Principal Data Governance Analyst

Principal Data Governance Analyst

This role partners closely with executive sponsors, business process owners, data stewards, and technical teams to ensure that data standards, policies, and governance frameworks are defined, adopted, and operationalized at scale.

The Principal Analyst acts as a strategic advisor and facilitator of governance forums-including the Data Governance Council and Governance Network-ensuring alignment, decisions, and accountability across the enterprise.

Plan, lead, and facilitate Data Governance Council meetings with executive stakeholders, ensuring clarity of decisions, action items, and alignment to enterprise data strategy.
• Coordinate enterprise Governance Network meetings, driving crossfunctional engagement with data owners, stewards, and SMEs.
• Maintain governance charters, RACI models, frameworks, and decision logs for transparency and traceability.
• Serve as a trusted partner to senior leaders and capability owners to guide governance priorities and business impact.

2. Data Quality & Requirements Management

• Lead data quality requirements gathering by working with business functions to define quality rules, thresholds, validation processes, and remediation expectations.
• Translate business requirements into structured data definitions, quality dimensions, and stewardship responsibilities.
• Partner with data engineering and functional teams to embed business rules into technical solutions (e.g., MDM platforms, validation workflows, and governance tools).
• Monitor and analyze data quality trends, providing insights and recommendations for continuous improvement.

3. Process Improvement & Operational Excellence

• Assess current MDG processes, identify pain points, inefficiencies, or manual work, and propose improvements aligned to best practices.
• Standardize and streamline workflows across domains (Customer, Vendor, Material, etc.) to ensure consistency and compliance.
• Evaluate governancerelated processes such as data request workflows, approval patterns, and stewardship activities to improve cycle time and quality outcomes.
• Drive adoption of governance and data management tools by documenting SOPs, conducting training, and supporting change management.

4. Standards, Policies & Framework Development

• Develop and maintain enterprise data governance standards, policies, and guidelines that support data quality, master data lifecycle management, metadata, and stewardship.
• Ensure alignment across functional teams so policies are practical, enforceable, and integrated into business processes.
• Lead periodic review and enhancement of policies as the business evolves or new risks/opportunities emerge.
• Support compliance initiatives by ensuring governance standards meet regulatory, audit, and internal control requirements.

5. Stakeholder Engagement & Communication

• Act as a liaison between business and technical teams to ensure governance decisions are understood and executed.
• Build strong relationships with data owners, stewards, and SMEs to drive adoption of data governance practices.
• Prepare executiveready materials-dashboards, presentations, decision summaries, and status reports-for governance bodies and leadership.
• Communicate governance impacts, risks, and recommendations clearly and proactively.

6. Strategic Contribution to Enterprise Data Initiatives

• Support enterprise data programs such as Data Foundation, Customer Master transformation, and major platform implementations.
• Contribute to enterprise data strategy by identifying governance gaps and proposing scalable solutions.
• Provide subject matter expertise on master data domains, business rules, and governance processes.