Assessment
Two to six weeks. Inventory sources, clarify decisions and KPI needs, produce a sequenced roadmap.
Independent data consulting
Get your data foundations right, with senior help when you need it
RDM Datalab gives organizations senior data leadership (architecture, governance, and master data management) on a part-time basis, for teams that need the judgment but not a full-time hire.
I'm Michael Walker, a data architect with 25 years in data, including 13 years in enterprise data management at Wells Fargo and earlier delivery work for Salesforce, Google, Expedia, and Hotwire. I also work with consulting firms that need a senior practitioner on a client engagement.
Available for direct engagements and subcontract work with consulting partners. South Bay Area or remote.
What I do
Three areas of work. Most engagements start with an assessment and move into modeling or governance from there.
Data architecture and modeling
Conceptual, logical, and dimensional modeling. Master data management and identity resolution, including match strategy, survivorship rules, and key generation. I built a custom party matching engine in Ab Initio and Teradata before packaged MDM was a market, and the fundamentals have not changed.
Governance foundation
Domains, ownership, common terms, and a governing council that functions from month one. Sequenced so early wins land while the structural work is still underway, rather than asking an organization to wait a year for value.
Data strategy and AI readiness
An assessment of what the data function delivers today against what the business needs, ending in a sequenced roadmap someone can fund. Covers decision and KPI alignment, ownership, operating model, and adoption.
Most AI readiness work stops at data quality. The harder gap is semantic. Models and agents need to know what a business means by its own terms, and that context lives in the conceptual and logical layers most organizations never built.
Background
I started in data engineering and technical lead roles in 2001, delivering data architecture and integration work for Salesforce, Google, Expedia, and Hotwire. Consulting work with Wells Fargo turned into a full-time role, and I spent 13 years there in data management positions of increasing scope across payments, risk, and corporate functions.
- Owned product strategy for four golden source datasets serving 5,000 users
- Rebuilt sourcing and pipeline design, cutting data latency from 48 hours to under 12
- Established governance and metadata controls that reduced data quality incidents by 25 percent
- Led analytics and AI initiatives delivering roughly $30M in measured business value
- Built and managed analyst teams of 14 to 24 people
What I bring to an engagement is technical depth alongside business context. I can work through a data model in the morning and sit down with a CFO in the afternoon to talk through what their organization actually needs from its data. I care about whether the model holds up, whether the definitions survive contact with the business, and whether anyone can maintain the result after I leave.
How engagements work
Build
Design and deliver models, governance structures, or pipelines, with QA and documentation included rather than promised.
Advisory
Ongoing architecture and governance support, usually alongside an internal team or a partner delivery team.
I work on dedicated monthly capacity or fixed-scope engagements. Documentation and handoff are part of the work, not an add-on.
Contact
Book a time on my calendar, or send a note.