Data Governance Analyst

American Century Investments • Kansas City, MO

1d • Hybrid

About The Position

American Century Investments® is a leading global asset manager with over 65 years of experience, specializing in global equities and fixed income, multi-asset strategies, ETFs, and private investments. The company is privately controlled and independent, focusing solely on investment management. Notably, 40% of its dividends, totaling over $2 billion since 2000, are directed to the Stowers Institute for Medical Research to support the mission of defeating life-threatening diseases. The 1,400 employees worldwide are inspired by the impact their work makes.

This role is for a Data Governance Analyst passionate about making unstructured data trusted, compliant, and AI‑ready. The analyst will partner with business and technology teams to lead enterprise‑wide governance efforts, enabling unstructured content to be safely leveraged for business operations, analytics, and AI. Joining the Enterprise Data Governance team, the individual will help design, scale, and enforce governance programs with a strong focus on unstructured metadata management, information lifecycle management, records and retention, security standards, cataloging, and stewardship enablement. Collaboration with structured data teams will ensure consistent, end‑to‑end governance. Success in this role requires executing the data governance operating model, leveraging governance tools to automate controls, and solving business challenges such as content sprawl, data discoverability, sensitivity labeling, retention and disposition, legal hold, and regulatory compliance across various unstructured data types (e.g., documents, emails, chat content, PDFs, presentations, and images). The analyst will influence stakeholders, translate governance concepts for business audiences, and design scalable solutions for complex, fast‑moving environments. This is a hybrid position based out of the Kansas City, MO office and is not eligible for visa sponsorship.

Requirements

• Bachelor’s degree or equivalent combination of education and relevant work experience.
• 3+ years of experience in data governance, data management, or data operations, including hands‑on governance of unstructured content (e.g., classification, tagging, retention, and access controls).
• Experience governing unstructured metadata and content controls (e.g., sensitivity labels, classification, tagging, retention schedules), with the ability to align to structured metadata standards as needed.
• Experience using data governance or cataloging tools (e.g., Collibra, Informatica, IBM IGC) for content inventory, data mapping, metadata management, and traceability.
• Experience partnering with cloud and data platform teams to operationalize automated unstructured metadata generation or enrichment processes (hands‑on engineering not required).
• Familiarity with AI‑ready data concepts, including governance of unstructured data used in AI, search, and RAG‑based solutions.
• Strong communication skills, with the ability to translate complex data governance concepts for both business and technical audiences.
• Proven problem solver with an analytical, methodical approach and comfort operating in dynamic, fast‑paced, and ambiguous environments.
• Demonstrated ability to collaborate effectively and communicate clearly with stakeholders at all levels of the organization.
• Familiarity with data security and data protection principles.
• Demonstrates the American Century Investments Winning Behaviors: Client Focused, Courageous and Accountable, Collaborative, Curious and Adaptable, Competitively Driven.

Nice To Haves

• Experience governing unstructured data in platforms such as SharePoint, Teams, file shares, or cloud content repositories.
• Experience with information lifecycle management, records management, and legal hold processes.
• Background in policy and standards development for data classification and retention.
• Experience in financial services or asset management environments.
• Familiarity with cloud technologies and automation supporting unstructured data governance.
• Project Management, Agile, or Six Sigma skills are a plus.
• Experience with Python and SQL a plus.

Responsibilities

• Execute the firm’s data governance operating model by partnering with business and technology teams to implement enterprise policies and standards across unstructured data (primary focus) and structured data (secondary), including data used for AI and advanced analytics.
• Lead and monitor the rollout of unstructured data governance practices across key content repositories (e.g., SharePoint/Teams, file shares, and cloud content platforms), ensuring metadata quality, accurate classification and sensitivity labeling, retention readiness, and AI fitness.
• Ensure unstructured data complies with regulatory, legal, privacy, and records‑management requirements throughout the information lifecycle.
• Provide governance oversight of Data Domain teams, including review of data maps, content inventories, metadata documentation, data quality issues, access and security controls, SLAs, and audit, retention, and legal‑hold readiness.
• Partner with Data Owners, Data Stewards, and technology teams to design workflows, dashboards, and automation for unstructured data classification, metadata generation, retention controls, access governance, and eDiscovery readiness.
• Support governance enablement through training by partnering with HR Learning & Development to curate and deliver Data Governance, Data Stewardship, and tool‑specific education.
• Serve as a Collibra administrator, driving platform adoption, training users, and promoting consistent, effective use of governance tooling.
• Collaborate with governance technology vendors on roadmap enhancements related to unstructured metadata, classification, lineage, and policy enforcement.
• Manage internal data products, including unstructured content repositories and AI‑ready metadata assets (e.g., taxonomies, labels, ownership, and classification outputs), coordinating with structured data teams when shared reference data is required.
• Partner with data platform and cloud engineering teams to define governance guardrails for AWS‑based processes that automatically extract, enrich, and register unstructured metadata to support AI‑ready data.
• Ensure governance standards for classification, lineage, retention, and access controls are embedded into automated unstructured metadata pipelines by design.
• Enable trusted use of unstructured data in AI, analytics, and retrieval‑augmented generation (RAG) solutions by ensuring data is discoverable, governed, and approved through appropriate stewardship workflows.
• Collaborate with AI, analytics, and data product teams to align unstructured data governance with AI intake, risk assessment, and inventory processes, ensuring clear traceability between data assets, use cases, and controls.
• Translate AI‑ready data requirements into scalable, repeatable governance patterns that can be consistently applied across domains and development teams.

Benefits

• Competitive compensation package with bonus plan
• Generous PTO and competitive benefits
• 401k with 5% company match plus annual performance-based discretionary contribution
• Tuition reimbursement
• Formal mentorship program
• Live and online learning

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Mid Level