Data Operating Model Enablement

We help organizations move from fragmented data assets to autonomous, federated data products—without replatforming or scaling central teams.

Built and delivered by the team that invented data mesh and autonomous data products.

Our Approach

The problems we solve

Endless tool integrations

Each new data project requires bespoke pipelines across orchestration, governance, and observability tools.

Central teams as bottlenecks

Governance, quality, and security reviews add 30-40% process overhead to every project.

AI initiatives outrunning data reality

Manual controls and brittle pipelines makeAI experimentation slow, risky, and expensive.

The Challenge

What makes Nextdata different

What doesn't work

Throwing people at the current data operating model

Re-deploying generic playbooks

"Science project" proofs of concept

What we do instead

Install an operating model that scales into the future

Train and transfer product ownership to domains

Leave behind working patterns, not dependencies

And enable you to move forward:

A repeatable data operating model

Clear patterns for building, governing, and evolving data products across domains.

True domain ownership

Teams that own their data products end-to-end, without ongoing central dependence.

Durable capabilities

Working workflows, standards, and lifecycle controls that remain after the engagement ends.

How We Engage

A disciplined, phased approach

Each phase is bounded, de-risked, and designed to deliver measurable outcomes.

0
Proof of Concept
1
Incubate
2
Operationalize
3
Federate

Validate tooling + operating-model fit

Thin-slice architecture, UX,and org alignment

Clear decision gate

Outcome

Confidence to proceed, or understanding why not

Quickly adapt existing assetsinto governed data products

Establish discoverability andconsumption patterns

Create reference products andworkflows

Outcome

Proof of repeatability, not justone-time success

Move from proving patterns torunning them at scale

Establish reusable libraries,contracts, and operatingpatterns

Clear dIntegrate Nextdata OS intoexisting workflowsecision gate

Reduce central dependency

Outcome

Business domains can buildand operate data productsindependently

Transition ownership todomain teams

Scale governance, quality, andlifecycle controls

Measure adoption and velocity

Outcome

Federated data productorganization

Explore the approach

Results

What changes if this works

Measured by adoption, velocity, and reduced central dependency.

Case Study

What this looks like in practice

A global, multi-business enterprise faced these same challenges. Despite years of investment in platforms, tools, and external support, delivering a single data product routinely took 6–12 months and cost $1M+. Governance was fragmented, quality controls were manual, and trust in curated data was low—making AI adoption slow, risky, and expensive.

Rather than adding new tools or centralizing platforms, the organization changed its data operating model. Existing assets were repackaged into autonomous, domain-owned data products, with governance, quality, and security embedded as reusable standards from the start.

WHo we are

The team behind data mesh

Data mesh creators with deep operational expertise across regulated, global, high-scale environments, not just tooling

Zhamak Dehghani

Founder and CEO

Creator of data mesh architecture, former principal consultant at Thoughtworks, author of 'Data Mesh: Delivering Data-Driven Value at Scale'

Sina Jahan

Head of Product Engineering

Former engineering leader at major tech companies, expert in distributed systems and data infrastructure architecture

Jörg Schad

Head of Engineering

Former Mesosphere/D2iQ, specialist in cloud-native infrastructure and platform engineering at scale

How We Work

Our operating principles

01

We bias toward capability transfer, not delivery volume

02

We front-load learning to reduce downstream cost

03

We design for exit, not dependency

04

We scale through patterns, not headcount

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