The EM360Tech 2026 Impact Index recognises the analyst-led campaigns, and thought leadership that created meaningful enterprise impact across the quarter.
The EM360Tech Authority Award recognises key analysts' influence across EM360Tech during the quarter.
The Authority Award focuses on consistency of contribution rather than individual performance moments. It looks at how an analyst’s work builds over time across articles, podcasts, and commentary, and whether that work helps shape how enterprise audiences understand a topic.
The EM360Tech Authority Award for Q3 2026 goes to Dr. Joe Perez!
Dr. Joe Perez wins the Q3 2026 Authority Award for a quarter spent telling enterprises to fix their data foundations before they chase AI.
“You can’t build a skyscraper of artificial intelligence on a foundation of sand.” Dr. Joe Perez said when we sat down with him for our analyst spotlight. It also sums up this quarter.
The Work Behind the Win
Dr. Perez came to technology by way of the classroom. By his own account, he spent a decade as a high school teacher, then 25 years at NC State University. He has been at the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services since 2017.
He also works as a fractional CTO at CogniMind. He says he has spoken at more than a hundred events in the past five years, across more than 20 countries.
His latest book, Igniting the Data Dance, builds a governance framework around an acronym of the word itself. Dr. Perez says it became a #1 New Release on Amazon within 24 hours and climbed to #4 on the bestseller list.
The Article That Set the Tone
In Fireworks, Family, and the Framework for Data Governance Dr Joe Perez describes fireworks display in the park, watched with his family and his first grandchild. Then it turns that evening into a point about data.
A good display takes timing, coordination and precision. Governance does too. His argument is that alignment is the real problem. Teams define metrics differently, duplicate information across systems and make decisions from conflicting reports.
Governance, he says, supplies the shared language and clear ownership that fix it.
The Conversations Behind the Win
AI deserves the attention, he told us, but too many organisations chase it and neglect data governance, quality and ethics. He has watched companies spend seven figures on a slick AI pilot, only to find three departments calling the same client three different names in three different systems.
He also put a number on people. Digital transformation, he says, is 10% technology and 90% people.
And he thinks the AI conversation is growing up. A year ago, he says, the questions after his keynotes were about getting started. Now people ask who’s accountable when an algorithm gets it wrong. Budgets are starting to carry line items for governance, model monitoring and bias testing.
Then came Big Data LDN, where Dr. Perez took the keynote stage with “Leveraging Beauty & Brains for Effective Data Storytelling”. In our video interview from the show, I asked which data term he’d retire. His answer was “artificial intelligence”. Once you think about it, he says, it’s “neither artificial nor intelligent.”
His advice for where to invest is to get back to basics and put guardrails around your data.
Why Dr. Perez’s Perspective Resonated
Simply put, he says what plenty of leaders already suspect. It matches what we’ve seen in AI-ready data foundations, where weak ownership and inconsistent definitions turn promising pilots into headaches.
He also practises it. At his own organisation, he says, he has pushed for plain-language training open to every employee, not just analysts. That puts data literacy at the centre of governance. It also fits his case for keeping the human in the loop with AI.
Where Authority Fits in the Impact Index
The Quarterly Impact Index has four awards. Vanguard goes to the most innovative podcast and Apex to the top-performing one. Catalyst recognises a campaign that delivered across multiple channels.
Dr. Joe Perez follows Christina Stathopoulos, our Q2 winner.
Before you fund your next AI pilot, ask a simpler question. Do your teams even agree on what to call your biggest client? Dr.Joe Perez would start there.
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