A new episode of Leading by Association is here!
Close on the heels of IAPP’s annual Canada Summit 2026, we had the opportunity to sit down with Ashley Casovan, Managing Director of the IAPP’s AI Governance Center, to discuss the rapidly evolving future of AI governance, digital trust, and responsible innovation.
Ashley brings a rare blend of public-sector leadership, policy expertise, standards development, and global governance experience. From helping shape the world’s first national government policy for responsible AI in Canada to contributing to international conversations through organizations like the OECD and World Economic Forum, her work sits at the center of some of the most important AI governance conversations shaping society today.
Our discussion explored a growing reality facing organizations across sectors: AI governance is no longer optional. As AI increasingly shapes hiring, immigration systems, public services, research, communications, and decision-making, governance is becoming essential infrastructure for trust, accountability, and innovation itself.
“The application of AI is not one size fits all and there need to be different standards or best practices that are evolved from that broader framework policy”
We spoke about the growing convergence between privacy, cybersecurity, data governance, and AI governance, and why organizations can no longer treat these as isolated conversations. Ashley shared practical insights on governance programs, transparency, risk classification, standards, certification pathways, and the growing need for AI governance professionals who can bridge technical, legal, operational, and human realities.
One of the strongest themes throughout the conversation was the importance of keeping humans at the center of AI systems. Governance is not just about compliance or technical safeguards. It is about protecting dignity, reducing exclusion, strengthening public trust, and ensuring emerging technologies work for society rather than against it.
We also explored the critical role associations and professional communities can play in helping people navigate an increasingly overwhelming AI landscape, not through fear and hyperbole, but through practical guidance, shared learning, curiosity, and community.
At a time when AI is moving faster than many institutions and organizations can adapt, conversations like these remind us that responsible innovation will require not only smarter systems, but wiser leadership, stronger governance and more digitally fluent societies. For Generation1.ca members, many of whom consistently express the need for stronger digital readiness to remain future-ready in their new societies, these insights are especially meaningful. In our research, tech readiness, including AI and digital skills, emerged as the strongest predictor of immigrant members’ intent to stay, integrate, and continue building their lives and careers in their host country.
Watch the space below to tune in for the full episode on YouTube and Spotify.
About our Guest: As the managing director of the IAPP’s AI Governance Center, Casovan serves as the primary thought leader and public voice for the IAPP on AI governance, while providing strategic direction and contributions to the development of practical, relevant and timely content for the AIGC. Casovan will lead the AIGC engagement efforts with industry leaders, senior policy makers, regulators and international organizations to ensure AI governance is top of mind when discussing AI’s potential. Through roles in the public sector at the municipal and federal levels, Casovan developed expertise in responsible AI, standards, policy, open government and data governance. As the former director of data and digital for the government of Canada, Casovan previously led the development of the world’s first national government policy for responsible AI. Building from this work, Casovan served as the Executive Director of the Responsible AI Institute, a multi-stakeholder non-profit dedicated to mitigating harm from the use of AI systems, a member of OECD’s AI Policy Observatory Network of Experts, a member of the World Economic Forum’s AI Governance Alliance, an Executive Board Member of the International Centre of Expertise in Montréal on Artificial Intelligence and as a member of the IFIP/IP3 Global Industry Council within the UN.
