Data Governance Program Manager

SUMMARY OF JOB RESPONSIBILITIES The Data Governance Program Manager at Colorado PERA plays a key role in advancing the organization’s mission through modern, data-driven practices. This role is responsible for leading an enterprise data governance program that ensures data is trusted, secure, and accessible. The Data Governance Program Manager collaborates across teams to establish governance standards, strengthen data stewardship, and foster a culture where data is a shared, well-managed asset.

IDEAL CANDIDATEOur ideal candidate is an experienced and strategic individual with strong analytical, technical, and interpersonal skills. They bring deep expertise in data governance and understand its critical role in ensuring data is trusted, secure, and effectively leveraged as a strategic asset across the organization. Skilled in cross-functional collaboration, this individual excels at aligning business, technology, and data stakeholders around shared goals, establishing clear ownership, and driving accountability for data quality and stewardship.

They are equally comfortable shaping enterprise data governance strategy as they are executing against it, managing competing priorities with focus, discipline, and efficiency.

ESSENTIAL DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES Employees are held accountable for all duties of the job. Individuals must be able to perform these duties with or without reasonable accommodations.

Data Governance & Stewardship In partnership with the Director of Data and Analytics, develop, implement, and continuously enhance a comprehensive enterprise data governance framework, including policies, standards, and procedures for data quality, metadata management, and the full data lifecycle.

Define and operationalize roles and responsibilities for data ownership, stewardship, and accountability across business units, ensuring clarity and consistency.

Lead cross-functional Data Governance Forum to drive alignment, prioritization, and oversight of governance initiatives.

Build and sustain a strong data stewardship community, enabling accountability and promoting best practices across the organization.

Collaboration & Stakeholder Engagement Serve as a key liaison between technical teams and business stakeholders, translating business needs into actionable data solutions and governance practices.

Foster a culture of data literacy, stewardship, and responsible data usage across PERA through communication, education, and engagement efforts.

Support organizational alignment by ensuring governance practices enable, rather than hinder, innovation and modernization efforts.

Provide mentorship, training, and development opportunities to strengthen data capabilities and governance practices across teams.

Compliance & Risk Management Ensure compliance with applicable data protection regulations (e.g. PII, HIPAA) and internal policies, safeguarding sensitive member and organizational data.

Collaborate with Legal, Enterprise Risk, and Information Security teams to proactively identify, assess, and mitigate data-related risks.

Define, monitor, and report on data governance KPIs, including data quality, policy adherence, and program maturity metrics.

Promote a risk-aware data culture while embedding governance controls into day-to-day operations and enterprise systems.

Data Analytics Enablement Ensure governed, high-quality data is effectively leveraged for reporting, advanced analytics, and decision-making.

Establish standards and best practices that align data governance with analytics delivery, ensuring consistency in definitions, metrics, and data usage across the organization.

Support the development of trusted data assets, curated datasets, and semantic layers that enable self-service analytics while maintaining appropriate controls.

Collaborate with business stakeholders to prioritize analytical use cases and ensure data governance practices support actionable insights and measurable outcomes.

Promote data-driven decision-making by enabling access to reliable, well-documented data and reinforcing alignment between governance, analytics, and modernization initiatives.

Process Improvement & Innovation Continuously…