Job Title : DG Program Lead (Data Governance Program Lead)
Location : Minneapolis, MN, USA (Client Location: Eagan, MN)
Work Model : Onsite/Hybrid - Must be in the office at least 3 days per week.
Experience Required : 12 to 30 Years
Target Industry : Consulting or Healthcare
Position Summary
The DG Program Lead is the operational engine of the Data Governance Office (DGO). DG Program Lead runs the day-to-day machinery: domain onboarding, policy workflow, Council pack preparation, Alation governance configuration, and the Data Owner engagement process across all data domains. This is a high-output individual contributor and team lead role, equal parts program manager, governance practitioner, and internal consultant.
Roles & Responsibilities
Program Operations
- Own the program plan: maintain the Jira project board, track milestones against the 24-month roadmap, flag risks and blockers to the DGO Lead weekly.
- Prepare the monthly Council scorecard pack: pull the KPI metrics, draft the narrative, identify escalations, and present the supporting slide. DGO Lead presents, DG Program Lead owns the content.
- Coordinate the monthly DG Council: agenda, pre-reads, domain escalations, policy review items, and action tracking.
- Own the program communications calendar: all-hands kickoff, domain workshop scheduling, steward onboarding, literacy curriculum assignment.
Domain Onboarding & Governance Activation
- Lead the Data domain pilot end-to-end: Data Owner designation, Steward onboarding, Alation orientation, domain workshop delivery (co-facilitated with Literacy Academy), DQ dimension workshop with the DQ Engineer.
- Build the domain onboarding playbook from the pilot, the repeatable template used for all other remaining domains in phases.
- Drive Data Owner designation across all data domains: coordinate with each domain product owner, manage the designation form process in Jira, track completion against the 30-day Council commitment.
- Onboard Data Stewards to Alation: coordinate Alation Academy enrollment, run the Steward orientation session, track the 6-week curation ramp for each new Steward.
- Manage the data issue intake process: own the P1/P2/P3 Jira queue, ensure SLA adherence is tracked for program KPI, maintain and follow escalation process.
Policy & Standards
- Draft all program domains data policies for DGO Lead review and Council approval, starting with the key foundational policies.
- Maintain the policy register: version control, review schedule, annual renewal coordination.
- Own the data classification policy: work with InfoSec to ensure Alation sensitivity tags align to the Unity Catalog RBAC tiers.
- Author the domain governance playbooks: per-domain documentation of Data Owner, Steward, DPO, DQ thresholds, glossary scope, and AI data governance checklist process.
Alation Governance Layer
- Work with the Alation Catalog Engineer to configure the governance workflow in Alation: approval chains, steward assignment, policy publication, DQ Certificate issuance process.
- Own the business glossary governance: term proposal workflow, approval routing, publication standards.
- Monitor Alation catalog coverage monthly: track program KPI (catalog coverage %) across all domains, identify gaps, and assign remediation to the relevant Steward or DPO.
- Coordinate AI data governance in Alation: ensure model cards are registered, lineage is documented from source to model input, and the AI data governance checklist is completed for each active AI use case.
Qualifications
Required
- CDMP (Certified Data Management Professional) required at hire or firm commitment to certify within 12 months. DAMA DMBOK2 proficiency is the practitioner foundation for this role.
- 7+ years in data management, data governance, or enterprise program management.
- Hands-on experience with an enterprise data catalog (Alation strongly preferred; Collibra, Informatica Axon, or Atlan acceptable).
- Demonstrated experience running a governance program across multiple business domains, not just one department.
- Strong written communication skills with the ability to write data policies, governance playbooks, and executive briefing materials that are clear, precise, and stakeholder-appropriate.
- Experience facilitating workshops with business and technical stakeholders and running a DQ dimension workshop with a domain VP and a team of engineers in the same room.
Preferred
- Health plan or healthcare payer experience, including HEDIS, Stars, Medicare Advantage, and HIPAA.
- Experience with Jira for governance workflow management, not just engineering sprint tracking.
- Familiarity with Great Expectations or equivalent Data Quality framework.
- Experience with Databricks Unity Catalog or equivalent data access governance layer.
- CDMP Practitioner or Master level certification.
Key Competencies
- Systematic Thinker: Able to see the full data domain program and still execute the day-to-day pilot detail simultaneously.
- Clear Writer: Governance only works if the policies and playbooks are understood. This person writes so non-data people get it.
- Follows Through: The single biggest failure mode in governance programs is well-designed commitments that nobody tracks. This role exists to prevent that.
- Comfortable with Ambiguity: This program is new. The DG Program Lead regularly encounters situations the playbook doesn''t yet cover.
Skills / Client Expectations
- Prior experience with Alation
- Strong expertise in Data Governance
- Excellent Executive-Level Communication skills
- Proven Program Management experience
- Healthcare Domain Expertise preferred
- Experience working across multiple business domains and governance stakeholders
- Ability to work from the client office in Eagan, MN at least 3 days per week
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