Data Governance Lead – Payment / Transaction Banking

Hello,

We are currently looking for a Data Governance Lead – Payment / Transaction Banking for a hybrid role based in New York City.

Job Title: Data Governance Lead – Payment / Transaction Banking
Location: Hybrid – New York City (Local to NY/NJ Only)
Experience: 10+ Years
Visa: No candidates

Role Summary

The Data Governance Lead will be responsible for embedding robust and scalable data governance practices across Payment and Transaction Banking platforms. This role partners closely with delivery, architecture, and business teams to ensure consistent application of data standards, models, lineage, quality, privacy, and controls across modern payment ecosystems.

This position is critical to enabling regulatory-ready, audit-ready, and analytics-ready data foundations within large-scale, agile delivery environments.

Key Responsibilities

Data Governance Strategy & Agile Enablement

• Embed data governance guardrails into agile delivery lifecycles, including feature design, acceptance criteria, and release planning

• Act as a domain data governance SME supporting multiple payment platform delivery teams

• Translate enterprise data governance policies into actionable, domain-specific guidance

Canonical Data Models & Payment Data Standards

• Define and maintain domain-level canonical and conceptual data models

• Ensure consistent payment data standards across clearing, settlement, liquidity, reconciliation, and reporting

• Support semantic consistency aligned with ISO 20022 and modern payment data models

Metadata, Lineage & Data Transparency

• Drive metadata capture, ownership definition, and end-to-end lineage across payment data pipelines

• Ensure business definitions, ownership, and traceability from source to consumption

• Partner with technology teams to embed lineage and metadata tagging in automated pipelines

Data Quality, Controls & Regulatory Readiness

• Define domain-specific data quality rules aligned to regulatory and risk requirements

• Ensure automated data quality checks are embedded in payment platforms

• Contribute to Definition of Done and acceptance criteria

Privacy, Sensitivity & Data Lifecycle Management

• Oversee classification and handling of sensitive and customer data

• Ensure compliance with data privacy regulations and internal controls

• Define and enforce archival and retention policies

Audit Insights & Continuous Improvement

• Analyze audit findings to identify governance gaps

• Continuously strengthen governance and control frameworks

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related field

Required / Must-Have Skills

• Strong domain experience in Payment / Transaction Banking

• Exposure to payment rails such as Real-Time Payments, ACH, SWIFT, clearing & settlement

• Hands-on experience governing data across large-scale payment platforms

• Advanced data modeling (conceptual, logical, physical, semantic)

• Strong understanding of enterprise data architecture

• Experience with metadata management, data cataloging, and lineage

• Proven experience with automated data quality rules and controls

• Solid understanding of data privacy and regulatory expectations

• Experience working in agile or scaled-agile, regulatory environments

Preferred / Nice-to-Have Skills

• Experience with DAMA-DMBOK, DCAM, COBIT

• Background in global banks or payment transformation programs

• Familiarity with data vault or graph-based models

• Knowledge of data observability and monitoring practices

• Experience supporting ISO 20022 migrations or payment data modernization