Senior Director, Data Governance

Cushman & Wakefield

2d•$178,500 - $210,000•Hybrid

About The Position

We are seeking a Senior Director, Data Governance to lead Data Governance for our global organization. Reporting to the Global Head of Data and serving as a member of the Global Data Senior Leadership team, this leader will define and operationalize the company's approach to governing, managing, and trusting its data across every business line and region. This is a hybrid technical and transformational leadership role. The successful candidate will personally bring depth in data modeling, data management, master data management (MDM), data certification, and data compliance, while building and leading the global team and program required to scale governance across the enterprise. Change management is central to this role: the leader will spend significant time across the business building relationships and partnerships to move the organization forward and to embed governance as a durable capability rather than a one-time initiative.

Requirements

Bachelor’s degree or a related field, or equivalent practical experience.
Significant experience leading data governance at scale.
Strong technical foundation in data governance, including hands-on or close-in experience with data modeling, data management, MDM, data certification, and data compliance.
Demonstrated success building and operating data governance, stewardship, and compliance programs that delivered measurable outcomes.
Proven change management capability, with the ability to influence senior stakeholders and drive durable behavioral and operational change across complex organizations.

Nice To Haves

Experience working across multiple regulatory regimes (e.g., GDPR, sector-specific frameworks) and global data residency requirements.
Familiarity with modern data governance and catalog tooling, MDM platforms, and data quality solutions.
Experience contributing to enterprise data strategy as part of a senior data leadership team.

Responsibilities

Build and implement the company’s global data governance strategy, operating model, policies, standards, and KPIs, ensuring they scale across all business lines and regions.
Establish enterprise practices for data management, data modeling, and master data management—covering domain ownership, canonical models, golden records, lineage, and quality—and ensure they are adopted across the data estate.
Stand up and operate a data certification program that defines what makes data trustworthy, measures data quality against agreed thresholds, and certifies critical data assets for enterprise use.
Design and lead the change management approach for governance, including communications, training, role definition, and adoption tracking, recognizing that significant time will be spent in the business driving behavioral change.
Partner with business and technology leaders to embed governance into day-to-day workflows, decision rights, and tooling so that policies, standards, and stewardship are operational rather than aspirational.
Identify governance, data quality, and compliance risks proactively and drive them to resolution through structured forums, escalation paths, and clear accountability.
Build, lead, and continuously evolve the global Data Governance function, including the data steward program and the structures needed to support governance across business lines and regions.
Attract, develop, and retain a high-performing team across data governance, MDM, data quality, and compliance, with clear roles, career paths, and a strong culture of accountability and partnership.
Contribute as a member of the Global Data Senior Leadership team to overall data strategy, investment prioritization, and cross-functional alignment beyond the governance function alone.
Define and manage the team’s objectives, capacity, and delivery commitments, ensuring measurable outcomes against the governance roadmap and enterprise data strategy.
Build trusted partnerships with senior business and functional leaders globally—translating governance, compliance, and data quality into business outcomes.
Partner with Data Engineering, Architecture, Analytics, Privacy, Legal, Risk, Security, and IT to ensure governance is integrated across the data lifecycle and the broader technology landscape.
Spend meaningful time across regions and business lines building relationships, understanding business-specific needs and constraints, and tailoring governance approaches without compromising global standards.