Role Overview
We are seeking an experienced Director of Data Governance to establish and lead an enterprise wide governance function across complex, regulated and data intensive environments.
This is a technically grounded leadership position combining data governance, enterprise data architecture, data quality, integration and transformation. The successful candidate will ensure that critical data remains accurate, secure, traceable and usable throughout its lifecycle, including during cloud migrations, platform modernisation and legacy-system decommissioning.
Key Responsibilities
- Develop and implement the enterprise data governance strategy, framework, policies and operating model.
- Establish clear data ownership, stewardship, accountability and decision-making structures.
- Lead governance across data architecture, integration, migration, transformation and reporting.
- Define standards for data quality, metadata, lineage, classification, retention, access and reconciliation.
- Embed governance controls within ETL pipelines, cloud platforms, data warehouses and operational systems.
- Ensure data integrity and regulatory compliance during large-scale system migrations and legacy decommissioning.
- Develop practical controls for structured and unstructured data across cloud, on-premise and hybrid environments.
- Chair data governance forums and provide clear recommendations to senior management.
- Partner with business, technology, legal, risk, security and compliance teams.
- Translate business and regulatory requirements into workable technical standards.
- Assess existing data platforms, identify governance gaps and develop prioritised remediation roadmaps.
- Define governance metrics and report on data quality, ownership, risk and compliance.
- Lead and mentor data architects, integration specialists, engineers and data stewards.
- Manage specialist vendors and ensure external solutions comply with enterprise standards.
- Establish appropriate governance for AI-enabled data processing and automated transformation.
Candidate Requirements
- At least 15 years of experience across enterprise data architecture, integration, migration, database platforms or technology leadership.
- Previous leadership experience as a Data Architect, Data Integration Lead, Data Migration Lead, Technology Director or CTO would be ideal.
- Strong experience delivering complex data transformation and modernisation programmes.
- Deep understanding of relational databases, data warehousing, ETL, streaming, cloud and hybrid architectures.
- Demonstrated ability to preserve data integrity, accuracy and accessibility during major system migrations.
- Experience working within regulated or mission-critical environments such as government, financial services, utilities, legal services or other large enterprises.
- Strong knowledge of data quality, metadata, lineage, reconciliation, security and lifecycle management.
- Ability to bridge business and technical teams and communicate effectively with senior executives.
- Proven experience leading multidisciplinary technical teams and managing external vendors.
- A postgraduate qualification in information technology, business administration or a related discipline is preferred.
Ideal Profile
The ideal candidate combines senior leadership capability with strong technical credibility. They will be comfortable setting enterprise policy while remaining sufficiently hands-on to challenge architecture, integration and migration decisions.
This position is particularly suited to a pragmatic data leader who can build governance into operational delivery, rather than treating governance as a standalone policy or compliance exercise.
