Senior Data Governance Specialist

Primary Services is actively recruiting for a Senior Data Governance Specialist to support a large, enterprise-level client headquartered in Houston. This high-visibility role will lead the development and execution of an enterprise data governance framework, ensuring data is trusted, secure, compliant, and aligned with strategic objectives. The selected professional will collaborate across business units, IT, Legal, Security, and audit functions to operationalize governance standards and drive measurable improvements in data quality, stewardship, and regulatory readiness. • This is an onsite position located in Houston. Out of area applicants will not be considered at this time • Responsibilities • Develop and maintain enterprise data governance strategy, policies, standards, and scalable operating models. • Define governance KPIs, conduct maturity assessments, and lead continuous improvement initiatives. • Establish enterprise data quality dimensions, rules, controls, and remediation workflows. • Identify and govern Critical Data Elements with clear business and technical ownership. • Oversee metadata standards, business glossary, lineage, and catalog governance within Atlan. • Expand automated and governed manual lineage in partnership with architecture and engineering teams. • Operationalize Data Owner, Steward, and Custodian roles with defined accountability models. • Lead Data Governance Council activities and steward community alignment. • Ensure compliance with applicable regulatory requirements and internal data policies. • Partner with Legal and Security to define privacy, retention, classification, and access controls. • Drive audit readiness and regulatory evidence collection for data-related controls. • Govern master and reference data domains in coordination with MDM and architecture teams. • Define data classification schemes, RBAC models, and entitlement review processes. • Evaluate and enhance governance technology stack including Atlan, Monte Carlo, MDM tools, and workflow integrations. • Integrate metadata and data quality metrics into BI dashboards using SQL-driven reporting. Qualifications • Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Information Systems, Data Management, or related discipline. • 7–10+ years of experience in data governance, data management, analytics engineering, or data quality leadership roles. • Deep expertise in metadata management, master data governance, data quality frameworks, and data lineage. • Hands-on experience with Atlan, Monte Carlo, or comparable data catalog and observability platforms. • Strong SQL proficiency and experience integrating catalog or observability outputs into BI dashboards. • Experience leading governance councils, steward programs, and enterprise-wide operating models. • Knowledge of regulatory frameworks such as GDPR, CCPA, SOX, or HIPAA. • Experience supporting audit processes and regulatory control validation. • Houston-based candidates required; hybrid work arrangement available. This role offers significant visibility, cross-functional influence, and the opportunity to define governance excellence at scale within a large organization.