Building a Sponsor Coalition
Wednesday, May 6, 2026
03:00 PM - 03:45 PM
All Levels
A single sponsor, no matter how influential, is rarely enough to drive significant, cross-functional organizational change. Success requires an active, unified coalition of leaders who advocate for the change across all impacted departments and levels. This session will equip data program sponsors and managers with practical tools and strategies to identify, recruit, and align key leaders into a cohesive and effective sponsor coalition.
In this session, we will share:
- Strategies for identifying and engaging sponsors
- Best practices for sponsors to drive program success
- Key activities program teams and sponsors can use to drive organizational change
Becky Lyons, PhD, is a Principal Consultant at First San Francisco Partners. Her work focuses primarily on navigating the organizational and cultural issues around enterprise data management. She leads teams of all sizes to implement and manage systematic and sustainable data management strategies that create value through data. With an eye toward organizational improvement, she engages and empowers leaders to reach better decisions faster with trusted data. Her work is informed by a Ph.D. in Education with an emphasis in Institutional Analysis from North Dakota State University, her thought leadership in Organizational Change Management, and a passion for helping individuals succeed. Becky is a thought leader in the area of data governance and organizational change management, regularly speaking at conferences and writing for industry publications and the FSFP blog.