Data Architect

About Northern Trust:

Northern Trust, a Fortune 500 company, is a globally recognized, award-winning financial institution that has been in continuous operation since 1889.

Northern Trust is proud to provide innovative financial services and guidance to the world’s most successful individuals, families, and institutions by remaining true to our enduring principles of service, expertise, and integrity. With more than 130 years of financial experience and over 22,000 partners, we serve the world’s most sophisticated clients using leading technology and exceptional service.

Position Summary: This person strengthens the impact of, and provides recommendations on, business information that will need to be available and shared consistently across the organization through the identification, definition and analysis of how information assets aid strategies and business outcomes. The  Data Architect is responsible for making data trusted, easy to use and meets the data and analytics requirements for all uses.

Key Responsibilities:

• Influence information strategy: By partnering with business unit leadership, and through the rationalization of the information value chain, the information architect will provide strategic recommendations to maximize the value of information assets via their creation, access and use.
• Assess the benefits and the risks of information by using tools such as business capability models to create an information-centric view to quickly visualize what information matters most to the organization based on the defined business strategy.
• Use tools such as business information models to provide the organization with a future-state view of the information landscape that is unencumbered by the specific data implementation details imposed by proprietary solutions or technologies. Assist decision design.
• Enable effective data and analytics governance: Suggest who can take what actions with what information, and under what circumstances. Assist data and analytics leaders, and business and IT leadership in developing information governance processes and structures.
• Conduct business information modeling: Create and manage business information models in all their forms, including conceptual models, relational database designs, message models and others.
• Develop standardized data and analytics platform architecture and ensure the adoption of those across the business unit. Works with enterprise architecture and data platform teams to align the target state of business unit and enterprise roadmaps.
• Secure data and analytic assets: Aid in the analysis of data and analytics security requirements and solutions, and work with the chief information security officer (CISO) [and CDO] to ensure that enterprise data and analytics assets are treated as protected assets.
• Improve EIM performance: Aid efforts to improve business performance through enterprise information solutions and capabilities, such as master data management (MDM), metadata management, analytics, content management, data integration, and related information management or information infrastructure components.
• Works closely with the Head of Data Products and Analytics and Chief Data Officer.

Knowledge & Skills:

• Deep understanding of data and information architecture, especially in asset management space.
• Familiarity MDM, business intelligence, and data warehouse design and implementation techniques.
• Business domain, data/content and process understanding (which are more important than technical skills). Being techno functional is a plus.
• System integration experience, including interface design, and familiarity with web-oriented architecture techniques.
• Good presentation skills in creating Data Architecture diagrams.
• Data modeling and information classification expertise at the enterprise level.
• Understanding of common information architecture frameworks and information models.
• Experience with distributed data and analytics platforms in cloud and hybrid environments. Also an understanding of a variety of data access and analytic approaches (for example, microservices and event-based architectures).
• Knowledge of problem analysis, structured analysis and design, and programming techniques.
• Ability to assess rapidly changing technologies and apply them to business needs.
• Strong communication and persuasion skills, including the ability to create marketing and messaging materials that meet stakeholder needs.
• Ability to analyze project, program and portfolio needs, as well as determine the resources needed to achieve objectives and overcome cross-functional barriers.

Key Behavioral Competencies:

• Effective conceptualization, pattern recognition and