Winning Senior Leadership Buy-In for Data Projects
Getting buy-in for data projects can be tough. A couple of years ago, I was consulting with a division of a large telecommunications company. They had asked me to evaluate their current data management processes and make recommendations. During one of our conversations, when data governance came up, the IT team told me they had already presented the subject to senior leadership, but had gotten no traction.
I could hear the frustration in the IT director’s voice as he told me how it had been brushed aside. In mid-sized organizations, data practitioners often find themselves in a familiar and frustrating position. The reporting is inconsistent, and multiple versions of the truth cause delays and friction. There is no clear data owner, and worse yet, no one, especially not the people with the power to do something about it, seems to be listening.
It’s an easy answer to assume the problem is that senior leaders just don’t “get it.” If only they could understand the importance of data governance, the beauty of a modern data warehouse, or the promise of semantic models, they’d be fully onboard, everything would be rainbows and sparkles in data land.
But it’s not about getting them to see things differently. It’s about showing them your data project has better ROI than their other options.
This is the mindset shift many data professionals must make to get leadership buy-in.
It’s a Prioritization Problem
Executives aren’t ignoring data projects because they’re shortsighted or resistant to change. They’re weighing priorities. Every quarter, they face a flood of requests and initiatives from every department, each with an engaging narrative and some form of ROI.
Do we:
- Launch the new product feature?
- Expand marketing into a new channel?
- Hire a new sales rep?
- Or fix the data mess that slows reporting every month?
All these vie for the same budget and resources. Your pitch isn’t judged in a vacuum. It’s being evaluated next to every other investment opportunity. That means the bar isn’t “is this valuable?” but rather “is this a more valuable use of our limited capital right now?”
But even if you can show the long-term ROI advantages, data programs can still be delayed or sidelined.
Loss Aversion and Temporal Discounting
Loss aversion and temporal discounting are two cognitive biases that affect us all. It’s when we feel the pain of losses more strongly than the pleasure of equivalent gains. Losing $100 feels worse than gaining $100 feels good. Similarly, leaders can feel the pain of losing budget today more acutely than they feel the potential gain of better, cleaner data down the road.
Temporal discounting can make it even worse. When benefits are far off in the future, we tend to devalue them mentally. For example, $1,000 today feels more valuable than $1,200 a year from now. A leader might not prioritize data governance because cleaner data, improved trust, and regulatory readiness are seen as “later,” while other projects offer faster returns.
As you can probably guess, loss aversion and temporal discounting work together. These biases can make even high-ROI projects feel like a bad tradeoff: a guaranteed hit today in exchange for a vague payoff tomorrow. It’s not that leaders don’t see the logic; it just doesn’t feel worth it at the moment.
What Not to Lead With: Technical Complexity or Best Practices
Data teams too often start the conversation by describing how broken things are or how much better they could be.
- “We don’t have proper data lineage.”
- “We’re not following best practices in data modeling.”
- “Our ETL processes are brittle and undocumented.”
- “There’s no data governance framework.”
Sound familiar? These are all very valid concerns, but they don’t get funding.
Senior leaders are generally not swayed by theoretical architectural improvements or adherence to abstract standards. They are not looking to fund elegance. They are looking to fund outcomes.
When you lead with pain points they don’t feel, or benefits they can’t quantify, it sounds like an IT maintenance task, not a business growth opportunity. Remember that reporting dashboard you had to pull together at the last minute last week, pulling overtime to get it done because of messy data? They didn’t feel that, you did.
Reframe the Pitch: Speak in ROI, Risk, and Strategic Value
You don’t need to become a CFO to speak in ROI terms, but you need to change the framing from “we need data governance” to “here’s what better data governance makes possible.”
Here’s how to start:
1. Tie Every Data Project to a Clear Business Objective
Instead of saying:
“We need to clean up our customer data.”
Say:
“Right now, marketing is spending $300K/year running campaigns with a 20% bounce rate due to dirty customer lists. We can cut that in half by fixing the data.”
This is the bridge: from data cleanup to revenue outcomes.
2. Use Risk as a Strategic Lever
ROI doesn’t only come from gains—it can also come from avoiding losses. This is loss aversion in action again, but this time in your favor.
“Right now, we can’t reliably track which vendor data sources are used in decision-making. That puts us at risk of non-compliance with internal audit controls and potential legal exposure.”
Risk is a universal language in the C-suite. It doesn’t require a long explanation, and it drives urgency.
3. Quantify the Opportunity Cost of Inaction
Executives are used to making tradeoff decisions. You must show them what they’re losing by not fixing the data now.
“Right now, analytics has a 3-week lag. That means our growth team is always looking in the rear-view mirror. If we fixed the bottleneck, we could cut the cycle time in half, enabling faster experiments and iteration.”
Opportunity cost turns passive neglect into active loss. It gives your project weight on the decision scale.
It’s Not the Size of the ROI—It’s the Certainty of It
Sometimes, leaders will pick a project with lower theoretical ROI if it has greater clarity and lower risk.
That means one of the best things you can do is reduce uncertainty.
For example:
- If you pitch building a new shared semantic model in Power BI, show a working prototype demonstrating report unification across two business units.
- If you want to launch a data quality initiative, show how one department’s cleanup led to a 15% improvement in some key KPI.
Pilot programs and incremental wins help build trust. When leaders believe a project is likely to succeed and know its cost, they’re more likely to say yes.
Timing Matters: Match the Project to the Business Cycle
Even a perfect project won’t win if pitched at the wrong time.
- If budgets are locked in, you may need to frame your project as a cost reduction or efficiency booster rather than a net-new investment.
- If the company is in growth mode, highlight speed, scalability, and competitive advantage.
- If there’s been a data failure or embarrassing error recently, lead with risk mitigation and public confidence.
Understanding the company’s priorities for the quarter (or fiscal year) will help you align your pitch with what’s already top of mind for leaders.
Use Language That Resonates With Executives
Avoid jargon. Use language that’s familiar to your audience.
Instead of:
- “We want to implement data governance policies and metadata management systems.”
Try:
- “We want to reduce reporting errors, define clear ownership, and ensure teams work from the same source of truth.”
Speak in outcomes, not architecture.
Build Allies Before You Build the Pitch
Before presenting to leadership, gather support from key business units.
Too often, IT and the business seem like adversaries instead of being partners. If Sales, Marketing, or Finance can say, “Yes, this project would solve a real problem for us,” you have social proof. The data team’s credibility increases when the business units confirm the pain.
Partner with a business sponsor if you can, and let them present the initiative with you or even lead the ask. Their voice carries more weight when the issue impacts revenue, margin, or customer satisfaction.
Case Study: When Data Governance Finally Got Funded
So, that client I told you about? We changed their messaging.
Instead of discussing lineage and stewardship roles, they worked with Sales to calculate the time spent reconciling quotes, inventory, and fulfillment numbers. They estimated that $500K/year was lost to delays, rework, and errors due to inconsistent data.
Then we repackaged the proposal into a phased grassroots governance initiative with a clear timeline, cost, and projected savings.
It was green-lit the next budget cycle, not because the overall project scope had changed, but because the framing did.
It’s Not About the Technology—It’s About Tradeoffs
This is the big idea: You’re not trying to convince senior leaders of the importance of data; you’re trying to help them make smart investments.
To do that, you need to:
- Speak in the language of ROI, risk, and business outcomes.
- Frame your project in terms of what it enables, not just what it fixes.
- Reduce uncertainty by showing prototypes or small wins.
- Time your pitch to match organizational priorities
- Enlist allies from business units to support the ask
Remember, leaders aren’t biased against data. They’re biased toward clarity, speed, and results. Make it easy for them to say yes by showing that your project is the best use of their next dollar.