Michael Simms

Data & AI executive with 30+ years building the practices, platforms and governance that make enterprise data good enough to act on, and now good enough to run AI on. Most recently Vice President, Data & AI at Columbus, a global Microsoft solutions partner, owning strategy, the offering portfolio and technical direction for the North American Data & AI business.

Carried the delivery P&L across concurrent engagements staffed by multinational teams in the U.S., Western Europe (nearshore) and India (offshore), without a sales quota: the dozens of clients scoped, architected or taken through presales were won on the technical approach, not a sales pitch. C-suite advisory experience, including leading a client CEO and CFO through a multi-workshop analytics and AI strategy engagement; many rescue clients stayed for more than a decade.

Trained as both an engineer and an economist (M.S. Electrical Engineering, M.A. Economics), and argues AI investment in margin and payback terms, not only model accuracy. Current focus is AI and data governance, and the unglamorous question underneath it: is the data good enough to let an agent act on it.