IT Director, Data Product Management & Governance

The Opportunity

The IT Director, Data Product Management & Governance is a senior technology leader responsible for building and sustaining Abbott's enterprise data product capabilities and governance framework. This role serves as the operational and strategic linchpin between data producers and data consumers across Abbott's global business units — ensuring that data is governed with rigor, managed as a product, and delivered as a trusted enterprise asset.

Key Responsibilities

Data Product Strategy & Management

• Design and operationalize Abbott's data product operating model — defining standards for product ownership, lifecycle management, discoverability, and consumption across all business domains.
• Lead the development and curation of a data product catalog and marketplace infrastructure, enabling self-service access to high-quality, well-documented data assets.
• Collaborate with domain data product owners to define SLAs, ownership accountability, usage metrics, and continuous improvement roadmaps for enterprise data products.
• Champion a product mindset across the data organization — embedding practices for user research, iterative development, and outcome measurement into data product delivery.
• Drive cross-functional initiatives to accelerate time-to-insight by reducing friction in data access, improving data usability, and expanding reuse of canonical data assets.
• Partner with the Head of Data and Analytics and senior IT leadership to align data product investments with Abbott's strategic and digital transformation priorities.

Data Governance Operations & Compliance

• Own and continuously evolve Abbott's enterprise data governance framework — including metadata standards, data lineage, data quality thresholds, access governance, and master data management.
• Lead the enterprise Data Risk Assessment program, identifying and managing data security risks across platforms, applications, and business initiatives.
• Ensure Abbott's data practices comply with applicable regulations including HIPAA, CCPA/CPRA, GDPR, and evolving global data privacy legislation — collaborating closely with Legal and Compliance to stay ahead of regulatory changes.
• Build and sustain data stewardship programs and domain ownership models that distribute and reinforce accountability for data quality across the enterprise.

Technology & Platform Enablement

• Lead evaluation, selection, and implementation of data governance and data product platforms — including data catalogs, lineage tools, data quality frameworks, and metadata management systems.
• Partner with Security Architecture and Enterprise Architecture to design and deploy integrated data governance and data security controls across on-premises and cloud environments (AWS, Azure, GCP).
• Modernize automated data scanning, tagging, and classification capabilities to improve governance efficiency and strengthen data loss prevention (DLP) outcomes.
• Assess and invest in ML/AI-based governance approaches — including automated lineage discovery, anomaly detection, synthetic data generation, and privacy-enhancing techniques.
• Maintain strategic awareness of the evolving data technology landscape; drive buy/build/partner decisions that balance innovation with cost discipline.

Team Building & Cross-Functional Collaboration

• Build, mentor, and continuously develop a high-performing team spanning data governance specialists, data product managers, data stewards, and program managers.
• Foster a culture of accountability, innovation, and data literacy, upskilling the broader organization and democratizing access to trusted, well-governed data.
• Define team operating models, OKRs, and performance metrics that demonstrate the strategic and operational value of the data governance and product functions.

Required Qualifications

Experience

• 10+ years of progressive leadership experience in data governance, data management, data product management, or data strategy roles within large, complex, matrixed environments.
• Demonstrated experience designing and operationalizing data governance frameworks or data product programs from concept through enterprise adoption, with measurable business outcomes.
• Proven track record managing cross-functional technology programs including platform implementations, organizational change initiatives, and regulatory compliance efforts on time and within budget.
• Hands-on experience with enterprise data governance tools including data catalogs, lineage platforms, data quality frameworks, and metadata management systems.
• Prior experience in healthcare, consumer goods, financial services, or similarly regulated large industries preferred.

Technical & Domain Knowledge

• Deep expertise in data governance principles, data architecture, data quality management, master data management, and enterprise data modeling.
• Strong understanding of cloud data platforms (AWS, Azure, GCP) and hybrid governance architectures spanning on-premises and cloud-native environments.
• Working knowledge of data protection strategies including encryption, tokenization, data masking, data loss prevention, and role-based access control design.
• Familiarity with ML/AI-based governance approaches: automated metadata tagging, anomaly detection, synthetic data, and differential privacy techniques.
• Solid command of global data privacy regulations including HIPAA, CCPA/CPRA, GDPR, and related legislative frameworks.
• Experience with data product management practices product lifecycle management, data SLA definition, data consumption patterns, and developer experience design.

Leadership & Influence

• Proven ability to lead, inspire, and develop high-performing technical and cross-functional teams; creates clear career pathways and builds organizational bench strength.
• Strong executive presence and communication skills — able to translate complex data and governance concepts into clear narratives for senior business and IT stakeholders.
• Demonstrated ability to drive enterprise-wide change in matrixed organizations through influence, coalition-building, and stakeholder management without direct authority.
• Analytical, data-driven decision-maker with a track record of translating strategy into executable roadmaps and delivering measurable results.
• Bachelor's degree required in Computer Science, Information Systems, Data Science, Engineering, or related field.

Preferred Qualifications

• Prior experience in healthcare, consumer goods, financial services, or similarly regulated large industries preferred.
• Master's degree (MBA, MS in Data Science, Information Management, or related discipline) is strongly preferred.