Data Governance Lead

Position Overview

We are seeking a highly experienced Data Stewardship Manager / Data Governance Lead with proven hands-on implementation and leadership experience in Atlan, Databricks Unity Catalog, and Ontology.

The ideal candidate must have successfully led enterprise data governance initiatives, implemented metadata management solutions, and delivered measurable business outcomes.

We are specifically looking for implementation leaders—not candidates who have only used these tools as end users.

Key Responsibilities

• Lead the implementation, configuration, optimization, and ongoing governance of Atlan solutions across enterprise data environments.
• Drive data cataloging, business glossary development, end-to-end data lineage, and metadata management initiatives.
• Design and implement governance capabilities using Databricks Unity Catalog, including metadata governance, access controls, lineage, and data discovery.
• Apply ontology and semantic modeling concepts to establish business definitions, relationships, and contextual understanding of enterprise data.
• Translate data governance strategies into actionable implementation roadmaps, milestones, and measurable business outcomes.
• Establish KPIs and success metrics to demonstrate the business value, adoption, and effectiveness of data governance programs.
• Lead and mentor Data Stewards, establishing stewardship workflows, accountability, governance standards, and operating procedures.
• Collaborate with Data Engineering, Architecture, Analytics, Compliance, and business stakeholders to drive governance adoption.
• Assess future-state data governance capabilities and support potential platform transitions or modernization initiatives.

Required Qualifications

• Proven experience leading and executing Atlan implementations, beyond basic tool usage or administration.
• Strong hands-on experience implementing Databricks Unity Catalog and its enterprise data governance capabilities.
• Practical experience with Ontology, semantic modeling, business taxonomies, and enterprise data relationships.
• Demonstrated expertise in data cataloging, data lineage, business glossary development, metadata management, and data stewardship.
• Experience establishing and managing enterprise data governance programs with measurable business outcomes.
• Proven ability to translate governance objectives into actionable deliverables, KPIs, and demonstrable program value.
• Experience leading Data Stewards or cross-functional data governance teams.
• Strong stakeholder management, communication, and execution leadership skills.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience in regulated industries such as healthcare, financial services, or insurance.
• Experience evaluating enterprise data catalog and governance platforms or supporting platform migrations.
• Familiarity with modern data platforms, cloud data architectures, and enterprise data management practices.