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Job Description

Title: Associate Director, Data Governance

Location: Cambridge, MA

About the role:

As an Associate Director, Data Governance, you will be responsible for defining, implementing, and overseeing data governance policies, practices, and capabilities across R&D data domains, in collaboration with business and enterprise stakeholders. You will ensure data quality, integrity, security, and regulatory compliance throughout the R&D data lifecycle, enabling trusted data for analytics and prioritized AI use cases.

How will you contribute:

• Support and facilitate governance councils and committees to enable end-to-end R&D Data Governance program across all data domains.

• Establish and maintain data governance capabilities and practices in collaboration with SME’s that ensure appropriate access to complete, trustworthy data in compliance with regulatory requirements.

• Plan, implement, and continuously improve data governance capabilities, including identifying and mitigating risks and prioritizing and executing improvement initiatives. 

• Design and embed governance frameworks directly into platforms and workflows to enable scalable, automated governance rather than manual oversight. 

• Define, align, and operationalize data use and data access policies across R&D. 

• Ensure responsible data usage by monitoring and reporting on data access and usage, identifying, correcting, and preventing risky or non-compliant behaviors.

• Develop, maintain, and implement data governance policies and procedures.

• Align R&D data governance policies with enterprise-wide standards.

• Ensure data is Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Reusable within the organization.

• Facilitate the design and deployment of FAIR data practices.

• Create and maintain a taxonomy for data restrictions and qualifications.

• Implement and manage systems to enable automated self-service data access.

• Uphold high standards of data quality, integrity, and privacy. Collaborate with Enterprise, Legal, Ethics & Compliance, Privacy, and Global Data Council on data policy development and deployment.

• Monitor short, medium, and long-term governance needs.

• Report on data access and usage, addressing and preventing risky behavior.

What you bring to Takeda:

• Minimum: Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Information Technology, Data Science, Business Administration, or a related field. Preferred: Master’s or Ph.D. in Data Science, Information Management, Business Administration, or related field.

• Minimum: 7-10 years of experience in data governance, data management, compliance, and policy management within pharmaceutical, healthcare, or life sciences organizations.

• Demonstrated experience designing and managing systems that support automated, self-service data access.

• Proven ability to align data governance policies with business objectives and regulatory requirements.

• Deep expertise in data governance frameworks, regulatory compliance, and data privacy.

• Proven knowledge across R&D data domains, including Research, Clinical, Regulatory, Safety, and Portfolio, in a regulated biopharmaceutical environment.

• Strong communication and presentation skills, with the ability to engage and influence stakeholders at all levels.

• Ability to lead and influence cross-functional teams in a matrixed organization.

• Experience developing and implementing data governance policies aligned to business and compliance needs.

• Strong strategic thinking, risk management, and problem-solving skills.

Desired:

• Additional experience in pharmaceutical or healthcare regulatory and data privacy environments.

• Practical working knowledge of AI use cases and data pipelines to enable.

• Familiarity with data governance platforms, data lakes, and data warehousing solutions.

• Demonstrated ability to drive organizational change through data-driven de