AD, Data Governance Lead
Novartis
Summary
The AD, Data Governance Lead is accountable for designing, standing up, and operating the enterprise data governance program. This individual establishes the governance operating model—including the Executive Council and core functional sub-committees—defines data lifecycle controls, builds performance scorecards, and partners cross-functionally with IT, Compliance, Legal, and Privacy to embed sustainable, auditable data controls across the organization.
Job description
Key Responsibilities
- Stand up and co-chair the Executive Council and coordinate all sub-committees.
- Develop charters, terms of reference, meeting cadences, agendas, and decision-tracking.
- Drive alignment of governance priorities with enterprise strategy and risk appetite.
- Establish federated data ownership and stewardship model across domains.
- Partner with IT, Compliance, Legal, and Privacy to fully develop, validate, and operationalize required controls.
- Develop, document, and maintain control frameworks at each lifecycle stage.
- Collaborate with data owners and enforce governance standards across the end-to-end data lifecycle.
- Build Data Management Lifecycle Scorecards measuring quality, coverage, compliance, and maturity.
- Define Governance KPIs/KRIs (e.g., data quality scores, classification coverage %, access-review completion, issue MTTR, policy adoption).
- Deliver executive dashboards and periodic DCAM maturity assessments.
Essential Requirements
- Education: Bachelor's degree in Business Administration, Information Systems, Data Management, Engineering, Finance, or a related field.
- Strong facilitation and stakeholder-management skills — this role lives in meetings with functional VPs.
- Minimum 8+ years in Data governance, BI governance, or commercial analytics in a regulated industry. Preferably in pharma or life sciences industries.
- Extensive Experience running a cross-functional governance council or working group with real decision authority.
- Influence without authority across IT, Legal, Compliance, and Privacy.
- Deep knowledge of governance frameworks (DAMA-DMBOK, DCAM), privacy regulations, and control design.
- Experience with governance/catalog tooling (e.g., OpenMetadata, Collibra).
- Analytical rigor for scorecard/metric design and maturity assessment.
Requirements
- Bachelor's degree in Business Administration, Information Systems, Data Management, Engineering, Finance, or a related field.
- Strong facilitation and stakeholder-management skills.
- Minimum 8+ years in Data governance, BI governance, or commercial analytics in a regulated industry.
- Extensive experience running a cross-functional governance council or working group with real decision authority.
- Influence without authority across IT, Legal, Compliance, and Privacy.
- Deep knowledge of governance frameworks (DAMA-DMBOK, DCAM), privacy regulations, and control design.
- Experience with governance/catalog tooling (e.g., OpenMetadata, Collibra).
- Analytical rigor for scorecard/metric design and maturity assessment.
Benefits
- Health insurance
- Life insurance
- Disability benefits
- 401(k) with company contribution and match
- Vacation
- Personal days
- Holidays
- Annual equity awards
- Performance-based cash incentive
Company overview
Novartis is a global pharmaceutical company headquartered in Basel, Switzerland, dedicated to reimagining medicine to improve and extend people's lives. As an innovative medicines company, Novartis focuses on developing high-value treatments that address society's greatest disease burdens through technology leadership in research and development. The company operates across five core therapeutic areas: cardiovascular, renal and metabolic diseases; immunology; neuroscience; oncology; and hematology. With a workforce of approximately 75,883 employees worldwide, Novartis reaches nearly 300 million patients across 118 countries. The company leverages advanced technology platforms including targeted protein degradation, cell therapy, gene therapy, radioligand therapy, and xRNA to develop breakthrough treatments. Novartis maintains a strong portfolio of oncology drugs and generics while continuously expanding its pipeline through strategic acquisitions and internal research. The company's commitment extends beyond drug development to ensuring global access to medical innovations through novel access approaches and patient assistance programs.