Data Governance Lead - Senior Manager
Attain Partners
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Job summary
Attain Partners is seeking a Data Governance Lead – Senior Manager to build and scale the firm’s Data Governance capabilities while delivering hands-on client engagements. You will own governance programs, define policies, and lead Databricks-related initiatives across multiple engagements.
The ideal candidate brings strong consulting and leadership experience in enterprise data governance, metadata, data quality, and organizational change, with a track record of delivering measurable governance
Qualifications
- 7+ years of experience in Data Governance, Data Management, Data Quality, Metadata Management, or enterprise data programs.
- Demonstrated experience leading enterprise Data Governance programs.
- Strong understanding of frameworks such as DAMA‑DMBOK and DCAM.
- Experience establishing Data Owner and Data Steward operating models.
- Experience developing governance policies, standards, procedures, and controls.
- Experience with metadata, business glossaries, data catalogs, lineage, and data quality.
Responsibilities
- Own enterprise Data Governance program roadmaps.
- Establish program priorities, milestones, deliverables, dependencies, and success metrics.
- Manage day-to-day workflows for the Data Governance Office (DGO).
- Maintain project plans, Jira boards, issue logs, decision logs, risks, and action items.
- Provide clear program status and executive-level reporting.
- Coordinate governance activities across multiple business and technology workstreams.
- Design, implement, and operationalize enterprise Data Governance frameworks.
- Develop and maintain data governance policies, data management standards, data classification standards, governance procedures, data ownership models, data quality standards, data lifecycle standards.
- Align governance frameworks with organizational strategy, regulatory requirements, and enterprise architecture.
- Apply governance frameworks and industry practices such as DAMA‑DMBOK and DCAM.
- Design and implement enterprise Data Owner and Data Steward operating models.
- Define accountability for critical data domains and assets.
- Establish roles across owners, stewards, and custodians.
Skills
Tools
Job description
Attain Partners is an innovative consulting firm dedicated to disrupting the status quo to change the world and improve the lives of those we touch. From strategy to technology and everywhere in between, our experts use their unique skills to advance the important missions of education, nonprofit, healthcare, and state and local government clients.
People are at the center of all we do, and that’s why we empower career growth, provide industry‑leading benefits packages, encourage a flexible work environment, and foster a culture of inclusion to support the needs of our team. We share a collective passion for our mission and our people. Guided by our seven core values, The Attain Way, our vision is the foundation of our culture—to be and attain the best.
The Data Governance Lead – Senior Manager is responsible for building, leading, and growing the firm’s Data Governance capabilities while serving as a hands‑on delivery leader on client engagements.
This role combines three primary responsibilities:
Data Governance Consulting & Delivery – Lead client governance programs, workshops, workstreams, and deliverables.
Data Governance Practice Development – Develop repeatable offerings, methodologies, accelerators, and solutions that can be taken to market.
Databricks Practice & Alliance Leadership – Help establish and grow Databricks capabilities, solutions, partnership relationships, and associated revenue opportunities.
The ideal candidate combines strong consulting and client leadership skills with deep knowledge of enterprise data governance, modern cloud data platforms, Databricks, metadata management, data quality, and organizational change.
Own and manage enterprise Data Governance program roadmaps.
Establish program priorities, milestones, deliverables, dependencies, and success metrics.
Manage day‑to‑day workflows for the Data Governance Office (DGO).
Maintain project plans, Jira boards, issue logs, decision logs, risks, and action items.
Provide clear program status and executive‑level reporting.
Coordinate governance activities across multiple business and technology workstreams.
Design, implement, and operationalize enterprise Data Governance frameworks.
Develop and maintain:
Data governance policies
Data management standards
Data classification standards
Governance procedures
Data ownership models
Data quality standards
Data lifecycle standards
Align governance frameworks with organizational strategy, regulatory requirements, and enterprise architecture.
Apply governance frameworks and industry practices such as DAMA‑DMBOK and DCAM.
Design and implement enterprise Data Owner and Data Steward operating models.
Define clear accountability for critical data domains and assets.
Establish roles and responsibilities across business owners, technical owners, data stewards, and custodians.
Develop stewardship processes, governance workflows, escalation paths, and decision‑making models.
Coach and support Data Owners and Stewards as governance programs mature.
Lead enterprise metadata management and data catalog initiatives.
Establish and maintain:
Business glossaries
Data dictionaries
Metadata standards
Data lineage
Critical data elements
Data domains
Data classifications
Advise clients on governance technologies such as Collibra, Informatica, Alation, Microsoft Purview, and Databricks Unity Catalog.
Connect business metadata with technical metadata to improve data discovery, trust, lineage, and accountability.
Establish enterprise Data Quality frameworks and standards.
Define measurable data quality dimensions, rules, thresholds, and KPIs.
Develop Data Quality scorecards and dashboards.
Establish processes for identifying, prioritizing, remediating, and monitoring data quality issues.
Partner with business and technical teams to implement preventative and detective data quality controls.
Help organizations transition from reactive data cleansing to sustainable Data Quality Management.
Establish and facilitate Data Governance Councils, working groups, and steering committees.
Prepare governance agendas, executive pre‑reads, scorecards, and decision materials.
Track council decisions, actions, issues, and escalations.
Facilitate difficult cross‑functional discussions involving data ownership, definitions, priorities, and accountability.
Translate technical data issues into clear business risks, decisions, and recommendations for executive leadership.
Act as a bridge between executive leadership, business units, data teams, analytics teams, security, legal, compliance, architecture, and engineering organizations.
Translate business objectives into practical governance requirements and operating models.
Partner with Information Security and Privacy teams to align governance processes with regulatory and security requirements.
Support governance and compliance requirements associated with regulations such as:
GDPR
CCPA
HIPAA
FERPA
Other applicable industry or institutional requirements
Drive organizational change and adoption of new governance processes.
Develop training, communications, and stakeholder engagement strategies that make governance operational rather than theoretical.
The Senior Manager must remain client‑facing and billable and be capable of directly leading Data Governance engagements.
Serve as the Data Governance Lead on client engagements.
Lead governance workstreams from discovery through implementation.
Plan and facilitate client workshops with executive, functional, and technical stakeholders.
Lead current‑state assessments and governance maturity assessments.
Develop future‑state governance models and implementation roadmaps.
Own the quality and completion of client deliverables.
Manage consultants and analysts supporting governance engagements.
Provide executive‑level recommendations and presentations.
Lead the creation and delivery of:
Data Governance Strategy
Governance Operating Model
Data Governance Charter
Data Governance Roadmap
Data Owner and Stewardship Model
Data Domain Framework
Data Policy Framework
Data Classification Standards
Business Glossary
Critical Data Element Framework
Data Quality Framework
Data Quality Scorecards
Metadata Management Strategy
Data Catalog Strategy
Data Lineage Framework
Governance RACI
Governance Council Structure
Governance KPIs and Metrics
Governance Training and Adoption Plans
A key responsibility of this position is to build and grow marketable Data Governance solutions and offerings.
Develop packaged Data Governance consulting offerings that can be consistently sold and delivered.
Create repeatable methodologies, templates, accelerators, assessments, and delivery frameworks.
Develop offerings around areas such as:
Data Governance Strategy & Roadmap
Governance Maturity Assessments
Data Stewardship
Data Quality
Metadata & Data Catalog
Data Lineage
Data Classification
Data Governance Operating Models
AI and Data Governance
Cloud Data Governance
Databricks Governance / Unity Catalog
Create estimates, delivery models, staffing plans, and standard scopes of work.
Develop reusable intellectual property that improves delivery speed and consistency.
Support sales opportunities as the Data Governance subject matter expert.
Lead discovery sessions with prospective clients.
Identify client challenges and translate them into consulting opportunities.
Develop solution approaches, estimates, proposals, and statements of work.
Participate in client presentations, demonstrations, RFP responses, and executive meetings.
Partner with account executives and consulting leadership to identify expansion opportunities within existing accounts.
The Senior Manager will also help develop and grow the firm’s Databricks consulting capabilities and partner channel.
Help define the firm’s Databricks go‑to‑market strategy and service offerings.
Build a pipeline of Databricks consulting opportunities through direct clients and the Databricks partner ecosystem.
Develop relationships with Databricks account executives, solution architects, partner teams, and leadership.
Work with sales leadership to develop and maintain a $2M–$3M+ annual Databricks opportunity pipeline and sales target.
Identify opportunities where Databricks can support:
Enterprise data platforms
Analytics modernization
AI and machine learning
Data governance
Data quality
Data sharing
Data engineering
Cloud modernization
Support Databricks‑focused proposals, scoping, estimates, demonstrations, and executive presentations.
Provide technical leadership for enterprise Databricks solutions.
Design and advise on scalable Lakehouse architectures.
Establish modern Bronze / Silver / Gold medallion architectures.
Advise on architecture
Support architectures across AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud environments.
Establish security, governance, data access, and operational standards for Databricks environments.
Connect enterprise Data Governance strategies with Databricks platform capabilities.
Advise clients on implementing governance through Unity Catalog.
Establish approaches for Data ownership, Data classification, Access controls, Metadata, Data lineage, Data discovery, Data quality, Data sharing
Position governance as a foundational component of Databricks and enterprise AI/data modernization programs.
Build reusable Databricks reference architectures, accelerators, frameworks, and delivery methodologies.
Establish technical standards and delivery best practices.
Develop reusable deployment and implementation patterns.
Build packaged Databricks offerings that can be sold through both direct sales and the Databricks partner channel.
Develop internal training and certification strategies to expand Databricks capabilities across the consulting organization.
Mentor architects, engineers, consultants, and technical delivery leaders.
7+ years of experience in Data Governance, Data Management, Data Quality, Metadata Management, or enterprise data programs.
Demonstrated experience leading enterprise Data Governance programs.
Strong understanding of frameworks such as DAMA‑DMBOK and DCAM.
Experience establishing Data Owner and Data Steward operating models.
Experience developing governance policies, standards, procedures, and controls.
Experience with metadata, business glossaries, data catalogs, lineage, and data quality.
Experience with platforms such as Collibra, Informatica, Alation, Microsoft Purview, or similar technologies.
Strong knowledge of modern cloud data platforms and Lakehouse architectures.
Experience with or strong knowledge of Databricks, Delta Lake, Unity Catalog, Spark, PySpark, SQL, and modern ETL/ELT architectures.
Understanding of cloud environments including AWS, Azure, and/or Google Cloud.
Previous experience working with the Databricks partner ecosystem strongly preferred.
Demonstrated experience leading client‑facing consulting engagements.
Ability to lead executive workshops and facilitate complex stakeholder discussions.
Experience managing cross‑functional consulting and technical teams.
Strong project and program management capabilities.
Ability to manage multiple client engagements and internal practice initiatives simultaneously.
Excellent executive communication, presentation, facilitation, and conflict‑resolution skills.
Strong change management and organizational adoption capabilities.
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