Data Governance Lead / Manager

Data Governance Lead / Manager

Key Responsibilities

• Develop and maintain data governance policies, including data classification, ownership, stewardship, access control, retention, and data quality standards.
• Support AI governance initiatives, including responsible AI principles, AI use case reviews, risk assessments, transparency, bias mitigation, and human oversight controls.
• Ensure alignment with UAE data protection and data sovereignty requirements, as well as international frameworks including GDPR, ISO 27001, and SOC 2.
• Partner with business, compliance, security, legal, and engineering teams to embed governance, privacy, and access-control requirements into systems and processes.
• Review data and AI use cases from a governance, privacy, security, and compliance perspective.
• Support audits, security reviews, governance forums, policy documentation, and control evidence collection.
• Support the adoption and use of data governance tools such as OpenMetadata, Collibra, or similar platforms for cataloging, lineage, metadata management, ownership, and governance workflows.

Required

• 7+ years of experience in data governance, data security, compliance, privacy, risk, or related fields.
• Hands-on experience with data governance frameworks, data classification, data ownership, access controls, and regulatory compliance.
• Good understanding of GDPR, UAE data protection laws, ISO 27001, SOC 2, and privacy/security-by-design principles.
• Exposure to AI governance, responsible AI, model risk, or AI use case review processes.
• Experience with data governance, cataloging, metadata, lineage, or stewardship tools such as OpenMetadata, Collibra, Informatica, Alation, Microsoft Purview, or similar platforms.
• Experience working with regulated, government, semi-government, or enterprise environments is preferred.
• Prior UAE government or public sector experience is a strong plus.
• Strong stakeholder management, documentation, communication, and execution skills.

Requirements

• Added by the Job Poster
• Must already be based in the UAE.
• Can start immediately.
• 7+ years of work experience in data governance or a related domain.
• Experience with AI governance or responsible AI is preferred.
• Experience with OpenMetadata, Collibra, or similar data governance tools is preferred.