Data and AI Governance Lead

About the role

CDM Smith is seeking a Data and AI Governance Lead to join our Digital Capital team. This role is crucial for advancing and maturing the firm’s data governance and AI governance capabilities.

Responsibilities

• Operate data governance standards, policies, and controls approved by the Data Governance Board and leadership.
• Maintain governance artifacts including the data dictionary, metadata standards, data lineage documentation, and data quality rules.
• Partner with data owners, data stewards, analytics, and platform teams to monitor and improve data quality, resolve data quality issues, and ensure governance practices are embedded in analytics and reporting workflows.
• Serve as the custodian of governance tooling to support metadata management, lineage, quality monitoring, and access control.
• Develop and maintain data governance KPIs and reporting.
• Support change management by introducing updates to governance processes, roles, and standards in partnership with business and technical stakeholders.
• Develop and support governance education, communications, and training materials that improve adoption across business and technical teams.
• Stay current with emerging data governance and AI governance best practices and help incorporate approved advancements into operational processes.
• Operate AI governance requirements, ensuring AI solutions and agents are supported by trusted and governed source data and have clear data lineage in and out of AI models.
• Collaborate with AI and analytics teams to ensure governance controls are embedded into AI platforms and workflows, enabling responsible innovation while managing risk.
• Support governance readiness for audits, risk assessments, and compliance activities related to AI systems.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's Degree or equivalent experience.
• 8+ years of related experience.
• Foundational understanding of AI Governance concepts, including responsible AI, model transparency, explainability, bias awareness, and AI risk management.
• Proven experience working within enterprise data governance frameworks and operating models.
• Hands-on experience with governance, catalog, or lineage tools such as Databricks Unity Catalog, Microsoft Purview, or Alation.
• Experience working with cloud and analytics platforms such as Microsoft Azure and Microsoft Power BI.
• Experience using SQL or similar query languages to analyze, validate, and troubleshoot data quality issues.
• Strong analytical, problem-solving, and communication skills.
• Curious and willing to continuously learn emerging technologies, governance practices, and AI-related trends.
• Working knowledge of data privacy, security, retention, and regulatory considerations related to data and AI governance.
• Strong facilitation and relationship-building skills with the ability to influence and build consensus without direct authority.