Data Governance Specialist - LOCALS to Nashville, TN

*NOTE: Consultants MUST be LOCAL to Nashville, TN - OUT of STATE consultants will be rejected!!!

*NOTE: Consultants MUST be LOCAL to Nashville, TN - OUT of STATE consultants will be rejected!!!

*NOTE: Consultants MUST be LOCAL to Nashville, TN - OUT of STATE consultants will be rejected!!!

Job Title: Enterprise Data Governance Consultant

Location: Nashville, TN - (HYBRID)

Duration: 12+ months contract

Required Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities

The successful contractor should demonstrate the ability to:

• Facilitate cross-functional meetings with business, technology, privacy, security, legal, compliance, and executive stakeholders.
• Develop practical data governance strategies, implementation plans, training plans, communications, and adoption materials.
• Translate complex data governance, data management, metadata, data quality, privacy, and AI governance concepts into plain language.
• Build trust with agency stakeholders and guide groups toward decisions, documented actions, and measurable progress.
• Apply change management practices to support adoption of new roles, responsibilities, processes, and governance behaviors.
• Develop business value cases for data governance initiatives.
• Support governance documentation aligned to frameworks, policies, procedures, standards, controls, and audit expectations.
• Understand data governance operating models, data ownership, data stewardship, metadata, data catalogs, data quality, data lifecycle management, data sharing, and data risk management.
• Work independently while coordinating with the Enterprise Data Governance Manager, Data Governance Analyst, and agency stakeholders.
• Produce clear, professional, executive-ready written products.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience supporting data governance, data management, enterprise information management, organizational change management, training, or stakeholder engagement programs.
• Experience working with state government, local government, public-sector programs, or highly regulated environments.
• Familiarity with DAMA-DMBOK, data stewardship, metadata management, data quality management, data classification, data lifecycle management, and data governance maturity models.
• Familiarity with AI governance concepts, responsible AI principles, or frameworks such as the NIST AI Risk Management Framework.
• Experience developing and delivering training, workshops, presentations, job aids, communications, and adoption campaigns.
• Experience supporting governance councils, committees, working groups, or cross-functional decision-making bodies.
• Experience with enterprise data catalog, metadata, business glossary, data inventory, issue tracking, collaboration, or knowledge management tools.
• Relevant certifications are desirable but not required, such as CDMP, Prosci/Change Management, PMP, CISA, CIPM, or related credentials.