Data Tangle Interview 5:
Steph Calley

Alex Leigh

10 December 2025

4 min read

Introduction

This is interview #5of 12 for our Data Tangle research project.

"You never finish data governance — you just keep moving it forward."

Interviewee: Steph Calley

Institution: University of Bath

Role: Head of Data Governance.

Building Data Governance at Bath, from scratch.

We’ve been working with Steph since she was somewhat dropped in at the deep end back in 2022. She has done a fantastic job founding and developing the Data Governance capability from scratch. We were really keen to interview Steph to gain her insights on the challenges, what’s gone well and where lessons have been learned.

Steph’s role started with a focus on data quality in core systems containing student, staff, and finance data. Quickly, though, it became about more than just collecting and trying to solve quality issues. She’s built a network of 150 data stewards across the university, connecting people who know their datasets inside out and helping them work across silos.

Bridging the gap

One of the biggest hurdles for DG has been perception. Senior leaders ask for data and get it, so they don’t see a problem they need to solve. What they also don’t see is the hours of manual work and frustration behind the scenes. Operational staff, on the other hand, have long felt the pain and welcomed Steph’s role. Bridging that gap — showing those at the top of the university the hidden costs and inefficiencies — has raised the profile of the impact of poor quality data. And more importantly created some pressure to improve it.

Asking better questions

Steph’s also been pushing for a culture shift: challenge the question, not just the answer. Too often, staff ask “How many students do we have?” without clarifying whether they mean fee income, domicile, or recruitment activity. This result s in confusion, politics, and mistrust of the numbers. By encouraging stewards to ask “What do you want to know?” Steph hopes to move conversations from poorly phrased questions to actionable answers.

Insights vs. data

Linked to this is the insatiable demand for more “insights.” Senior staff often ask for them without defining what they mean, leaving stewards floundering to glue together disparate data sources. Or sometimes just stuck as the source data they need just isn’t available. Unless datasets are joined up or external benchmarks are added, the only answer is “this number is bigger than that one.” Steph argues that better questions and more transparency are the real route to useful insights.

Tools on a shoestring

With zero budget for governance tools, Steph has taught herself many new skills and then been creative in applying them. She started -as most of us do - with spreadsheets, then built a Power App for the developing business glossary, automating requests and making definitions easier to find. It’s slicker and more user-friendly that searching a spreadsheet, but the challenge now is embedding it into everyday practice — making sure definitions actually appear in reports and dashboards.

Culture change, not quick fixes

Steph is very clear: governance isn’t a one-off project. It’s about rewiring and redefining our relationships with data. Her successes include setting up a Data Governance Standing Group to bring senior staff into the data conversation, and seeing stewards start to collaborate directly with each other. But challenges remain: she’s still a team of one, and stewards have day jobs that limit how much time they can give.

Looking ahead

For Steph, the next step is embedding the governance capability fully into business as usual. Success would look like every report having definitions, every dashboard having a quality score, every steward empowered to challenge poor practice. It’s slow work, but the signs are positive. As she puts it, “You never finish data governance — you just keep moving it forward.”