Director, Global Data Strategy and Governance

Cytokinetics • South San Francisco, CA

3d • Hybrid

About The Position

Cytokinetics is a specialty cardiovascular biopharmaceutical company, building on its over 25 years of pioneering scientific innovations in muscle biology, and advancing a pipeline of potential new medicines for patients suffering from diseases of cardiac muscle dysfunction. The Global Director of Data Strategy & Governance will lead the development and execution of enterprise-wide data strategy and governance. This role is responsible for data procurement, establishing governance frameworks, driving data quality management, conducting data assessments, and overseeing vendor-supported data operations. Partnering closely with IT, Procurement, and business stakeholders, the leader will embed governance into data platforms and processes, ensuring alignment with regulatory requirements and enabling data-driven decision-making across the global commercial organization. This position will report directly to the Executive Director, Operations Strategy and Business Insights.

Requirements

• Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in Data Management, Information Systems, Computer Science, Life Sciences, or related field.
• 12+ years of experience in data management, data governance, or enterprise data strategy, with leadership responsibility in global organizations.
• Experience within biotechnology, pharmaceuticals, healthcare, or other regulated industries preferred.
• Proven experience designing and implementing enterprise data governance and data quality frameworks.
• Strong experience managing data operations and vendor-delivered services, including governance, performance monitoring, and contract alignment.
• Demonstrated ability to partner with Procurement, IT, and business stakeholders to deliver enterprise data initiatives.
• Experience establishing governance councils, operating models, and cross-functional decision frameworks.
• Deep understanding of data quality management, data stewardship models, metadata management, and master data management (MDM).
• Familiarity with data governance tools, data quality platforms, and modern data architecture.
• Knowledge of data privacy, regulatory compliance, and governance requirements in global environments.
• Strong stakeholder management and executive communication skills, with the ability to influence across business and technical teams.
• Proven leadership skills with the ability to build and lead high-performing global teams and vendor ecosystems.

Responsibilities

• Data Acquisition Strategy Collaborate with business partners to determine the CYTK data needs to drive strategic decisions. Manage budget, contracts, renewals, and resource allocations for all data and reporting-related vendors and tools. Track value and ROI for vendors, ensuring spending aligns with business impact.
• Data Architecture & Governance Own the overall data architecture across commercial—how data is structured, connected, and flows through the environment. Ensure data governance processes are communicated and being followed for new and updated data, business rules and KPIs and reporting. Run the process for evaluating and prioritizing data spend, new data requests, and ongoing management of data assets. Maintain clear data standards and best practices to keep data accurate, consistent, compliant, and HIPAA-safe. Ensure data is reliable, complete, and ready for downstream use.
• Data Vendors & Integrations Act as the main point of contact for all external data vendors—manage contracts, SLAs, troubleshooting, and quality issues. This includes MMIT, Symphony, etc. Own the roadmap for how commercial data sources are integrated, transformed, modeled, and maintained. Monitor operational data accuracy and resolve issues quickly when data loads or pipelines break. Ensure data vendors are adhering to SLAs – quality, operational, etc.
• Improving the Data Platform Drive simplification and standardization across the entire data ecosystem—reduce unnecessary tools, duplicate data sets, break down silos, and streamline pipelines. Work closely with IT on platform needs, upgrades, and day-to-day operational reliability.
• Reporting & Business Partner Support Partner closely with the Business Reporting team to ensure they have the data needed to build dashboards and reports based on the requirements they gather from the business. Translate new or updated business requirements into clear data requirements the data team can execute. Make sure all underlying data is accurate, complete, and structured to support reporting, KPI definitions, and measurement strategies. Manage and oversee the data development activities to meet reporting timelines and deliverables. Maintain a tight feedback loop with the Reporting team as new metrics, dashboards, or enhancements are rolled out. Validate that key metrics, definitions, and business rules are supported by the data architecture and modeled correctly for downstream consumption.
• Operational Leadership Responsible for data ingestion, modeling, quality, and reporting support. Manage vendor resources as required. Ensure SLAs for data operations and data availability are consistently met. Provide training and guidance on how data sources, pipelines, and reporting datasets work and how to use them effectively.

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Director
• Number of Employees: 101-250 employees