Specialist, Data Governance

Plains Marketing • Houston, TX

4h

About The Position

The Specialist, Data Governance is a senior individual contributor who leads business engagement and implementation of enterprise data governance practices at Plains. Reporting to the Manager, Data Governance Platform, the role translates approved strategy and priorities into practical standards, processes, stewardship activities, and measurable outcomes. It works across the enterprise and leads through expertise, facilitation, credibility, and influence rather than direct authority. The position aligns governance work with Data and AI priorities, the Data Governance Platform roadmap, enterprise architecture, and accountable business ownership.

Requirements

• Bachelor’s degree in business, engineering, information systems, finance, data management, or a related field, or equivalent practical experience.
• At least ten years of relevant experience, including substantial work in data governance, data management, information management, or business transformation.
• Demonstrated experience implementing cross-functional governance programs, operating models, ownership and stewardship practices, standards, metadata, data quality, certification, or master data capabilities.
• Strong executive communication, facilitation, change-adoption, and decision-framing skills.
• Working knowledge of DAMA-DMBOK, federated governance, data architecture and integration, privacy and security, analytics governance, and AI governance.
• Cleared criminal history (background) and satisfactory reference checks.
• Compliance with the Company’s drug and alcohol policy, including pre-employment drug and alcohol testing.
• Must be authorized to work in the U.S. for the duration of employment; this position is not eligible for employment-based visa sponsorship.

Nice To Haves

• Experience in midstream energy, pipelines, or another asset-intensive regulated industry.
• Familiarity with Microsoft Purview, master data platforms, Microsoft Fabric, Databricks, or comparable technologies.
• Experience supporting analytics and responsible AI governance.

Responsibilities

• Lead engagement for approved governance initiatives, building trusted relationships with subject matter experts, data owners, stewards, decision makers, and executive sponsors.
• Use workshops, surveys, and working sessions to identify unclear ownership, inconsistent definitions, quality concerns, duplicated effort, and manual reconciliation.
• Translate business problems into governance requirements and recommendations; advise leaders on decision needs; develop the steward community; and escalate unresolved conflicts through the Manager.
• Facilitate confirmation of accountable data owners and stewards for priority domains, and maintain clear records of ownership, commitments, and escalation paths.
• Implement the approved governance role model and keep stewardship close to the people with business knowledge.
• Facilitate system-of-record, source-of-truth, survivorship, data-sharing, and hierarchy discussions; document business and architectural considerations; and route recommendations to appropriate authorities.
• Develop, implement, maintain, and improve governance processes within the approved operating model.
• Support governance councils and working groups through decision framing, agendas, materials, action tracking, and decision records.
• Develop glossary, definition, certification, policy, standard, procedure, intake, issue-management, and accountability practices.
• Assess new requests for value, risk, readiness, dependencies, and sequencing, and maintain reusable templates and guidance.
• Lead approved adoption and enablement activities, including workshops, communications, learning materials, and practical resources.
• Help owners and stewards incorporate governance into existing workflows; monitor participation and adoption; recommend corrective actions; and communicate responsibilities and expected outcomes.
• Contribute to the governance strategy, multi-year roadmap, maturity model, business cases, funding support, and executive decision materials.
• Execute approved initiatives using a pilot-first approach where appropriate, reporting progress, risks, dependencies, decisions, and outcomes.
• Partner with architecture, engineering, analytics, AI, information management, security, privacy, platform, and business teams so governance decisions are reflected in relevant catalog, master data, data quality, semantic, and platform capabilities.

Benefits

• Competitive compensation.
• Top-tier benefits program designed to support employee safety, health, and well-being.
• Benefits program that respects employees’ personal and family time.

What This Job Offers

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