davisAIgovDavis & Associates Advisory, LLC
Connect with us

Leadership experience / applied to today's challenges

Experience that turns difficult facts
into usable decisions.

AI controversies and ransomware incidents rarely arrive as complete, organized evidence. Our approach is informed by work with fragmented records, cross-functional teams, regulatory demands and technically contested facts.

Each example below separates the original assignment from how its methods apply to current AI, cyber and assurance engagements.

Discuss your challenge Explore our capabilities

Merck / enterprise leadership

Five cyber functions. One accountable operating view.

The challenge

Security incidents, sensitive research data and supplier exposure cross organizational boundaries. Separate reports do not, by themselves, create a coordinated response.

Richard's role

A published federal court record identifies Richard's Merck role as Director of Compliance and Risk Management within the Cyber Fusion Center, under IT Risk Management & Security. His supplied CV describes a five-function portfolio: Incident Response, Threat Defense Operations, Cyber Threat Intelligence, Data Loss Prevention and Digital Forensics, with cross-functional work involving Legal, Privacy, Global Security, engineering, R&D and business leadership.

His CV describes founding and co-chairing the Enterprise Security Analytics Working Group and developing Deep Content Awareness to identify sensitive information for protection. These initiatives connected technical analysis, data classification and cross-functional action rather than treating each security function as an isolated activity.

How the experience applies to AI and cyber risk

AI governance has the same coordination problem: a model owner, data owner, system operator and business sponsor may each see only part of the risk. We help assign decision rights, test data and tool permissions, align monitoring, and define who acts when a boundary is crossed.

Who this helps

Boards, CISOs, CIOs, privacy leaders and organizations protecting valuable or regulated information.

What a scoped engagement can deliver

Operating responsibilities, risk and control register, monitoring priorities, escalation plan and management evidence.

Explore the related service

Source scope: the public record supports the director title and Cyber Fusion Center placement. The named five-function portfolio and innovations are CV-based, not separate findings of that court. Public record: employment background

Japan / cross-border regulatory review

HEV-battery records. A disciplined cross-border review.

The challenge

A major transaction required a coordinated review of Japanese business records for a U.S. regulatory process, including material concerning hybrid electric vehicle (HEV) batteries.

Richard's role

Richard describes his assignment as a Japan-based review of Sanyo's hybrid electric vehicle (HEV) battery business records. According to his engagement account, he designed the review workflows and trained and supervised more than 100 bengoshi (Japanese attorneys), supporting Simpson Thacher and working with Authense and UBIC on FTC Second Request protocols and review operations.

The project description is limited to the HEV-battery records Richard identifies as his workstream. The ACG-hosted biography also describes his Tokyo battery-division review. Separately, the FTC confirms the HEV-market investigation, and Simpson Thacher identifies its Sanyo Second Request representation. These sources establish different facts; they do not make a statement about the overall acquisition interchangeable with the scope of Richard's assignment.

How the experience applies to AI and cyber risk

An AI-assisted review still needs clear instructions, trained reviewers, traceable decisions and human responsibility. We bring that operating discipline to regulatory response, AI review workflows and transaction diligence, with sampling and exception handling defined for the engagement.

Who this helps

General counsel, regulatory-response teams, deal teams and multinational organizations using AI to process large volumes of information.

What a scoped engagement can deliver

Review workflow, reviewer training, quality-control criteria, escalation paths and a traceable production/evidence plan.

Explore the related service

Source scope: an ACG-hosted 2019 Davis & Associates biography describes Richard managing a Tokyo document-review team on Sanyo's hybrid-battery division. The FTC confirms its HEV-market investigation, and Simpson Thacher confirms its Second Request representation. The biography is a published professional account, not independent certification of the assignment. The 100-plus reviewer count, Authense/UBIC involvement and training details remain principal-reported. 2019 published biography FTC transaction context Simpson Thacher representation

BP / Deepwater Horizon response

A legal hold is an instruction. Compliance requires evidence.

The challenge

A major incident required preservation activity across business units, personnel, leadership and contractors, alongside continuing coordination with inside and outside counsel.

Richard's role

In his engagement account, Richard describes securing and leading a BP IT-Legal Gap Analysis project, followed by approximately three years embedded in Houston on Deepwater Horizon work. He describes forming an eDiscovery attorney team and organizing collection and preservation evidence concerning inside and outside counsel's directives and diligence.

The work included establishing confirmation evidence from personnel, key leaders, functions and contractors concerning their compliance with the legal-hold process. Acknowledgments and reported completion were evidence to examine, not a reason to assume that every preservation obligation had been fulfilled.

How the experience applies to AI and cyber risk

After ransomware or an AI-related incident, organizations must distinguish what was instructed from what actually happened. We map relevant systems and custodians, preserve logs and decision records, reconstruct events and identify gaps for counsel and incident leaders to resolve.

Who this helps

Incident leaders, general counsel, insurers, regulated enterprises and organizations managing complex preservation obligations.

What a scoped engagement can deliver

Preservation map, custodian and system inventory, event chronology, confirmation ledger and unresolved-evidence register.

Explore the related service

Source scope: National Cyber Exchange's published biography and the ACG-hosted 2019 profile both describe the 2009 BP litigation-readiness review and subsequent Deepwater Horizon preservation work. Those biographies provide public corroboration of the work described; they do not independently establish the contract-award process, three-year Houston duration, attorney-team size or each legal-hold confirmation. National Cyber Exchange biography ACG-hosted biography

Mazzei / complex data and technical testimony

Recover the data. Understand the fields. Test the conclusion.

The challenge

Richard's account describes a mortgage-data assignment involving an undocumented historical Oracle database rather than a ready-made report or reliable data dictionary.

Richard's role

Richard's engagement account describes restoring access to historical Oracle mortgage data spanning more than 40 years, held by a third-party custodian he identifies as EY. He led analysis across more than 5,000 tables and approximately 1.5 billion records to identify fields needed to generate class lists under plaintiffs' counsel's criteria. He also describes appearing as an eDiscovery expert before Magistrate Judge Ronald L. Ellis in the Southern District of New York.

The important distinction is between making data accessible and proving the legal proposition a party needs to establish. Database records are not the same measure as distinct loans or class members. The published appellate decision is not cited as a finding that Richard's reconstruction established contractual privity or secured class certification.

How the experience applies to AI and cyber risk

When AI decisions are challenged, an attractive dashboard is not enough. We examine source systems, data definitions, joins, transformations, model or rule versions and exceptions to determine which conclusions can be reproduced, which require more evidence and which remain unsupported.

Who this helps

Counsel, insurers, internal investigators, compliance leaders and deal teams facing difficult or disputed technical facts.

What a scoped engagement can deliver

Reconstructed data map, reproducible analysis method, affected-population criteria, limitations and technical testimony support where appropriate.

Explore the related service

Personal engagement account, not a description of the court's ultimate findings. Read the 2016 appellate opinion for the separate class-certification outcome.

Source scope: the published rulings establish the litigation and preservation issues, not Richard's specific EY/Oracle assignment, database counts or hearing testimony. The 2015 opinion discusses 1.3-1.5 million loans, which is not the same unit as the 1.5 billion underlying records in Richard's account. 2014 preservation ruling 2015 class-certification opinion

A consistent analytical method

Find the source. Test the claim. Explain the limits.

01

Frame the question

Translate the business, investigative or counsel-directed question into facts that can be tested.

02

Recover the context

Identify source systems, versions, responsible people, access rights, transformations and missing records.

03

Test competing explanations

Reproduce the analysis, examine exceptions and distinguish an actual control failure from an evidence gap.

04

Make the result usable

Deliver findings, limitations, ownership and practical next actions to the people responsible for decisions.

Sources, attribution and limits

Verification status: public records support the Merck director title, the broader Panasonic/Sanyo transaction and HEV-market review, Simpson Thacher's representation, and the cited Mazzei rulings. Published professional biographies also describe the Tokyo review and BP preservation work. Individual staffing, duration, five-function portfolio, and EY/Oracle scale and testimony details are attributed to Richard's supplied account where the public sources do not establish them. Source review: November 6, 2026.

Assignment scope and corporate history are different questions. Richard identifies HEV-battery records as his workstream. Separately, Panasonic states that it acquired majority voting control of Sanyo in December 2009; the FTC describes the HEV-market review and a distinct portable NiMH divestiture to FDK. Those sources do not support describing the corporate transaction as only an HEV-division purchase.

Mazzei's technical reconstruction work is not presented as proof of privity, a court endorsement of a methodology, or a successful class-certification outcome. The draft's hypothetical field-mapping analysis is not published here as an established litigation finding.

Historical engagements do not imply endorsement by the named organizations. Technical testimony is subject to the scope of expertise and the requirements of the relevant proceeding. davisAIgov is not a law firm.

Continue the conversation

Bring us the question that needs an answer.

See how these disciplines translate into assessments, investigations, remediation and ongoing assurance.

Continue