Sr. Director of Data Governance and Operations

McKesson•Columbus, OH

2d•$161,300 - $268,800•Onsite

About The Position

McKesson's Chief Data and Analytic Office (CDAO) is seeking an experienced and visionary leader to join their organization as the leader of Data Governance and Operations. This role is responsible for ensuring the office runs with rigor, discipline, and operational excellence. This role owns the governance of data as a strategic enterprise asset, manages data risk and quality assurance, and drives the day-to-day operational health of the CDAO. They are the connective tissue between the CDAO’s mission and its execution, ensuring that people, portfolio, process, and performance are aligned and functioning effectively. The ideal candidate brings deep expertise in data governance and a COO-level operational mindset. They understand how to apply shared technology and delivery frameworks—such as SAFe Lean Portfolio Management, technology strategy, and portfolio management—in a way that is uniquely tailored to the data and analytics domain. This leader ensures that the CDAO’s governance, quality, risk, and operational capabilities are world-class, enabling the entire office to deliver with confidence and integrity on behalf of CoverMyMeds and McKesson.

Requirements

A minimum of 12 years of experience in Data Governance, data operations, or a related field, with at least 4 years in a leadership role.
Strong track record leading governance or operations teams in complex environments with legacy modernization challenges.
Hands-on expertise in governance platforms, data quality frameworks, and operational process design.
Solid experience with modern cloud data platforms (Azure, Databricks, Snowflake, Google Cloud, Oracle, SQL Server, etc.), with understanding of cost, scalability, and governance trade-offs.
Proven ability to create and execute governance and operations roadmaps that bridge current-state legacy processes with future-state modern frameworks.
Familiarity with SAFe Lean Portfolio Management or equivalent enterprise delivery frameworks.
Experience navigating complex technical and organizational landscapes, influencing without direct authority.
Strong analytical and problem-solving skills.
Experience in hiring, mentoring, and managing high-performing data teams.
Bachelor’s degree required

Nice To Haves

Industry Expertise – Specifically in the pharmaceutical market access industry.
Collaboration – Key success factors in this role include leading without direct authority, building relationships across multiple functions, and listening to input and perspectives from across the organization, customers, and industry stakeholders.
Self-starter – As a senior leader, the expectation of this role is to own the design priorities and the work product on projects that address critical business needs and decisions.
Passion – The candidate should have a passion for improving US healthcare and a desire to join a team that focuses every day on enabling healthier lives through the work that we do.

Responsibilities

Develop and implement a robust data governance strategy, ensuring alignment with the organization’s overall business goals, McKesson enterprise data governance requirements, and the CMM Data Management Policy (CMM-DMP-001).
Establish and oversee the data governance framework, including Critical Data Element (CDE) registration and enforcement, data quality, data security, data privacy, and data lineage policies and procedures.
Lead and support the CMM Data Governance Committee, including coordinating approval authority, managing escalation pathways, and ensuring notification obligations to CMM executive leadership are met.
Collaborate with executive leadership, all CDAO functions, and technology teams to ensure data governance initiatives are integrated and aligned across the organization.
Lead the development and maintenance of data catalogues, data dictionaries, and metadata repositories to support consistent data usage and understanding.
Design and implement data governance tools, processes, and controls to monitor and measure compliance with established policies and regulations.
Develop and maintain relationships with the McKesson Enterprise Data Governance function, regulatory bodies, industry groups, and external partners to stay informed of changing requirements and best practices.
Drive a continuous loop of business engagement, risk assessment, and remediation across data architecture and modeling practices.
Champion solutions that adhere to privacy, governance, security, compliance, and cost optimization standards.
Own the CDAO’s data risk management framework, identifying, assessing, and mitigating risks related to data quality, access, lineage, and compliance.
Establish and lead a data quality assurance program that defines quality dimensions, sets measurable standards, and drives continuous improvement across critical data domains.
Partner with data owners, stewards, and platform teams to embed quality controls and monitoring at key points in the data lifecycle.
Develop and maintain risk and quality dashboards that provide transparent, real-time visibility into the health of the organization’s data assets.
Ensure data incidents are identified, escalated, and resolved in alignment with CDAO and enterprise risk management standards.
Champion a data-driven culture of accountability, fostering data literacy and shared ownership of data quality across the organization.
Understand, compile, and communicate the data office strategy, services and capabilities, operating and organizational model, guiding principles, mission, vision, and purpose for internal and external education—connecting value delivered to ways of working.
Develop and maintain a unified view of the CDAO’s portfolio, aligning capacity and monitoring workforce effectiveness against highest business priorities and activity segmentation.
Ensure operational excellence in the financial management of the data office, recommending trade-offs, repositioning, and allocation of investment to highest-need, highest-value areas across the entirety of the office.
Lead consistent unification and delivery of data office communication to build the office brand, signaling one message, one team, and one voice across the organization.
Manage CDAO-wide operational rhythms including planning cycles, reporting cadences, and leadership operating forums.
Partner with the shared technology organization to align on strategy, portfolio management, and delivery frameworks, ensuring the CDAO operates within and benefits from enterprise technology practices.
Apply SAFe Lean Portfolio Management (LPM) principles within the CDAO context, connecting data and analytics investments to strategic themes, epics, and value streams.
Serve as the CDAO’s liaison to technology on architecture, platform, and tooling decisions that affect data governance, quality, and operations.
Ensure that technology portfolio decisions reflect the CDAO’s governance requirements and operational priorities, and that the CDAO’s voice is represented in enterprise planning processes.
Translate shared technology strategies into CDAO-specific execution plans, ensuring the office is aligned to and compliant with enterprise standards while maintaining the flexibility to meet unique data and analytics needs.
Ensure the team effectively communicates roadmaps, standards, and solution approaches, and that demand is prioritized within team capacity in alignment with enterprise delivery frameworks.
Build and lead a high-performing team spanning data governance, data risk, data quality assurance, and CDAO operations.
Promote a culture of operational excellence, data accountability, and continuous improvement across the CDAO.
Collaborate with executive leadership to define and execute a vision for Data Governance and Operations that aligns with CoverMyMeds’ overall business strategy and McKesson enterprise priorities.
Develop and manage budgets, resource plans, and project timelines for governance and operations initiatives.
Manage vendor relationships to ensure the organization has the governance and operations tools necessary to perform at the required standard.
Ensure compliance with data privacy and protection laws and regulations.