Accept, ask, or nominate someone better. Founding invitees may request an invitation, ask to attend the November founding session in Bengaluru as a guest before deciding, or nominate a colleague who belongs in the room more than they do. The council treats that last answer as the highest recommendation a seat can receive.
60
founding seats when you request an invitation, October to November 2026
3
ways to answer: accept, ask, nominate
2
working days to a human reply
₹0
membership fee, now or later
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Three ways to answer: accept, ask, or nominate someone better
Founding invitees receive the invitation prospectus and a personal note explaining why they were proposed. There are three ways to reply. Accept, and a thirty-minute profile call is scheduled. Ask, and a person from the secretariat answers within two working days; if you would rather see a session before deciding, say so, and you may attend the founding session as a guest. Nominate, and the council considers your colleague ahead of you.
If you have not received a personal note but believe you belong in the room, you may still request an invitation below. The secretariat will read it, and if the role, estate and city fit the founding composition, will propose you to the reserve list from which declined seats are re-offered. After the founding cohort, every seat is filled by a member’s nomination and the council’s approval; a request from outside the Circle is then routed to a member who can nominate.
There is no fee, no sponsor and no sale at any point in this process. Nobody who chooses to request an invitation will receive a services approach from fsyncDATA, MinervaDB or ChistaDATA as a result of having done so. That is a charter rule, enforceable by the members council, and it is written out on the Circle charter page.
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Who should request an invitation
You should request an invitation if you hold one of the leadership roles at a Global Capability Center in India or at its parent’s data organisation: site leader, chief data officer, chief data and analytics officer, chief AI officer, chief data scientist, CIO, CTO, principal database architect, or head of data platform. You are accountable for a real production data estate, or you architect or run one day to day. You are willing to bring a real decision to the room, with its numbers, at least once.
You should not request an invitation if you hold a sales, pre-sales, partnerships or marketing role at any vendor, consultancy or analytics firm, fsyncDATA’s group included; if you would be attending on behalf of a company rather than as yourself; or if you have previously breached a comparable confidentiality charter. Analysts, consultants and advisors attending to prospect, anyone unable to speak for a real production estate, and anyone who would rather present than learn are not who the room is for.
The full picture of who sits at the table, by role, sector and stage, is on the GCC leadership roles page. If you are unsure whether your role fits, request an invitation anyway and say so; the secretariat would rather answer a question than lose a seat.
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The founding cohort: sixty seats, one window
Sixty seats, filled between October and November 2026, across the leadership roles and four cities, with no more than twelve seats per role and no more than two members from any one company. Composition target: site leaders 10; chief data officers and heads of data 10; CIOs, CTOs, chief AI officers and chief data scientists 14; principal database architects and data architects 14; heads of data platform and senior data engineers 12. Bengaluru 24, Hyderabad 16, Pune 12, Chennai 8. No more than a third from any one sector.
| When | What happens |
|---|---|
| October 2026 | fsyncDATA proposes sixty founding members. Each receives the prospectus and a personal note explaining why they were proposed. |
| October to November 2026 | Accepting members complete a thirty-minute profile call. Declined seats are re-offered from the reserve list; no seat is filled by a company’s substitute. |
| November 2026 | Founding session, Bengaluru. The charter is adopted or amended, the first council is elected, and the first working session runs the same evening. |
| January to April 2027 | Founding members answer the first benchmark survey and receive the first readout. From this point the Circle has something no other room in India has. |
Founding members who request an invitation and accept decide whether the charter stands as written or is amended, elect the first council, set the size and pace of the second cohort, approve the benchmark’s questions before they are issued, and choose which city hosts the annual assembly. Founding status carries permanent recognition in the directory, priority nomination rights for the second cohort, a standing seat at the annual charter review, and nothing commercial, from anyone, ever.
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What happens after you request an invitation
You request an invitation, here or by email. A thirty-minute profile call is scheduled with the secretariat: your estate shape, the three topics you can be asked about, the three you want to learn, and your directory preferences. Three introductions are made in your first month, chosen for complementarity: one in your role at a different stage, one in a different role at your stage, one in your sector.
You attend the founding session in Bengaluru in November 2026, in person or online, and post your first ask-the-network question in month two. In month three you choose your contribution for the year: a session, a benchmark response, or standing availability for peers’ questions. Every message is answered by a person within two working days.
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Request an invitation or nominate a peer
Use the form to request an invitation for yourself, to ask the secretariat a question, or to nominate a peer. The form goes to the secretariat only. Nothing you enter is shared with fsyncDATA’s or MinervaDB’s commercial teams, added to any list, or used for any purpose other than running the Circle. If you would rather write directly, the secretariat’s address is below.
Fields marked as optional are optional. You may request an invitation without naming your company; the secretariat will ask on the profile call, because the two-per-company limit has to be checked, but it is never recorded in the directory unless you opt in.
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What we ask of you, and what you may always refuse
What we ask of you: attend at least six of twelve working sessions; answer the benchmark honestly, once a year; give one contribution a year, of your choosing; nominate one person a year who belongs in the room; keep the charter, especially Rule 2.
What you may always refuse: any introduction, without giving a reason; any directory field you would rather not share; any recording of a session you present; any contact from fsyncDATA about services, which should never happen inside the Circle.
- No membership fee, now or later
- No sponsor, no product demonstration, no case study “presented by”
- No attendee list shared outside the Circle
- No follow-up from anyone offering services
- Chatham House, one strike, enforced by an elected council fsyncDATA does not sit on
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Why a nomination counts for more than a request
Every seat after the founding cohort is filled by a member’s nomination and the council’s approval, so to request an invitation for yourself and to be nominated are not the same thing. A nomination says that someone already in the room, bound by the charter, believes this person belongs. A request says that the person believes it themselves. Both are welcome; the council weighs the first more heavily, and weighs most heavily of all a founding invitee who says a colleague belongs in the room more than they do.
To nominate, use the form and choose “nominate a peer”. Say who, what role, which center or parent organisation, and in one or two sentences why. The secretariat contacts the nominee only after the council has approved the nomination, and tells them who nominated them only with the nominator’s consent. Members are asked to nominate one person a year; if you request an invitation and are accepted, this is one of the five things asked of you.
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Attending the founding session as a guest
Founding invitees who would rather see a session before deciding may attend the November 2026 founding session in Bengaluru as guests, in person or online. Guests hear the charter adopted, watch the council elected, and sit through the first working session on portfolio ownership under the same Chatham House rule as members. They do not vote, do not appear in the directory, and are not recorded. If they request an invitation afterwards, the profile call follows within two weeks; if they do not, nothing follows.
Guest attendance, for those not yet ready to request an invitation, is limited to founding invitees and to nominees the council has already approved. It is not open to colleagues of members, and a member may not bring a guest to any other session. The one exception, ever, is the founding session, because it is the session at which people decide.
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The reserve list
Declined founding seats are re-offered from a reserve list, in the order that keeps the composition target intact: the same role, the same city, a different company. People who request an invitation without a personal note are considered for the reserve list first. The list is kept by the secretariat, reviewed by the council once elected, and deleted once the founding cohort is closed; nobody on it is contacted for any purpose other than a seat.
After the founding cohort closes, the reserve list ends and the nomination route begins. A person who requests an invitation from then on is told which members the secretariat believes could nominate them, with those members’ consent, and the request goes no further unless one of them does.
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Things people ask before they request an invitation
Is there really no fee?
There is no fee, now or later. fsyncDATA funds the secretariat, the platform, the venues and the dinners outright. The price of a seat is one contribution a year: a session, a benchmark response, or a considered answer to a peer. Members who only take are thanked and released at renewal.
What does fsyncDATA get out of it?
When you request an invitation you are entitled to know. A better-informed practice, a reputation for keeping a room safe, the same benchmark report as every member, and the satisfaction of the thing existing. Nothing else, and the members council can find fsyncDATA in breach if it takes more. The full answer is written down before anyone joins so that anything beyond it is a breach.
Can my company hold the seat if I leave?
No. Seats belong to people. If you request an invitation and accept, the seat is yours, and it goes with you to your next role unless that role is a disqualifying one. Your company cannot send a substitute; if a colleague belongs in the room, nominate them.
How much time does it take?
Roughly thirty hours a year: twelve monthly sessions of ninety minutes online, four half-day deep dives of which you attend the ones you choose, and fortnightly office hours if you want them. The ask is six of twelve sessions. Less calendar than one conference trip, and none of it in an expo hall.
What if I say something I regret?
Chatham House protects attribution, not indiscretion. What you say may be used; who said it may not, and one attributed leak by anyone ends their membership permanently. Speak as you would with your CEO listening, and bring the numbers you are entitled to bring. The one-pager that follows every session is anonymised by the secretariat and you may ask to see it before it goes to the reading room.
I am in a city other than the four. Can I still request an invitation?
Yes. Working sessions are online; deep dives and dinners are in the four cities but every deep dive is online as well. The founding composition targets the four cities because that is where most of India’s capability centers are, but the council sets the second cohort’s composition and may open other cities.
Will requesting an invitation put me on a sales list?
No. The form goes to the secretariat only. Nobody who requests an invitation is contacted about services by fsyncDATA, MinervaDB or ChistaDATA as a result. That is Rule 1 of the charter and the members council enforces it against the convener.
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The secretariat
The people who read every request an invitation form: the fsyncDATA Circle secretariat is two people, neither in a sales role, bound by the charter. Every message is answered by a person within two working days. From October 2026 the secretariat is reached at circle@fsyncdata.io. Until then, write to shiv@minervadb.com with the subject line “fsyncDATA Circle”.
The secretariat reports to the members council on Circle matters, not to fsyncDATA. It runs the calendar, the introductions, the reading room, the value ledger and the benchmark collection, and it is the only part of fsyncDATA that ever sees member-level data. How it is bound, and who it answers to, is on the members council page.
Nothing on this site is an offer of services. Members who want to talk to fsyncDATA, MinervaDB or ChistaDATA about their estate do so outside the Circle, on their own initiative, and the Circle is never mentioned in that conversation. MinervaDB describes itself at minervadb.com.
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Before you request an invitation: the charter in one paragraph
The fsyncDATA Circle is an invitation-only club for the people who run India’s Global Capability Center data estates. Sixty founding seats across the leadership roles and four cities. Monthly working sessions with the numbers left in, quarterly deep dives, principal office hours, a 48-hour peer network, a members-only benchmark, and dinners with no agenda. No fee, no sponsors, no sales, including from the company that convenes it. Chatham House, one strike. Governed by an elected members council that fsyncDATA does not sit on.
If that is the room you have been missing, request an invitation above. If it is the room a colleague has been missing, nominate them. If you are not sure, ask; a person will answer. The dates for the year are on the Circle calendar, and the eight themes are on the GCC data platform curriculum page.
fsyncDATA is a working name for the India-domiciled data-platform operations business of MinervaDB Inc.; entity and domain registrations are in progress and the secretariat address above will be confirmed in the founding invitations. This page describes the Circle as proposed to its founding cohort, who may amend the charter at the founding session. © 2026 MinervaDB Inc.