At a small firm, everyone wears a lot of hats. The data governance function can be fragmented because each team is held accountable for its own results, and there is often no centralization of governance policies. That works until cracks start to show, potentially in the form of disputed KPIs, audit risks, and due diligence concerns.

As the firm grows, the specialized expertise of a CDMP professional or data governance manager becomes an essential liaison across teams. A federated or centralized governance model holds the organization accountable for quality-controlled data with clear lineage and provenance.