Director – Inside Sales

Alation launches AI Governance platform. Post date: Thursday, May 14, 2026 - 12:42 Enterprises rolling out artificial intelligence faster than they can govern it now have a new option from data catalogue vendor Alation, which has introduced Alation AI Governance, a system of record for AI models, agents and tools. Unveiled at the Gartner Data and Analytics Summit in London, the offering registers every AI asset in a single inventory, maps each to applicable regulations, generates evidence-backed model cards, routes approvals through regulation-aware workflows and produces a live compliance posture for executives. Alation says the product addresses a gap created when organisations deploy AI faster than governance frameworks can be applied. The vendor describes a familiar scenario in which model documentation lives in SharePoint pages, approval threads sit in email and stale records cannot satisfy regulators or board questions. The product registry covers built-in support for the EU AI Act, AI-relevant subsets of the General Data Protection Regulation, the United States National Institute of Standards and Technology AI Risk Management Framework, and ISO 42001. Customers can add additional regulations, with AI-assisted suggestions to accelerate requirement mapping. Five capabilities sit inside the product. An AI Asset Registry ingests assets from connected platforms or via software development kit submission. AI-Native Model Cards are generated from metadata, data dependencies and regulatory requirements, with every field citing a source. An Agentic Governance Workflow routes approvals by regulation applicability, sending a high-risk EU AI Act asset to Legal and the CISO while a NIST-only asset follows a standard chain. Missing evidence generates remediation tasks, and every action is logged in an append-only audit trail exportable in narrative format for regulators. The Executive Dashboard presents an overall compliance score, per-regulation breakdown with trend lines and the top open risk items blocking compliance, with drill-down to underlying assets. A board-ready PDF can be exported on demand. "The question in every boardroom has shifted from 'are we using AI?' to 'can we prove we're using it responsibly?'" said GT Volpe, Head of Product Management at Alation. "That proof does not come from policy documents filed in SharePoint." This year's agenda takes a deeper dive into: - Proving ROI from data, analytics and AI initiatives - Establishing AI-ready data foundations and best practices - Navigating the evolving AI agent landscape and deployment models Business Solution:

Alation has appointed Rick Baker as Chief Operating Officer to lead its go-to-market strategy and oversee sales, customer operations and solutions. Baker brings over 20 years of leadership experience across automation, IoT and AI technologies. As COO, Baker will unify revenue and customer-facing functions under a single operating model to scale Alation's global growth. The company provides a knowledge layer that enables AI agents to operate on precise, well-governed enterprise data and processes. Baker previously built high-performing teams and scaled go-to-market operations across disruptive technologies. CEO Satyen Sangani said Baker's experience will be instrumental as Alation helps enterprises implement AI agents to drive business outcomes. Baker said Alation is well-positioned to deliver meaningful business impact as organisations seek greater value from their data and AI investments.

Alation appoints Rick Baker as Chief Operating Officer. Baker brings more than two decades of leadership experience, combining revenue and customer-facing functions under a unified operating model Rick Baker, Alation COO Redwood City, CA, April 07, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) - Alation Inc., the knowledge layer empowering enterprises to achieve business outcomes, today announced the appointment of Rick Baker as Chief Operating Officer (COO). In this role, Baker will lead Alation's go-to-market (GTM) strategy and oversee Sales, GTM, Customer Operations, and Customer Solutions to scale the company's global growth and drive maximum customer impact. As COO, he will bring together critical revenue and customer-facing functions under a unified operating model. "I'm thrilled to welcome Rick to the executive team," said Satyen Sangani, CEO and co-founder of Alation. "Our goal is to help enterprises directly address challenges they face today when implementing AI agents to drive business outcomes. Rick's experience building high-performing teams and scaling go-to-market operations will be instrumental as we continue to work hand-in-hand with customers on their AI journey." AI agents can only scale if they operate on precise, well-governed knowledge. They need context about an organization's data and processes, and a continuous feedback loop that improves their accuracy with every interaction, across any platform, model, or application. Alation delivers this through the Knowledge Layer, enabling enterprises to drive real business outcomes from AI while retaining ownership of their enterprise knowledge. Baker's appointment as COO marks an important step in that mission. "I'm excited to join Alation at such a pivotal moment in its journey," said Baker. "Alation pioneered the data catalog category and has led the market to where it is today, and there's tremendous opportunity ahead. As enterprises seek to unlock greater value from their data and AI investments, Alation is ideally positioned to deliver meaningful business impact. I look forward to accelerating the company's go-to-market strategy and driving long-term value for industry-leading organizations worldwide." Baker brings more than two decades of leadership experience across disruptive and emerging technologies, including automation, IoT, and AI. Widely recognized for his ability to architect scalable GTM sales organizations and build world-class teams that drive sustained growth, Baker will advance Alation's mission to create an agentic knowledge layer that empowers enterprises to drive business outcomes and achieve true value from AI. The appointment of Baker as COO comes on the heels of the company's announcement of the general availability of Alation Curation Automation, which automates metadata governance at scale. The solution is a key component of Alation's outcome-based governance system, a revolutionary approach to data governance that replaces manual, process-driven programs with an agent-powered operating system. Outcome-based governance enables organizations to govern by intent rather than by process. Teams declare the business outcome they need to achieve - regulatory compliance, AI readiness, or trusted data products - and the system automatically interprets, enforces, and maintains those standards through purpose-built agents and continuous automation. About Alation Alation delivers an agentic knowledge layer that enables enterprises to achieve business outcomes and grow their most critical asset, knowledge. Global enterprises, including hundreds of Fortune 5000 companies, and organizations like AbbVie, American Family, Cisco, Finnair, Nasdaq, and Sallie Mae partner with Alation to realize hard ROI and business outcomes from data and AI. Alation led the creation of the data catalog market, was named a 2019 World Economic Forum Technology Pioneer, and has been named a five-time leader in the Gartner Magic Quadrants. Headquartered in Redwood City, California, Alation has been recognized five times by Inc. Magazine as one of the Best Workplaces. To learn more, visit https://www.alation.com.