Data Governance Lead

NetApp, Inc.•Durham, NC

4d•$170,000 - $253,000•Onsite

About The Position

We are seeking an experienced Data Governance Lead to join our Enterprise Data Governance team. This role is ideal for a pragmatic, influential leader who can translate governance principles into practical ways of working across business applications, analytics, A.I. use cases, data platforms, and enterprise processes. The successful candidate will build strong partnerships, guide a distributed stewardship community, and continuously improve the quality, usability, and trustworthiness of data. The role requires broad business and technology acumen, with the ability to quickly understand both technical and business contexts and speak with credibility across functions. The Data Governance Lead will connect governance practices to operational excellence, trusted analytics, and effective business application outcomes while coaching stakeholders, encouraging adoption, and leading through influence rather than formal authority. Experience in a product-centric technology infrastructure sector or another complex global environment is strongly preferred. If you have a passion for data, leadership skills, and a desire to make a significant impact, join us and be a part of something truly exciting.

Requirements

Demonstrated success building trust, influencing decisions, facilitating alignment, and managing diverse stakeholders across business and technology organizations.
Exceptional written, verbal, presentation, and facilitation skills, with the ability to make complex concepts accessible and motivate adoption at all organizational levels.
Experience training, guiding, coaching, and mentoring a geographically distributed stewardship community, including developing playbooks, learning materials, and repeatable forums.
Proven ability to lead cross-functional initiatives, navigate ambiguity, resolve conflict, and sustain accountability through influence.
Sufficient breadth to quickly understand business processes, application landscapes, data flows, analytics use cases, integration patterns, and technical constraints, and to speak with authority in both contexts.
Experience supporting governed data for reporting, analytics, operational decision-making, and enterprise business applications.
Working knowledge of stewardship operating models, data quality, business glossaries, metadata, lineage, controls, policies, standards, and issue management.
Highly organized, flexible, and hands-on, with a tactile approach to turning strategy into practical deliverables and measurable outcomes.

Nice To Haves

Experience in a product-centric technology infrastructure sector or another complex global environment is strongly preferred.
Prior experience with one or more of Oracle Cloud ERP, Salesforce, SAP CRM, Snowflake, or metadata management platforms is strongly desired.
Advanced degree preferred.
Relevant certifications in data governance, analytics, metadata management, cloud data platforms, change leadership, or enterprise applications preferred.

Responsibilities

Implement and continuously improve practical governance processes that strengthen business operations, analytics, reporting, AI readiness, and application outcomes.
Partner with application owners, analytics teams, data engineers, and business leaders to embed governance requirements into platforms, integrations, reporting solutions, and decision-making processes.
Guide, coach, train, and mentor a distributed community of data owners and stewards; clarify roles, reinforce accountability, and create reusable practices that enable consistent execution.
Build trusted relationships across functions and levels, facilitate alignment, resolve competing priorities, and lead outcomes without formal authority.
Communicate governance concepts in clear business language, develop compelling messages and learning materials, and champion the value of trusted data throughout the organization.
Apply and evolve enterprise policies, standards, business glossaries, metadata, lineage, controls, stewardship roles, and approval workflows across critical data and applications.
Lead the definition of data quality rules and measures, facilitate root-cause analysis and remediation, and use evidence to improve end-to-end processes and adoption.
Serve as a credible advisor who can rapidly grasp business needs and technical architectures, identify practical tradeoffs, and guide teams toward scalable, sustainable solutions.