Data Governance Manager

Job Title: Data Governance Lead

Duration: 15 Months (possibility of extension/conversion)

Location: Toronto, ON (Hybrid – 3 days onsite/week)

Description:

Typical Day-to-Day Responsibilities

1. Lead ELT Delegate Engagement Program activities and deliverables.
2. 60% meeting to check progress of the project.
3. Facilitate governance meetings, workshops, and onboarding sessions.
4. Manage project plans, risks, dependencies, and action items.
5. Conduct data landscape and ownership assessments.
6. Prepare executive presentations, dashboards, and progress reports.
7. Engage senior stakeholders to drive accountability and decision-making.
8. Escalate and resolve governance-related issues and risks.
9. Drive governance adoption and continuous improvement initiatives.

Position Overview

Global Data Governance is seeking a highly motivated and influential leader to drive the activation and execution of the ELT Delegate Engagement Program.

This role will lead a high-visibility enterprise initiative focused on operationalizing business accountability for data risk, data quality, and governance across global segments and functions. The successful candidate will partner with senior business leaders, ELT Delegates, Data Owners, Data Stewards, and Data Governance teams to establish governance forums, drive engagement activities, facilitate data landscape assessments, and ensure ongoing progress against program objectives.

This is an ideal opportunity for a strong program leader who combines exceptional communication and stakeholder management skills with the ability to drive execution across a highly matrixed organization.

Key Responsibilities

Lead ELT Delegate Activation Program

• Lead day-to-day execution of the ELT Delegate Engagement Program across segments and functions.
• Manage activation plans, milestones, dependencies, risks, decisions, and outcomes.
• Drive progress from delegate onboarding through sustained operating model adoption.

Executive Stakeholder Engagement

• Build trusted relationships with senior leaders, ELT Delegates, and their teams.
• Lead onboarding, workshops, working sessions, and executive briefings.
• Influence alignment, remove barriers, and accelerate decisions through clear, business-focused messaging.

Governance & Program Facilitation

• Facilitate data landscape exercises to identify critical data, ownership, dependencies, and governance gaps.
• Establish and support local data governance forums.
• Drive resolution and escalation of data risks, issues, ownership, and accountability challenges.

Reporting & Executive Communications

• Prepare executive presentations, briefings, status reports, metrics, and leadership updates.
• Monitor progress and provide insights, recommendations, and escalations that drive action and accountability.

Change Leadership

• Drive adoption, accountability, and sustained participation in governance practices.
• Embed governance into business operating rhythms and decision-making forums.
• Continuously improve activation processes, tools, and templates.

Qualifications

• 5+ years of experience leading enterprise data governance, data management, or related transformation programs in a complex, regulated organization.
• Strong executive communication, presentation, and facilitation skills.
• Proven ability to influence senior leaders and build trusted relationships in a matrixed organization.
• Demonstrated success leading complex, multi-workstream initiatives from concept through execution.
• Ability to navigate ambiguity, create structure, and deliver measurable outcomes.
• Strong ability to connect program outputs and governance activities to measurable business outcomes, risk reduction, and enterprise value, and articulate that value clearly to senior stakeholders.
• Demonstrated knowledge of data governance principles and practices, including data ownership and stewardship, critical data identification, data quality, metadata and lineage, issue management, controls, and data risk.
• Experience designing, implementing, or operationalizing enterprise data governance operating models, including governance forums, decision rights, accountabilities, standards, and escalation paths.
• Familiarity with program management methods and tools.
• Proven ability to translate data governance policy and strategy into practical business processes, controls, accountability, and measurable outcomes.

Success Profile

The ideal candidate will be:

• A natural relationship builder who can quickly establish credibility with senior stakeholders.
• Comfortable facilitating conversations with executives and challenging stakeholders when necessary.
• Highly organized and disciplined in managing complex programs and competing priorities.
• Action-oriented and able to move initiatives forward with limited direction.
• Skilled at turning strategy into execution through strong coordination, follow-through, and accountability.
• Outcome-focused, with the ability to look beyond completed deliverables and define the business impact, value realized, and evidence of success.
• An excellent communicator who can simplify complexity and influence outcomes.

MUST-HAVE HARD SKILLS

1.) Enterprise Data Governance experience

2.) Strong Program/Project Management experience leading complex cross-functional initiatives in large, regulated organizations.

3.) Executive stakeholder management, facilitation, and communication skills, including presentation development and delivery to senior leadership.

NICE-TO-HAVE

1.) Experience implementing or operationalizing enterprise data governance operating models.

2.) Change management and organizational transformation experience.

3.) Relevant certifications such as PMP, CDMP, DAMA, CBIP, or equivalent.

Interview process:

2 ROUND - VIRTUAL 30 MIN

Dexian stands at the forefront of Talent + Technology solutions with a presence spanning more than 70 locations worldwide and a team exceeding 10,000 professionals. As one of the largest technology and professional staffing companies and one of the largest minority-owned staffing companies in the United States, Dexian combines over 30 years of industry expertise with cutting-edge technologies to deliver comprehensive global services and support.

Dexian connects the right talent and the right technology with the right organizations to deliver trajectory-changing results that help everyone achieve their ambitions and goals. To learn more, please visit https://dexian.com/.

Dexian is an Equal Opportunity Employer that recruits and hires qualified candidates without regard to race, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, age, national origin, ancestry, citizenship, disability, or veteran status.