Director of Product Data (United States)

Position Overview

CME Corp. is seeking a Director of Product Data to lead the strategy, governance, and operational execution of the company’s enterprise product data ecosystem. Reporting directly to the CIO, this role is ideal for an innovative and entrepreneurial leader who challenges convention, sees opportunity in complexity, and has a demonstrated track record of transforming product data at scale.

The successful candidate will bring deep experience managing large-scale, highly complex product catalogs—spanning hundreds of thousands to millions of items—within a distribution environment. Healthcare industry experience is not required; what matters most is the ability to bring order, accuracy, scalability, and strategic value to complex product data environments.

The Director will lead a team of product data administrators and partner cross-functionally with IT/Engineering, Operations, Sales, Vendor Relations, and internal product teams to ensure product data is accurate, consistent, governed, and usable across the business.

This is a 100% remote, U.S.-based position and requires approximately 5% travel for company meetings, vendor engagements, or other business needs.

Key Responsibilities

Product Data Strategy & Governance

• Define and own CME’s product data strategy, taxonomy, and governance framework.
• Establish standards for product attributes, hierarchies, naming conventions, and metadata.
• Implement data governance policies, stewardship models, and quality controls.
• Drive an innovative, entrepreneurial mindset across the data team, continuously seeking better, faster, and more scalable approaches.

Data Assessment, Cleaning & Mapping

• Assess and audit product data across systems to identify gaps, inconsistencies, redundancies, and inefficiencies.
• Lead large-scale data cleansing, normalization, and standardization initiatives across a catalog of 1M+ items and expanding product lines.
• Lead extensive data mapping between internal systems, vendor datasets, and third-party platforms.
• Eliminate data redundancies and streamline product data workflows across the enterprise.
• Build repeatable, scalable processes for product onboarding and enrichment as product lines expand.

Reporting & Analytics

• Create meaningful, actionable analysis from complex product data.
• Deliver quarterly data quality and performance reports to company senior leadership.
• Build dashboards, KPIs, and scorecards to monitor data health, completeness, quality, and timeliness.
• Partner with business stakeholders to ensure product data supports sales and quoting processes, equipment planning, project workflows, analytics, and decision-making.

Master Data Management (MDM) & Systems

• Serve as the enterprise owner of product master data.
• Design and evolve scalable product data models across ERP/CRM systems, operational portals, vendor feeds, and external data sources.
• Lead implementation and maintenance of off-the-shelf MDM/PIM platforms as well as custom and home-grown data systems.
• Lead initiatives to consolidate and rationalize product data across systems.
• Evaluate, select, and manage technology vendors and tools as part of the broader data ecosystem strategy.

Data Integration & External Data Alignment

• Lead integration of third-party data sources, including manufacturers, GPOs, and industry data providers.
• Ensure accurate mapping, normalization, and synchronization between external vendor datasets and internal product catalogs.
• Drive consistency across CME’s multi-vendor ecosystem of 2,000+ suppliers.
• Align product data with internal platforms, including customer-facing solutions such as CME360.
• Support product line expansions with scalable data onboarding frameworks.

Cross-Functional & People Leadership

• Partner cross-functionally with IT/Engineering, Vendor Relations, Sales & Operations, and internal product teams.
• Act as the central authority for product data decisions, standards, and governance across the organization.
• Serve as a key stakeholder and voice for data quality in enterprise system decisions.
• Manage, mentor, and develop a team of product data administrators.
• Establish a high-performance, collaborative team culture focused on quality, accountability, and continuous improvement.

Qualifications

Required

• At least 8 years of experience in product data management, master data management (MDM), or data governance.
• Demonstrated experience managing large-scale, complex product catalogs spanning hundreds of thousands to millions of items within a distribution organization.
• Experience expanding product lines by onboarding new suppliers, categories, and products at scale.
• Proven track record as a strong people leader, including hiring, developing, and retaining high-performing teams.
• Innovative and entrepreneurial mindset with the ability to challenge the status quo, identify opportunities, and drive meaningful change in complex data environments.
• Deep experience with data assessment, cleansing, normalization, and large-scale data mapping.
• Strong understanding of data modeling, taxonomy design, data quality frameworks, and system integration.
• Hands-on experience implementing and maintaining both off-the-shelf and custom/home-grown data systems.
• Experience delivering executive-level reporting and presenting data insights to senior leadership.
• Proven ability to work cross-functionally across IT, operations, sales, and product teams.

Preferred

• Healthcare, medical device, or life sciences distribution experience is a plus but not required; strong distribution experience with high-volume, complex product catalogs in any vertical is valued.
• Experience in industrial, electrical, food service, technology, or other high-complexity distribution environments.
• Familiarity with vendor data platforms, PIM tools, or MDM platforms.
• Exposure to ERP systems and data integration middleware.

Who You Are

• A strategic, hands-on leader who can move between enterprise-level vision and operational execution.
• Entrepreneurial and improvement-minded, with the confidence to challenge existing processes and build scalable solutions.
• Highly analytical and detail-oriented, while able to translate complex data issues into clear business priorities.
• Collaborative and influential across technical and non-technical teams.
• A strong people leader who builds accountability, develops talent, and creates a culture of continuous improvement.

What Success Looks Like

• A unified, scalable product data model across CME systems.
• Measurably improved data quality, consistency, and reliability across product records.
• Seamless integration of external vendor and third-party data sources.
• Efficient, scalable processes for onboarding and managing expanding product lines.
• Strong cross-functional adoption of product data standards.
• Quarterly data performance reporting delivered to senior leadership.
• A high-performing, engaged product data team capable of operating at enterprise scale.
• Product data that supports faster sales cycles and more reliable analytics.

Compensation and Benefits

The Company reasonably expects to pay a base salary in the range of $110,000–$130,000 annually. Actual compensation will be determined based on factors including, but not limited to, job-related knowledge, skills, experience, education, training, internal equity, geographic location, and business or organizational needs. This position is also eligible for an annual performance-based bonus.

Additional benefits include:

• Medical, Dental & Vision
• PTO – Vacation, Sick and 11 Paid Holidays
• Employer-Paid Life Insurance
• 401(k) Retirement Plan
• Employee Stock Ownership Plan (ESOP)
• Flexible Spending Account
• Voluntary Benefits – Critical Illness, Short & Long Term Disability, Accident, Life, Whole Life, and Pet Insurance
• Tuition Reimbursement
• Referral Bonus Program
• Employee Assistance Program

Why This Role Matters

CME Corp.’s business depends on managing a vast and complex product ecosystem across thousands of vendors and millions of items. As the company continues to expand its capabilities and product lines, high-quality, well-governed product data is mission-critical to operational efficiency and business growth.

This is a key leadership position responsible for transforming CME’s product data ecosystem into a strategic asset across the organization. The right candidate will bring entrepreneurial energy, deep distribution expertise, and proven people leadership to drive lasting, scalable change.