Principal Data & AI Governance Leader — Flexible Work

NZ Transport Agency Waka Kotahi; Palmerston North; On-site; NZD 148,000 - 176,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Competitive salary

Benefits package

Flexible working

Life/Income Protection

Critical Illness insurance

Job summary

NZ Transport Agency Waka Kotahi (NZTA) is seeking an influential Principal Data & AI Governance Advisor to set strategic direction for Data & AI governance across the organisation. You will develop practical governance frameworks, enable responsible innovation, and build an enterprise-wide approach with robust guardrails.

You will work across technology, risk, privacy, legal and delivery functions, building trusted relationships with senior leaders.

Qualifications

• Significant experience leading Data Governance or Data & AI Governance in a complex organisation.
• Experience developing and embedding enterprise governance strategies, frameworks and operating models.
• Strong knowledge of responsible AI, data stewardship, metadata, lineage and data quality.
• A sound understanding of privacy, security, compliance, assurance and risk management.
• Proven ability to influence executive stakeholders and drive organisation-wide change.
• Experience establishing governance forums and accountability for data ownership and stewardship.
• Strong capability across governance tooling, controls, monitoring and reporting.
• Experience working with Māori data sovereignty principles.
• Excellent strategic judgement, systems thinking and relationship-management skills.

Responsibilities

• Create NZTA’s enterprise Data & AI Governance strategy and target state.
• Shape policies, standards, controls and operating models that enable responsible innovation.
• Establish clear accountability for data ownership, stewardship and AI oversight.
• Embed Māori data sovereignty principles into governance frameworks and decision-making.
• Influence major programmes, platforms, digital products and AI-enabled initiatives.
• Strengthen governance maturity, assurance, risk management and organisational capability.
• Guide the selection and continued improvement of enterprise governance tools.

Skills

Data governance leadership

Enterprise governance strategies

Responsible AI knowledge

Privacy & risk understanding

Executive stakeholder influence

Governance forums establishment

Governance tooling & monitoring

Māori data sovereignty

Strategic judgement & relationship mgm

Job description

NZ Transport Agency Waka Kotahi (NZTA) is seeking an influential Principal Data & AI Governance Advisor to set strategic direction for Data & AI governance across the organisation. You will develop practical governance frameworks, enable responsible innovation, and build an enterprise-wide approach with robust guardrails.

You will work across technology, risk, privacy, legal and delivery functions, building trusted relationships with senior leaders.