat down with Joyce Myers, Chief Data Officer at MTSI, to discuss the challenges and opportunities that come with leading data strategy in a highly regulated, security-first industry.
MTSI (Modern Technology Solutions, Inc.) operates in the public sector and defense, providing engineering and technical services to government organizations. With over 30 years of history, the company has long relied on its deep expertise and entrepreneurial mindset to solve complex problems. But like many growing enterprises, it reached a point where managing data effectively became just as critical as collecting it. That’s where Joyce came in.
From Chaos to Clarity: Why MTSI Hired Its First Chief Data Officer
Bringing in a first-ever Chief Data Officer isn’t just about “getting data organized.” It’s about recognizing that data is an asset that fuels growth, agility, and strategic decision-making. MTSI, like many organizations, saw that its data had accumulated over time—files in cabinets turned into folders on desktops, which turned into sprawling repositories of disconnected insights. Joyce’s job? Make data usable, trusted, and accessible—without disrupting the company’s core mission.
But here’s the twist: MTSI is an employee-owned company. That means every person in the organization has a stake in its success. This culture creates a unique challenge (and opportunity) for data leadership—people are deeply invested, but they need to see the value of data in their day-to-day work. Joyce took on the role not as an “arsonist” burning things down or a “caretaker” maintaining the status quo, but as a builder, architecting a more structured, scalable, and secure approach to data.
The AI Challenge: GenAI in the Public Sector
We couldn’t talk about data without talking about Generative AI (GenAI). While many organizations are racing to integrate AI into their workflows, MTSI operates under strict security and compliance requirements. Public sector and defense contractors can’t just plug into ChatGPT and call it a day. Protecting sensitive, proprietary, and classified information is mission-critical.
So how does a company like MTSI leverage AI responsibly? By focusing on governance, security, and controlled experimentation. Joyce highlighted the need for strong data foundations—without trustworthy, high-quality data, AI outputs are unreliable at best and misleading at worst. As she put it, “Garbage in, garbage out. But I like to say: goodness in, goodness out.”
The Role of Data Fabric in a Secure AI Future
One of the key takeaways from our conversation was how Data Fabric enables organizations to adopt a more flexible, iterative approach to analytics—without breaking security protocols. Traditionally, data pipelines have been rigid, slow, and brittle—great for structured reporting but terrible for agile decision-making. Data Fabric removes the dependency on pre-built pipelines and lets teams query, analyze, and experiment without physically moving data. For MTSI, this is a game-changer.
As Joyce put it, it’s about building onto what already exists—reinforcing strong foundations rather than tearing them down. With Data Fabric, organizations can:
Enable self-service analytics while maintaining governance controls
Accelerate AI adoption without compromising security
Empower business users to ask more (and better) data-driven questions
What This Means for CDOs and Data Leaders
MTSI’s journey is one that many CDOs can relate to. Whether you're in government, healthcare, finance, or any other highly regulated industry, the data challenges remain the same:
How do you scale AI responsibly?
How do you balance governance with innovation?
How do you empower employees with data while keeping it secure?
The answer lies in embracing new architectures, like Data Fabric, that allow organizations to be both agile and governed, secure yet scalable.
Final Thoughts: Why Every CDO Needs a Data Product Mindset
One of the biggest shifts we discussed was the need for a data product approach. It’s not enough to store data—you need to contextualize, productize, and operationalize it. Instead of just producing dashboards and reports, data leaders should be asking:
Who is the intended audience of this data?
What business problem does this solve?
How do we make it accessible without creating friction?
As Joyce pointed out, the best organizations are the ones where everyone sees their role in the company’s larger mission. When data is understood, trusted, and used effectively, it becomes a competitive advantage—not just an IT function.
Listen to the Full Episode
This episode was packed with insights for CDOs, CAOs, and data leaders navigating the complex world of AI, governance, and scalable data strategy. Catch the full conversation on The Data Fabric Show and learn how MTSI is transforming its data culture while protecting highly sensitive information.
🎧 Listen here: Apple Podcast , Spotify, or YouTube