Data Governance Lead

Job Summary:

The Data Governance Lead will be responsible for developing and implementing a comprehensive data governance framework across the CareQuest enterprise. This role will partner with cross functional teams, including IT, legal, compliance, analytics, data science, and research, to ensure data quality, integrity, security and compliance with healthcare and research regulations. You will serve as the strategic driver behind data governance capabilities, embedding governance practices into our operational, analytics, research and technology ecosystems. Data is a catalyst in creating a more accessible, equitable, and integrated health system for everyone. This is an opportunity to shape how data can drive actionable insights that lead to improved and equitable whole health outcomes and total cost of care through integrated and accessible oral, medical, and social data. This position will play a leading role in advancing the maturity of the organization’s data ecosystem, establishing trusted data assets, and enabling a culture of data literacy and stewardship.

Key Responsibilities:

• Data Governance Strategy & Frameworks:
  1. Develop, implement and lead a comprehensive enterprise-wide data governance strategy aligned to healthcare standards, privacy regulations, research requirements and the organization's overall mission.
  2. Create and maintain a data governance framework that supports data stewardship, quality, classification, master data management and lifecycle management.
  3. Build the foundation for an enterprise data governance operating model, policies, and scalable processes.
• Leadership & Stakeholder Engagement:
  1. Lead the Data Governance Council, driving strategic alignment across business owners, analytics, research, compliance and technology.
  2. Collaborate with stakeholders to define data ownership and stewardship roles, responsibilities, and accountability for data assets.
  3. Serve as a strategic advisor on governance best practices and industry trends.
• Data Quality and Stewardship:
  1. Implement scalable data quality management processes across key data domains for oral, medical and social data.
  2. Empower and coach domain data stewards to uphold standards and champion governance practices.
  3. Monitor and report on data quality KPIs, compliance levels, and governance maturity.
  4. Lead initiatives to improve data quality, resolve data issues and promote consistent data definitions.
• Tools and Technology:
  1. Manage enterprise data governance tools (e.g., Unity Catalog, Microsoft Purview).
  2. Maintain and evolve metadata repositories, business glossaries, and data dictionaries to support data literacy and transparency.
  3. Implement tools and processes to document data lineage from raw intake to final research output and reporting.
  4. Ensure organization is maintaining versioning, metadata and transformation history to support transparency and audit-readiness.
• Data Sharing and Retention
  • Partner with legal team to maintain and evolve documented processes for secure sharing of data with external partners and establish standard Data Use Agreements for data sharing and data partnerships.
  • Adherence to data retention policies: ensure team is educated on policies and ensure technical and operational adherence to our data retention policies.
  • Manage various efforts associated to internal and external audits pertaining to data.
• Compliance and Risk Management:
  1. Partner with compliance teams to align data governance with enterprise risk and security frameworks.
  2. Partner with compliance and analytics and research teams to ensure organizational compliance with HIPAA, CMS, IRB protocols and other relevant healthcare regulations.
  3. Lead efforts to ensure readiness of our data platform and data exchange for compliance framework certifications, such as SOC 2.  
  4. Drive data classification, privacy tagging, and policy enforcement across platforms and workflows.
• Data Governance Enterprise Maturity:
  1. Promote a culture of data stewardship, data literacy, and governance awareness across the organization.
  2. Drive awareness and enterprise data governance maturity by facilitating governance forums, working sessions, and training to educate staff, align teams, and drive adoption.
  3. Produce executive dashboards and communications to demonstrate governance impact.

Required Qualifications:

• Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in health informatics, Data Management, Information Systems, Computer Science, or a related field.
• 6-8 years of experience in data governance, data management, or information governance, including 4+ years in a healthcare environment.
• Demonstrated success leading enterprise-scale data governance initiatives in complex healthcare or life sciences settings.
• Deep understanding of data governance frameworks (e.g., DAMA-DMBOK), metadata management, MDM, and data lifecycle management.
• Expertise in healthcare data standards, including HIPAA, HITECH, and handling of PHI/PII.
• Strong understanding of data ethics, consent management, and de-identification techniques
• Familiarity with clinical, operational, and financial data flows in healthcare IT systems (e.g., EHRs).
• Proficiency with data governance tools and platforms (e.g., Unity Catalog, Microsoft Purview).
• Strong leadership, facilitation, and communication skills, with the ability to influence across technical and non-technical teams.

Preferred Qualifications:

• Certifications such as CDMP (Certified Data Management Professional), CHDA, DAMA, or equivalent.
• Experience working with EHR systems (e.g., Epic), claims data, and healthcare analytics platforms.
• Knowledge of interoperability standards (FHIR, HL7) and healthcare research governance.
• Experience launching or scaling data governance programs in greenfield or early maturity environments.