Senior Associate - Data Governance & Stewardship Lead

About the Role

New York Life Group Benefits Solutions (GBS) is seeking an experienced Data Governance and Stewardship professional to lead the development and execution of a data governance and management framework. This role ensures data consistency, compliance, and integrity across financial and operational domains, including Sales, Underwriting, Operations, Claims, Actuarial, and Finance. Working closely with business leaders, technology teams, and data professionals, this role supports New York Life's Data Strategy by enhancing data discoverability, quality, and compliance.

What You'll Do

• Develop and lead the implementation of the data governance roadmap
• Play a key role in establishing a division-wide data governance framework, with a focus on governing data as an enterprise asset, addressing regulatory requirements, and protection of sensitive data through organizational behavior, policies and standards, governance metrics, processes, and related tools
• Support the mission and goals of the cross-functional Data Governance Council
• Collaborate with data product managers, SMEs, and engineers to capture business context, align it with technical architecture and strengthen metadata documentation
• Expand metadata repository to include source-to-target data lineage mapping and business-friendly names for technical fields
• Drive adoption of governance tools through training sessions, user enablement, and data owner/steward playbooks
• Support governance technologies including implementation and maintenance of platforms such as Data Catalog (e.g., Collibra, Atlan), Master/Reference Data Management (MDM/RDM), and Data Quality tools
• Lead the data governance strategy by developing and executing a framework that aligns with corporate priorities, regulatory compliance, and business needs
• Establish and manage a network of business and technical data stewards; define roles, responsibilities, and operating procedures; facilitate Data Stewardship meetings to drive adoption of standards and resolve issues
• Operationalize data governance by embedding best practices into project workflows and everyday work
• Partner with New York Life's Corporate Data Governance and Data Management teams to ensure alignment
• Oversee data quality initiatives including management of consolidated data sets
• Provide data and business analysis support to harmonize data across applications
• Promote accountability and best practices for data stewardship across the organization
• Establish data definitions, naming conventions, classification schemas, and metadata standards
• Ensure compliance with privacy, security, and regulatory requirements (e.g., HIPAA, FINRA, SOC 2, ERISA, GDPR, CCPA, NY DFS, etc.)
• Serve as a liaison between Business and Technology to ensure data-related business requirements for governing data are clearly defined, communicated, and well understood and considered as part of operational prioritization and planning
• Assess and implement data governance technologies as needed and establish usage protocols
• Lead communication, training, and engagement to cultivate a data ownership mindset across the organization
• Monitor and measure the effectiveness and maturity of the data governance program, and report on key performance indicators and metrics

What You'll Bring

• 5+ years of experience in data governance, stewardship, or data management
• Proven experience leading data governance and management initiatives in complex environments
• Strong insurance industry experience (Group Benefits industry strongly preferred)
• Strong understanding of data lifecycle management, data quality frameworks, metadata management, and data classification
• Skilled in data lineage, master data management (MDM), and data cataloging tools
• Experience implementing and operating a data governance framework across business and technology
• Experience building governance in federated data environments and across complex/hybrid data ownership structures
• Strong experience in people and relationship management; ability to effectively challenge all levels of an organization and offer value-add solutions to meet data governance objectives
• Familiarity with SQL, Python and data modeling concepts
• Working in Agile environments using Jira, Confluence, and SharePoint are a plus
• Strong understanding of regulatory and compliance requirements
• Hands-on experience with Atlan or similar metadata management tools
• Familiarity with data quality and observability tools (e.g., Anomalo)

Pay

• Salary Range: $100,000-$143,000
• Overtime eligible: Exempt
• Discretionary bonus eligible: Yes
• Sales bonus eligible: No

Actual base salary will be determined based on several factors but not limited to individual's experience, skills, qualifications, and job location. Additionally, employees are eligible for an annual discretionary bonus. In addition to base salary, employees may also be eligible to participate in an incentive program.

Benefits

New York Life provides a full package of benefits for employees, including leave programs, adoption assistance, and student loan repayment programs. Based on feedback from employees, the company continues to refine and add benefits to its offering.