Data & AI Governance Lead

Job Summary

The Data & AI Governance Lead is a critical, enterprise-wide role responsible for activating and operating CECO’s Data & AI Governance framework day-to-day. The role chairs the L3 Governance Working Group, manages domain stewards across Finance, Sales, Operations, Procurement, Project Management, Product Engineering, and HR, and serves as the single point of operational accountability for KPI standardization, master data governance, and compliance reporting across all four SBGs.

This role requires equal strength as a governance practitioner, a program manager, a change leader, and a business partner. The individual must earn authority through credibility and demonstrated value, operating across a decentralized, multi‑SBG structure without direct reporting lines into the domains they govern.

• Chair and facilitate the L3 Data & AI Governance Working Group, including bi‑weekly full‑group sessions and coordination of seven independent domain governance meetings across Finance, Sales, Operations, Procurement, Project Management, Product Engineering, and HR.
• Own and maintain the enterprise KPI registry — ensuring every metric has a single definition, data source, owner, and target applied consistently across all SBGs. Eliminate the current state where the same KPI is calculated differently.
• Collaborate with domain stewards, providing direction, accountability, documentation standards, and escalation support. Ensure domain‑level consensus before any recommendation reaches the L2 Governance Committee.
• Own and produce the monthly governance compliance scorecard and present it to the L2 Governance Committee as the operational voice of the Working Group.
• Serve as the primary triage point for all governance escalations, resolving disputes at the lowest possible level before they reach the L2 Committee.
• Maintain master data standards across Customer, Vendor, Product / Item, Project, and Employee / Workforce domains, coordinating with domain stewards and the Data Platform team on golden record workflows and CRM–ERP alignment.

• Manage governance activation as a structured program: define milestones, track progress, identify risks and dependencies, and report status to L2 monthly and L1 quarterly.
• Develop and maintain the governance calendar, meeting cadences, agenda templates, escalation protocols, RACI documentation, and decision logs for the Working Group.
• Manage interdependencies between governance activation and Data Platform Modernization program, ensuring KPI standards and master data rules are sequenced correctly against Fabric platform delivery milestones.
• Track and manage the D365 migration wave governance schedule, ensuring data quality gates are reviewed before each go‑live and that migration decisions are evaluated against master data standards.
• Build and maintain a governance maturity roadmap, with measurable milestones from framework activation through to embedded enterprise practice.

• Design and execute a structured change management plan for governance activation, applying recognized methodology (Prosci or equivalent) to address the specific adoption challenges identified in CECO’s current state assessment — entrenched SBG autonomy, uneven data literacy, and previous governance efforts.
• Identify and map resistance patterns by domain and SBG, developing tailored engagement strategies for stakeholders with differing levels of governance maturity and data literacy.
• Design and execute a stakeholder communication plan that keeps domain owners, SBG Presidents, and the L2/L1 governance bodies informed, engaged, and accountable throughout the activation journey.
• Build domain steward capability through structured onboarding, coaching, and training by ensuring stewards understand not just their responsibilities but the business rationale behind each governance decision.
• Measure adoption and behavioral change alongside compliance by tracking leading indicators (steward engagement, definition adoption rates, escalation volumes) as well as lagging indicators (scorecard compliance, KPI consistency).