VP - Data Governance & Strategy

Description

Position at Ookla

The Opportunity

The VP of Data Governance & Strategy is a senior leadership role within Ookla’s Chief Data & Analytics Office responsible for defining and operationalizing the enterprise data governance strategy, policies, standards, and data ownership frameworks that enable trusted, high-quality, secure, and compliant data across Ookla. This role reports directly to the CDAO.

This leader will establish the governance vision, operating model, and cross-functional practices that ensure Ookla’s data is discoverable, well-defined, properly owned, and fit for purpose. Working across product, engineering, analytics, legal, compliance, and business teams, the role will drive a culture of data accountability, data literacy, and responsible data use aligned to enterprise strategy and regulatory expectations.

This position operates in a hybrid work environment and includes approximately 25% travel to support stakeholder engagement, governance program delivery, data quality initiatives, and team collaboration.

Key Responsibilities

• Define and lead Ookla’s enterprise data governance strategy, operating model, policies, standards, and multi-year roadmap.
• Establish and operationalize data ownership, data stewardship, and accountability frameworks across all data domains.
• Oversee enterprise data quality programs, including data quality rules, monitoring, observability, lineage, and remediation.
• Lead data security and privacy governance, ensuring compliance with regulatory requirements and enterprise data protection standards.
• Build and run the enterprise data catalog, metadata management practices, and data discovery capabilities.
• Drive data literacy, data enablement, and change management programs to build a data-fluent, governance-aware organization.

• Partner with legal, compliance, engineering, product, analytics, and CDAO leadership to embed governance into data platforms, pipelines, and workflows.

• Build, mentor, and develop a high-performing data governance, quality, security, and enablement organization.

Job Qualifications

Required Knowledge, Skills and Attributes

• Deep expertise in enterprise data governance, data quality, metadata management, data stewardship, and data catalog platforms.
• Strong understanding of data privacy regulations (GDPR, CCPA), data security frameworks, and regulatory compliance requirements.
• Experience defining and operationalizing governance operating models, data ownership frameworks, and enterprise data policies at scale.
• Proven ability to build and sustain data quality programs, observability practices, and data lineage frameworks in complex organizations.
• Familiarity with modern data governance tooling, data catalogs, metadata management, and cloud-native data platforms.
• Strong executive communication, stakeholder management, and organizational leadership skills.
• Strategic mindset with the ability to balance governance rigor, data enablement, change management, and business value delivery.

Required Education and/or Experience

• Bachelor’s degree in Information Management, Computer Science, Data Management, Business Administration, or a related field.
• Advanced degree preferred.
• 15+ years of experience in data governance, data quality, data management, compliance, or related technology disciplines.
• 7+ years of leadership experience managing data governance, data quality, data stewardship, or data enablement teams and programs.
• Experience building and scaling enterprise data governance programs, including policy frameworks, stewardship networks, and data catalogs.
• Relevant certifications in data governance, data management (e.g., CDMP), privacy, or related disciplines are preferred.

About

Ookla, an Accenture company, is a global leader in connectivity intelligence that brings together the trusted expertise of Speedtest®, Downdetector®, Ekahau®, and RootMetrics® to deliver unmatched network and connectivity insights. By combining multi-source data with industry-leading expertise, we transform network performance metrics into strategic, actionable insights.

Our solutions empower service providers, enterprises, and governments with the critical data and insights needed to optimize networks, enhance digital experiences, and help close the digital divide. At the same time, we amplify the real-world experiences of individuals and businesses that rely on connectivity to work, learn, and communicate. From measuring and analyzing connectivity to driving industry innovation, Ookla helps the world stay connected.

About Accenture

Accenture helps the world’s leading enterprises reinvent by building their digital core and unleashing the power of AI to create value at speed for organizations across industries. Our strategy is to be the reinvention partner of choice for our clients and lead in the safe, widespread adoption of AI, and to be the most client focused, AI-enabled, great place to work in the world. We bring together the talent of our approximately 799,000 people with proprietary assets and platforms, deep process and industry expertise, and leading ecosystem relationships to deliver end-to-end solutions and measurable outcomes at scale. Through our Reinvention Services, we offer broad expertise across Cybersecurity, Digital Core, Finance, Industry and Enterprise, Song, Supply Chain and Engineering, and Talent, with advanced capabilities in AI and Data, Industry and Process, and Technology. We serve approximately 9,000 clients and generated approximately $70 billion in FY25 revenue. Visit us at accenture.com.

Compensation Range

Ookla provides a range for the base pay. Factors that may be used to determine your actual pay may include your specific job related knowledge, skills, experience, and geographic location. The salary compensation for this role is $170,000 - $280,000. Individual pay within the compensation range for this business unit specific role is determined based on a variety of factors including experience, scope of the role, capabilities to perform the role, education and training, as well as business and company performance.