Sr Associate, Data Transformation & Governance

Grant Thornton•Chicago, IL

About The Position

Grant Thornton is seeking a Data Transformation & Governance Senior Associate to join the team. The Data Transformation & Governance function is responsible for embedding governance, quality, stewardship, compliance, and data standards into transformation initiatives so that data from acquired companies is accurate, secure, compliant, and ready for analytics and business decision-making. The role carries hands-on responsibility for the inventory, classification, and documentation work that governance decisions depend on, across both structured systems and unstructured content. It works with business stakeholders, data owners and stewards, Data & Analytics, Enterprise Architecture, Security, Privacy, Legal and Risk, application teams, and implementation partners to document governance requirements, support data quality and readiness activities, maintain stewardship materials, and help deliver trustworthy, governed, and usable data assets.

Requirements

4+ years of experience in data governance, data transformation, data management, data quality, data integration, records and information management, data privacy and compliance, analytics, or related enterprise technology roles.
Experience supporting data governance activities within data migration, integration, modernization, archival, analytics, or large-scale transformation programs.
Exposure to governing unstructured and semi-structured content alongside structured data, including mail, file storage, collaboration platforms, and service management records.
Working knowledge of records retention practice, including retention categories, retention triggers, disposal timing, and the evidence required to support disposal.
Understanding of legal hold and preservation obligations and their effect on routine disposal activity.
Experience supporting merger, acquisition, divestiture, or acquired-company technology and data integration initiatives preferred.
Working knowledge of data governance frameworks, data ownership, data stewardship, critical data elements, data quality management, metadata, lineage, catalog and glossary practice, retention, and governed data delivery.
Experience documenting data quality rules, profiling outputs, remediation actions, reconciliation activities, issue tracking, and readiness metrics.
Familiarity with data governance technologies such as data catalogs, metadata management platforms, lineage tools, MDM platforms, data quality tools, workflow tools, or data issue management capabilities.
Understanding of data protection and compliance concepts, including privacy, classification, access management, masking, retention, and internal policy controls.
Awareness of retention and documentation requirements arising from professional standards in an audit, tax, or advisory environment, or comparable regulated experience.
Ability to work with business and technology stakeholders, translate governance concepts into practical documentation, and support alignment across teams.
Strong organizational, analytical, documentation, communication, facilitation, and stakeholder follow-up skills.
Bachelor’s degree in Information Systems, Data Analytics, Business, Computer Science, Engineering, or related field required; relevant data governance, privacy, records management, security, project management, or cloud and data certifications preferred.

Nice To Haves

Experience operating in a professional services, consulting, accounting, or complex global enterprise environment.
Experience with governance and data platform tools such as Microsoft Purview, Collibra, Informatica, Alation, Snowflake, Power BI, ServiceNow, or comparable technologies.
Experience with retention, classification, or eDiscovery capabilities across mail, file storage, and collaboration platforms.
Experience supporting data archival, historical data retention, legacy system decommissioning, or compliance-driven data preservation initiatives.
Experience contributing to governance playbooks, stewardship operating materials, data readiness checklists, data quality scorecards, issue management routines, and dashboard reporting.
Experience working with implementation partners, systems integrators, vendors, or consulting teams within transformation programs.
Experience supporting cross-functional governance forums, data decision groups, or working sessions with business, technology, risk, legal, privacy, and security stakeholders.
Exposure to cross-border data handling, including data residency and local privacy requirements.

Responsibilities

Support the application and maintenance of enterprise data governance frameworks for acquired-company integration, including standards, roles, ownership expectations, stewardship routines, escalation paths, and performance metrics.
Assist with embedding governance requirements into data transformation initiatives, including data migration, integration, modernization, archival, reporting, and analytics enablement activities.
Build and maintain the data estate inventory for assigned acquisitions, covering structured application data alongside mailboxes, file storage, collaboration sites, chat and meeting content, service management records, and line-of-business repositories.
Catalog acquired-company content by category, sensitivity, ownership, business purpose, and disposition, and keep that inventory current as discovery progresses.
Prepare handling recommendations for each content category and provide them to tenant consolidation, application, service management, and end user technology teams in a form they can act on during migration planning.
Support review of unstructured and semi-structured content for regulated, privileged, personal, and client-confidential material, and document the handling, access, and protection requirements that result.
Track identification and assignment of accountable data owners for acquired-company data domains, maintain ownership documentation, and flag data domains where ownership has not been established.
Prepare and maintain approval records for new or materially changed use of data, and for external sharing and third-party access, so the approval trail is complete and traceable.
Identify data appearing in the environment without established ownership, registration, or approval, and route it for review.
Apply enterprise retention categories to acquired-company data and content, distinguishing records that must be retained from working copies, duplicates, and transient content, and escalate items that do not classify cleanly.
Document retention periods, retention triggers, and disposal timing for acquired-company data and archived datasets, and track upcoming disposal eligibility.
Support defensible disposal activities by preparing schedules, gathering approvals, and capturing evidence of completion.
Verify legal hold and business hold status before disposal, decommissioning, or archival activity proceeds, and maintain records of holds applicable to acquired-entity data through to release.
Document circumstances that extend retention beyond standard periods, including inherited contractual commitments, audit and investigation activity, and content with long-term business value, and prepare exception or extension requests where requirements cannot be met.
Support coordination with service line quality and risk stakeholders on which acquired-entity records must be retained to satisfy professional standards for audit, tax, and advisory work, and reflect those determinations in working documentation.
Capture jurisdictional differences across assigned entities, including local privacy, data residency, and statutory retention requirements, and flag conflicts with enterprise requirements.
Support data quality and standardization activities by documenting data quality rules, profiling outputs, root-cause findings, remediation actions, reconciliation expectations, and quality gate evidence.
Help standardize data definitions, formats, critical data elements, metadata, lineage information, and ownership documentation across acquired-company sources and enterprise target-state platforms.
Maintain catalog and business glossary entries for acquired-company data domains so consumers can determine meaning, context, provenance, and appropriate use.
Support data stewardship activities by maintaining steward and owner documentation, tracking assigned stewardship actions, coordinating follow-ups, and helping promote accountability for data assets.
Assist with adoption and use of governance technologies such as data catalog, metadata management, lineage, data quality, master data management, and data issue management tools.
Work with IT, data platform teams, and vendors to document governance technology requirements, support pilots, validate tool outputs, and contribute to rollout materials.
Collaborate with Legal, Privacy, Risk, Compliance, and Security teams to help document data protection controls, classification, access control, masking, retention, and disposal requirements.
Prepare governance reporting and metrics, including data quality scores, policy adherence, stewardship engagement, remediation progress, issue aging, readiness gate status, and governance maturity inputs.
Create dashboards, status updates, meeting materials, and issue logs that communicate governance progress, risks, readiness, decisions needed, and business value.
Facilitate or support cross-functional working sessions to align transformation activities with governance requirements and ensure data decisions are traceable and documented.
Support source-to-target mapping, lineage, reconciliation, data issue resolution, and integration readiness activities during acquired-company data transformation efforts.
Promote consistent governance practices by communicating expectations, maintaining documentation, and helping teams understand the value of trusted, compliant, and reusable data.
Identify opportunities to improve governance work products, data quality controls, stewardship routines, metadata practices, reporting, and repeatable transformation delivery practices.
Other duties as assigned.