Sr Program Manager || Minneapolis, MN (Hybrid)

Sr Program Manager with strong data governance exp and healthcare background 

Loc- Minneapolis (hybrid- 3 days office)

Look for local candidates 

 

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.

 

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 escalate 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 or Informatica Axon, Atlan acceptable)

• Demonstrated experience running a governance program across multiple business domains — not just one department

• Strong written communication: able 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 — able to run a DQ dimension workshop with a domain VP and a team of engineers in the same room

Preferred

• Health plan or healthcare payor experience — HEDIS, Stars, Medicare Advantage, HIPAA

• Experience with Jira for governance workflow management (not just engineering sprint tracking)

• Familiarity with Great Expectations or equivalent DQ framework

• Experience with Databricks Unity Catalog or equivalent data access governance layer

• CDMP Practitioner or Master level

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