Essential Ingredients to Successful Digital Data Transformation Program

GM Financial led a multi‑year data and AI transformation on Databricks, moving from traditional reporting to a modern analytics and GenAI‑enabled ecosystem guided by a clear enterprise vision. This session shares the people and process “recipe” behind that change: formal data governance and operating bodies, a data strategy board, stewardship practices, and communities of practice that increased literacy, trust, and SOX‑ready data. We will highlight the Databricks Center of Excellence—onboarding, study groups, certifications, office hours and best‑practice sharing—that accelerated adoption and improved CSAT/NPS. The talk also introduces AI/BI Genie—a Databricks chatbot that turns natural language into SQL over curated documentation, enabling governed self‑service analytics. Finally, we show how a Databricks‑centric FinOps framework gives pipeline‑to‑query cost visibility, enables show‑back of spend and drives continuous cost optimization without sacrificing agility.