Full-Time
Senior Advisor Consultant
Posted on 9/25/2025
Actian
501-1,000 employees
Offers data management and analytics platforms
No salary listed
Europe
Remote
 Consulting (2) |
|---|
| , |
- Minimum 5-10 years of work experience; most recent 5 years in data stewardship, data architecture and governance implementation.
- A bachelor's degree in fields like computer science, information systems, business administration, or related disciplines
- Excellent business writing, communication, and stakeholder management skills
- Design & Implementation experience with data management tools and technologies - catalog, marketplace, lineage, metadata management, quality, master data management, privacy & security, observability, integration
- Strong analytical and problem-solving skills
- Ability to manage competing priorities and work collaboratively across business and IT teams
- Consulting and stakeholder management skills to interface across technology and business functions
- Up-to-date knowledge of cloud, hybrid, and modern data engineering patterns
- The ability to adjust the level of technical detail, format, and frequency of communication based on the audience.
- Develop and implement data governance frameworks, policies, procedures, and roadmaps that align with business strategy and priorities, as well as regulatory requirements.
- Advise on data management capabilities – catalog, marketplace, lineage, metadata management, quality, master data management, privacy & security, observability, integration, and regulatory compliance (such as GDPR, CCPA)
- Assess current data landscapes and identify gaps, recommending actionable improvements.
- Facilitate data stewardship, ownership, and classification, including the definition and communication of roles and responsibilities.
- Monitor industry trends and regulatory developments, recommending changes to policies, standards, or technologies.
- Collaborate with business and IT leaders to align data management with operational priorities and facilitate organizational change.
- Architect end-to-end solutions for data management across enterprise applications and systems
- Deliver reports, workshops, and presentations to internal and external stakeholders.
- Provide thought leadership, training, and advice across projects and policies that impact data flows and governance.
- Facilitate workshops and training sessions for data owners, stewards, and executives.
- Act as a trusted advisor to business and technical stakeholders.
- Define KPIs to measure the effectiveness of governance programs.
Actian provides data management and analytics tools that help organizations connect to data, analyze it quickly, and act on insights. Key products include Actian Avalanche, a fully managed hybrid-cloud data warehouse; Actian DataCloud for data integration; Actian X for operational analytics, integration, and monitoring; and specialized databases Vector for high-performance analytics and Zen for embedded/IoT use cases. These tools connect to multiple data sources, process data in real time, and let users run queries and dashboards to derive insights. Actian differentiates itself by offering both on-premises and cloud options within an integrated suite that covers ingestion, storage, analytics, and monitoring, enabling real-time insights across traditional databases and edge/IoT scenarios.
Company Size
501-1,000
Company Stage
Series E
Total Funding
$84.5M
Headquarters
Redwood City, California
Founded
2005
Simplify's Take
What believers are saying
- Gartner projects 50% enterprise adoption of data observability by 2026.
- Steward Agent automates semantic layers resolving enterprise context battles.
- Actian shifts to organic growth developing next-generation vector database.
What critics are saying
- Snowflake's Project SnowWork erodes Actian AI Analyst market in 6-12 months.
- HCLSoftware reallocates resources diluting Actian innovations in 12-24 months.
- Databricks Lakehouse captures Avalanche share with Unity Catalog in 12-18 months.
What makes Actian unique
- Actian AI Analyst uses semantic knowledge graphs to eliminate AI hallucinations.
- MCP Server connects knowledge graph data catalog to Claude and ChatGPT.
- Data Observability Agents autonomously validate data across Iceberg and Delta Lake.
Help us improve and share your feedback! Did you find this helpful?
Benefits
Health Insurance
Parental Leave
Paid Vacation
Professional Development Budget
Conference Attendance Budget
Wellness Program
Company News
Actian CEO Potter: AI driving a data governance renaissance. Published March 19, 2026 Actian CEO Marc Potter said AI is proving to be a wakeup call on data governance as companies realize it's a business imperative. "Everyone has been talking about governance, but it has been more at a policy level and no one was enforcing it," said Potter. "There was a disconnection between data governance and reality. Because of AI, there's a reality check that data is not as good as companies thought. Data quality is getting real." Potter's talk at Constellation Research's AI Forum 2026 came a few days after the company launched its Actian AI Analyst, which was the product of the company's acquisition of Wobby. Actian AI Analyst is designed to provide insights on analytics and data quality to reduce business intelligence bottlenecks. Actian has been built with a series of acquisitions and is now focusing on organic growth and innovation. He said Actian is working on a next-generation vector database. The Actian AI Analyst includes a conversational interface, a rules-based execution engine and full traceability. Actian also launched a new Steward Agent to accelerate AI deployment with semantic modeling, consistent business logic and proactive logic management. Potter said Actian AI Analyst is aimed at business users looking to have a conversation with data and get insights. "Business is where spend happens. A businessperson is going to want real-time insights and clean data," said Potter, who said data quality is what drives return on AI. When speaking with corporate AI leads, Potter's advice is to "understand your data." "The first thing you should do is really understand your data. It's blocking and tackling right now and everyone has jumped way over here and skipped all the steps they should have followed in the design phases," said Potter. "I would go back and really discover your data, tag your data, map your data, and once you understand that data, everything else is easier." Potter said Actian customers all have different levels of AI and data maturity. "What we hear from customers right now is that it's a battle of semantic layers. Every product has its own context within that product, and they're all trying to build their own intelligent layer around that context, but there needs to become one layer that gives best context for that organization," said Potter. Editor in Chief of Constellation Insights Constellation Research Larry Dignan is Editor in Chief of Constellation Insights at Constellation Research, where he leads editorial coverage focused on enterprise technology, digital transformation, and emerging trends shaping the future of business. He oversees research-driven news, analysis, interviews, and event coverage designed to help technology buyers and vendors navigate complex markets with clarity and context... Results. Insight News March 19, 2026 Agentic AI is going to revamp the customer's experience and interactions are going to look a lot different. Here's a look at how... Larry Dignan Insight News March 19, 2026 Data to Decisions Sandy Carter, Chief Business Officer of Unstoppable Domains, said quot;there are claws everywhere nowquot; and enterprises need to give OpenClaw and its various derivatives a spin... Larry Dignan Insight News March 19, 2026 Data to Decisions Alibaba Cloud posted third quarter revenue growth of 36% driven by AI demand. The company's traction with its Qwen family of models also remained strong... Larry Dignan Insight News March 18, 2026 Data to Decisions Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang held court with financial and industry analysts this week at Nvidia GTC 2026 and riffed on tokenomics, why he wished OpenAI and Anthropic were public compan... Larry Dignan Insight News March 18, 2026 Data to Decisions Snowflake said it is launching Project SnowWork, an autonomous enterprise AI platform that aims to automate work... Larry Dignan Insight News March 17, 2026 Future of Work Workday CEO Aneel Bhusri said agentic AI is more of a friend to enterprise software than a foe since it can expand the market. However, AI's displacement of human workers is going... Larry Dignan Published. March 19, 2026 Insight News December 22, 2025 Data to Decisions Actian, the data and AI division of HCLSoftware, is seeing strong demand for its metadata, data catalog and governance tools. Wobby will bring an agentic AI data analyst to Actian... Larry Dignan
Actian, the data and AI division of HCLSoftware, has launched Actian AI Analyst, a conversational analytics solution designed to address AI hallucinations through a Semantic Knowledge Graph. The platform features the Steward Agent, which automatically generates and maintains the semantic layer to deliver auditable insights. The solution addresses accuracy issues in enterprise AI applications. Research shows some AI models achieve 97.8% accuracy on simple tasks but performance drops significantly with complex reasoning. Actian AI Analyst uses a rules-based approach to ground answers in company-specific logic, eliminating unconstrained SQL generation that causes hallucinations. The platform integrates with Slack and Microsoft Teams, allowing users to query data using natural language whilst maintaining full traceability of reasoning steps. It is available now and will be integrated across Actian's portfolio in coming quarters.
Actian, the data and AI division of HCLSoftware, has launched Data Observability Agents and a Model Context Protocol server to validate data for AI systems. The agents continuously monitor data at ingestion, detecting anomalies and explaining root causes whilst coordinating resolution autonomously. The technology addresses growing concerns around AI inaccuracy. Research shows 51% of enterprises using AI have encountered negative consequences, with nearly one-third caused by AI inaccuracy. The Data Observability Agents work across Apache Iceberg, Delta Lake and Hudi environments without requiring data movement. The MCP Server provides real-time quality signals to AI assistants, allowing automated validation before action. The Data Observability Agents are now available in public preview, whilst the MCP server is generally available.
HCL Technologies has officially finalized the acquisition of Wobby BV, an Agentic AI software startup headquartered in Belgium.…
Actian launches MCP Server to bring governed, high-quality enterprise data directly into AI assistants. Access to Knowledge Graph-Powered Data Catalog Accelerates Decisions With Accurate Semantic Search and Relationship Mapping for Better Context ROUND ROCK, TX, October 28, 2025 - Actian, the data and AI division of HCLSoftware, today announced the launch of the Actian Model Context Protocol (MCP) Server, a new capability of the Actian Data Intelligence Platform. The MCP Server enables enterprises to bring governed, high-quality data directly into artificial intelligence (AI) assistants built on large language models (LLMs) such as Claude and ChatGPT. By connecting its knowledge graph-powered data catalog to an AI assistant via an MCP Server, Actian transforms the catalog from a passive repository into an active, intelligent component of AI workflows. Capgemini research found that 93% of executives believe organizations successfully scaling AI agents will gain a competitive edge. To achieve this, organizations need infrastructure that lets AI agents work effectively with enterprise data. Yet a critical friction point remains as data professionals waste time toggling between AI assistants and separate data catalogs, introducing errors and slowing decisions through constant context switching. MCP is an open standard that enables secure connections between AI applications and external data sources. Unlike competitors, Actian combines the MCP Server with its knowledge graph-based data catalog. The server acts as an intelligent gateway that connects governed, high-quality data and metadata to AI agents, providing enhanced semantic understanding and data relationship mapping within agentic AI workflows. "The key to making AI assistants truly useful for data work isn't just connecting them to your data catalog - it's ensuring they understand the context, the data relationships and business meaning," said Emma McGrattan, CTO at Actian. "The Actian MCP Server's knowledge graph foundation enables this deeper understanding, so when users ask about revenue or customer insights, they get trustworthy results and complete data relationship maps, not just keyword matches." With the Actian MCP Server, users access business glossary definitions, perform semantic searches for related concepts, and discover complex data models, all while using natural language and without leaving their AI assistant. The knowledge graph foundation ensures these interactions deliver conceptually accurate results and complete relationship context. This accelerates insights, reduces errors, and improves decision confidence while eliminating productivity losses from tool-switching. The Actian MCP Server's initial release is built for fast adoption by focusing on two main capabilities: * Semantic Search: Uses AI-powered semantic search across business glossaries to find conceptually related terms based on meaning, not just keyword matches. For example, searching for "revenue" returns related terms such as "income," "sales," "gross profit," and "billing." * Get-Data-Model: Maps relationships between datasets by identifying foreign key references, helping users understand how data tables connect to each other with a complete view of data relationships. "Whether organizations are just experimenting with AI agents or expanding use across the enterprise, the gap between these conversational AI tools and enterprise data systems is a critical challenge," said Stewart Bond, Vice President of Data Intelligence and Integration Software at IDC. "Bringing trusted, governed data into AI assistants through standardized protocols like MCP is essential to build a foundation for successful AI implementations." Actian MCP Server Availability The Actian MCP Server is now available for existing Actian Data Intelligence Platform customers, with additional capabilities planned for future releases. For more information about these and other new features now available, review the "Actian Fall 2025 Product Launch: Make AI Work For You" blog. About Actian Actian empowers enterprises to confidently manage and govern data at scale. Actian data management and data intelligence solutions help streamline complex data environments and accelerate the delivery of AI-ready data. Designed to be flexible, Actian solutions integrate seamlessly and perform reliably across on-premises, cloud and hybrid environments. Learn more about Actian, the data and AI division of HCLSoftware, at actian.com.