AD, Data Governance Solutions Lead (3 Openings)

Job Description Summary

#LI-Hybrid

The ideal location for this role is East Hanover, NJ site but remote work may be possible (there may be some restrictions based on legal entity). Please note that this role would not provide relocation as a result. If associate is remote, all home office expenses and any travel/lodging to specific East Hanover, NJ site for periodic live meetings will be at the employee’s expense. The expectation of working hours and travel (domestic and/or international) will be defined by the hiring manager. This position will require 15% travel.

1 role – KPI Governance & Councils
1 role – Governance Platforms
1 role – Data Access & Security

Job description summary
If you are energized by building new capabilities, bringing clarity to complex data environments, and helping Novartis use data responsibly and confidently, we invite you to apply.

We are hiring three (3) Associate Director, Data Governance Solutions Leads to join the Data Governance Solutions team within Strategy, Platforms & Transformation (SPT). Together, these leaders will help build and scale enterprise governance capabilities that make data easier to understand, access, protect, and use with confidence.

Candidates may be considered for one of the three specializations that most closely align with their experience and technical background.

1. KPI Governance & Councils: In this role, you will establish and lead enterprise approaches for defining, managing, and governing key performance indicators. You will help create a consistent source of truth for metrics and strengthen how leaders evaluate business performance.
2. Governance Platforms: Build-and-run owner for the Data governance platform. This person stands up the Data Governance platform as the unified system of record for catalog, lineage, glossary, and data contracts, then keeps it healthy in production. Directly enables the Data Command Center's data pipeline-health, observability, and incident-management panels.
3. Data Access & Security: Operates fine-grained, policy-based (attribute/purpose-based) access control across Novartis data layers. This role is responsible for enabling and scaling fine-grained data access controls in production for both Humans and AI agents.

Job Description

Key Responsibilities:

• Provide strategic and operational leadership for a key enterprise data governance capability, translating business priorities and data strategy into scalable solutions.
• Help define, implement, and continuously improve governance frameworks, operating models, policies, standards, controls, and decision rights.
• Partner with business leaders, data owners, technology teams, analytics functions, privacy, legal, security, and compliance stakeholders to align governance priorities and drive adoption.
• Establish clear ownership, accountability, and escalation paths for governance decisions, risks, issues, and remediation activities.
• Support the execution of the enterprise data strategy and the development of Data Command Center capabilities by improving visibility into data health, access, performance, and governance.
• Lead cross-functional forums, working groups, or implementation activities that enable timely decisions and measurable outcomes.
• Develop meaningful reporting, scorecards, and performance indicators that communicate governance maturity, adoption, risk, and operational health to senior stakeholders.
• Manage relationships with external vendors and implementation partners, including scope, deliverables, milestones, quality, risks, and budget considerations.
• Identify opportunities to simplify governance processes, strengthen controls, improve user experience, and accelerate responsible access to trusted data.
• Champion a practical, collaborative governance culture that balances business enablement, innovation, risk management, and regulatory expectations.

Essential Requirements:

Education: Bachelor's degree in Business Administration, Information Systems, Data Management, Engineering, Finance, or a related field.

KPI Governance & Councils / Governance Platforms Roles

• Minimum 8+ years in data platform engineering or data governance tooling; hands-on experience standing up a catalog/governance platform from scratch (Collate /OpenMetadata, Atlan, Collibra, or Alation). Preferred in Pharma or Life Sciences industries
• Strong SQL and working knowledge of Snowflake; experience integrating catalog tools with cloud data warehouses.
• Understanding of data lineage, metadata management, and data-contract concepts (ODCS or equivalent).
• Experience managing implementation vendors/surge teams against scope and timeline.
• Comfortable operating in an ambiguous, build-phase environment and turning a target-state diagram into running infrastructure.

Data Access & Security Role

• Minimum 8+ years in data access governance, identity & access management, or data security within a regulated industry. Preferred in Pharma or Life Sciences industries

…