Data Governance Product Owner

Job Title: Data Governance Product Owner
Location: Charlotte, NC (Hybrid)
Need Payment / Treasury Experience
Duration: 12+ Months (with the possibility of an extension)

The Data Strategy Lead / Data Product Manager is accountable for defining and driving the strategic direction of a specific data domain or capability within banking domain. Acting as the strategic owner, this role ensures alignment with enterprise architecture, governance frameworks, and business priorities. It serves as a critical bridge between strategy and execution, empowering Agile delivery teams to build scalable, compliant, and high-quality data products that support business operations, regulatory obligations, and analytical needs.
This role operates horizontally across delivery verticals, enabling consistent end-to-end data flow design patterns, reducing rework, and embedding modernization opportunities such as cloud migration, AI adoption, and data-as-a-product principles.

Key Responsibilities
Domain Strategy & Roadmaps
Define and maintain the strategic vision for the data domain, addressing current-state challenges, modernization opportunities, and simplification goals. Co-develop roadmaps with delivery teams to balance long-term direction and near-term execution.
Portfolio Intake & Discovery
Evaluate new demand during intake to identify opportunities for strategic execution (e.g., governance, data quality, modernization). Influence scope and design decisions to align with enterprise priorities.
Delivery Outcome Tracking
Monitor delivery outputs against strategic objectives using clear metrics; escalate misalignments and propose corrective actions to ensure predictable delivery.
Voice of Customer & Use Case Capture
Engage with business, regulatory, and operational stakeholders to ensure strategy reflects real-world needs and drives measurable business value.
Integration with Enterprise Architects
Partner with architects to enforce alignment with enterprise blueprints and standardized data design patterns; co-own pattern libraries and governance routines.
PI Planning & Inspect & Adapt
Actively participate in PI Planning and Inspect & Adapt workshops. Incorporate audit learnings, production incident themes, and delivery retrospectives into strategy updates to strengthen governance and improve audit readiness.
Data-as-Product Advocacy

Promote treating data as a product through canonical models, reusable APIs, and shared contracts; collaborate with Agile Product Owners to embed these into team backlogs.
Primary Skill: Data Strategy & Architecture

Secondary Skill: Global Payments Business Domain /Financial Services Expertise
Tertiary Skill: Data Product Management

Required Skills & Experience

Strategic Leadership: Proven ability to define and execute domain-level strategies in complex organizations.
Global Payments Expertise: Deep understanding of payment rails, clearing/settlement, cross-border flows, correspondent banking, treasury/payments operations; ISO 20022, SWIFT MT/MX.
Regulatory & Reporting Knowledge: PSD2/Open Banking, AML/Sanctions (GFCC), NFRR/FRR reporting controls, audit readiness; data retention/lineage requirements.
Data Management Expertise: Strong understanding of data management principles, including canonical data modelling, shared data contracts, and API-driven integration patterns. Familiarity with modern data architectures such as data lakehouse, cloud-native ecosystems, and interoperability standards. Ability to define and enforce data standardization practices across domains, ensuring consistency and scalability in support of business and regulatory needs.
Governance Leadership: Design-pattern stewardship, control frameworks, standards enforcement, policy-to-implementation traceability.
Product Management: Roadmap definition, backlog curation, Epic/Feature acceptance criteria; use-case capture and prioritization for reuse and measurable value.
Portfolio Intake & Discovery: Ability to challenge scope for simplification/modernization; dependency and risk management across delivery verticals.
Communication & Stakeholder Management: Executive-level storytelling, cross-functional influence, multi-location collaboration across teams.
Experience: Typically, 10+ years in data/architecture/product roles, including 5+ years in Payments/Treasury or banking; proven delivery in regulated environments.

Preferred Qualifications
Cloud & Modernization: Experience guiding migration to modern platforms (e.g., Azure, AWS), data lakes/warehouses, streaming, real-time payments integration.
Certifications: SAFe POPM/Architect, CDMP/DAMA, and cloud certifications (Azure/AWS).
Understanding of Data Mesh Principles: Domain-oriented data ownership models and federated governance