C-Suite Confusion Over Data Governance Prompts Urgent Advisory Engagement to Strengthen Cyber Oversight

The Challenge

It began quietly with a series of unanswered questions at the quarterly board meeting of NorthVale Holdings, a mid-sized Canadian investment firm that manages more than $3 billion in assets. When a director asked how client data was being handled under updated privacy standards, no one could give a clear answer. The CEO turned to the CIO, who admitted the company’s data governance strategy had not been reviewed in more than three years.

For months, the executive team had disagreed over who owned cybersecurity and privacy oversight. The CIO treated it as an IT issue. The Chief Risk Officer placed it under enterprise risk. The CEO, focused on U.S. expansion, assumed compliance was embedded in daily operations. In reality, no leader had been formally tasked with aligning the governance model to PIPEDA and OSFI’s Technology and Cyber Risk Management expectations.

An internal audit then revealed inconsistent data classification across departments. Customer portfolios containing sensitive personal and financial information sat on shared drives without strong access controls or encryption. Several files included unredacted client identifiers that had been provided to external contractors. A governance gap was now a privacy liability.

Tension increased. In a follow-up briefing, the Chief Compliance Officer confirmed that several risk metrics presented to the board were outdated and compiled from legacy spreadsheets rather than the integrated risk dashboard. The CFO warned that inaccurate cyber risk reporting could mislead investors and regulators, which would be unacceptable for a publicly accountable firm.

As similar governance failures appeared in industry press, the board called for an urgent external review. Without a unified governance framework, decision-making had become fragmented, reactive, and exposed to liability. Shareholders pressed for transparency. Employees worried about regulatory scrutiny. Board confidence fell, executive trust eroded, and morale dipped. What began as role confusion now threatened investor relations and compliance assurance. Within days the board commissioned an advisory and executive consulting engagement to clarify responsibilities, raise executive risk literacy, and restore accountability.

Our Solution

We launched a Governance and Executive Cyber Oversight Program tailored for board realignment and measurable accountability.

1. Governance realignment
We performed a governance maturity assessment against ISO 27014 and the NIST Cybersecurity Framework, and identified breakdowns in accountability, reporting, and executive awareness.

2. Board and executive advisory
We ran targeted workshops with the CEO, CIO, CRO, and directors to define cyber oversight roles under PIPEDA and OSFI Guideline B-13, including reporting channels, data ownership, breach escalation, and decision rights.

3. Risk reporting framework
We replaced spreadsheet reporting with an automated dashboard that consolidated data classification status, vendor risk indicators, incident metrics, and thresholds for escalation.

4. Training and policy integration
We delivered C-suite governance training and embedded a revised Cybersecurity Oversight Charter into corporate bylaws and executive performance objectives.

The Value

Within six months the firm achieved clear, defensible improvements:

– Audit findings related to data handling and reporting inconsistencies fell by 65%.
– Compliance alignment reached 100% against stated PIPEDA data governance requirements and OSFI B-13 technology risk expectations.
– Board confidence in cyber oversight rose from 2.4 to 4.6 on a five-point internal scale.
– Investor trust improved, reflected in positive governance commentary in the annual shareholder report and fewer clarification requests from analysts.

The engagement unified decision-making under a single governance charter, strengthened accountability across functions, and moved the organization from reactive compliance to proactive cyber governance.

Implementation Roadmap

Phase 1: Diagnostic Assessment | Weeks 1–3 | Governance maturity review, board reporting analysis, mapping of cyber risk ownership | Governance Gap Report

Phase 2: Executive Realignment | Weeks 4–8 | Executive consultations, definition of accountability under PIPEDA and OSFI B-13, approval of oversight charter | Cyber Oversight Framework

Phase 3: Implementation | Weeks 9–14 | Deployment of automated risk dashboard, policy updates, targeted C-suite training | Risk Dashboard, Updated Policies

Phase 4: Evaluation and Optimization | Weeks 15–24 | Results validation, compliance maturity scoring, one-year improvement plan | Governance Scorecard, 12-Month Roadmap