Job Title: Data Governance & AI Governance Lead
Location: Addison, TX (3 Days On-site/ Hybrid)
Duration: Direct Hire
We are seeking an experienced Data Governance & AI Governance Lead to establish, operationalize, and mature enterprise-wide data governance capabilities across a complex, multi-business organization. This role combines expertise in governance, program management, organizational change management, and business partnership to drive consistent data standards, improve decision-making, and support enterprise analytics and AI initiatives.
The successful candidate will influence stakeholders across multiple business functions without direct reporting authority, building credibility through collaboration, governance expertise, and measurable business outcomes.
Key Responsibilities
- Lead and facilitate enterprise Data & AI Governance Working Group meetings while coordinating governance activities across multiple business domains, including Finance, Sales, Operations, Procurement, Project Management, Engineering, and Human Resources.
- Develop, maintain, and govern an enterprise KPI registry, ensuring consistent metric definitions, ownership, data sources, and reporting standards across all business units.
- Partner with business domain stewards to establish governance standards, documentation, accountability, and escalation processes.
- Prepare and present governance compliance scorecards and executive reporting to leadership committees.
- Serve as the primary point of contact for governance issues, facilitating resolution of data-related disputes before executive escalation.
- Establish and maintain enterprise master data standards across key business domains, including Customer, Vendor, Product, Project, and Employee data.
- Manage governance initiatives as formal programs, including milestone planning, risk management, dependency tracking, and executive status reporting.
- Maintain governance operating procedures, meeting cadences, decision logs, RACI documentation, governance calendars, and escalation workflows.
- Coordinate governance initiatives with enterprise data platform modernization efforts to ensure alignment between business standards and technical implementation.
- Support ERP migration governance by monitoring data quality readiness, governance checkpoints, and master data compliance throughout implementation phases.
- Develop and execute a governance maturity roadmap with measurable milestones toward enterprise adoption.
- Design and implement organizational change management strategies that promote governance adoption, stakeholder engagement, and sustainable behavioral change.
- Identify organizational resistance and develop targeted engagement strategies across business functions with varying levels of governance maturity.
- Create and execute stakeholder communication plans that promote transparency, accountability, and executive engagement.
- Build governance capabilities through structured onboarding, coaching, and training for business data stewards.
- Measure governance adoption using both leading and lagging performance indicators, including stewardship engagement, policy adoption, compliance metrics, and KPI consistency.
- Act as a trusted business partner by collaborating with leaders across Finance, Operations, Sales, Human Resources, and other functional areas to ensure governance decisions align with operational realities.
- Facilitate cross-functional alignment on KPI definitions and data standards, resolving inconsistencies through structured consensus-building.
- Effectively manage stakeholder resistance while maintaining positive working relationships and driving governance objectives.
- Demonstrate the business value of governance through measurable improvements in reporting accuracy, operational efficiency, reconciliation efforts, and decision-making.
- Partner with Data Engineering and Data Platform teams to ensure governance standards are successfully implemented within modern enterprise data architectures.
- Support financial data quality initiatives in partnership with Finance stakeholders.
- Collaborate with business intelligence teams to maintain reporting standards and certified enterprise datasets.
- Utilize enterprise data governance technologies to support metadata management, data lineage, classification, and policy enforcement.
- Develop, maintain, and manage enterprise Data and AI governance policies covering data quality, data classification, master data, security, AI usage, retention, lineage, and responsible AI practices.
- Manage the complete policy lifecycle, including drafting, stakeholder review, approvals, publication, communication, compliance monitoring, and periodic updates.
- Define and administer AI use case intake, evaluation, approval, and governance processes.
- Collaborate with Legal, Security, and Compliance teams to establish AI governance standards, risk classifications, and organizational guardrails.
- Maintain an accessible enterprise policy repository with version control, ownership tracking, and review schedules.
- Monitor governance policy compliance, report adoption metrics, and escalate significant compliance issues.
- Continuously update governance policies in response to regulatory changes, technology evolution, acquisitions, and changing business requirements.
- Ensure all governance policies align with applicable legal, regulatory, contractual, and organizational requirements.
Required Qualifications
- Bachelor's degree in Business, Information Systems, Computer Science, Finance, Operations Management, or a related field, or equivalent professional experience.
- 8+ years of experience in data governance, enterprise data management, analytics, or related disciplines, including at least 3 years in a dedicated data governance leadership role.
- Experience supporting complex, multi-business or multi-entity organizations; manufacturing or industrial industry experience is preferred.
- Strong understanding of operational and financial performance metrics and enterprise reporting.
- Proven program management experience delivering cross-functional initiatives involving multiple stakeholders, milestones, risk management, and executive reporting. PMP certification is a plus.
- Demonstrated experience leading organizational change initiatives and driving adoption in decentralized environments.
- Hands-on experience with enterprise data governance platforms such as Microsoft Purview, Collibra, Alation, or similar solutions.
- Experience influencing stakeholders across business functions without direct reporting authority.
- Expertise designing or implementing enterprise data governance frameworks, KPI governance, business glossaries, or master data management programs.
- Experience with ERP systems and enterprise planning platforms, particularly in migration governance and data quality initiatives.
- Familiarity with modern cloud data platforms, business intelligence solutions, and enterprise analytics ecosystems.
- Experience facilitating governance councils, steering committees, centers of excellence, or cross-functional leadership forums.
- Experience developing and maintaining enterprise data governance and AI governance policies is preferred.
- Understanding of evolving data privacy regulations, AI governance principles, compliance frameworks, and policy management best practices.