Data Governance Program Consultant

ESG Consulting

Our client is seeking Data Governance Program Consultant for a Hybrid contract role in Nashville, TN.

Primary Responsibilities

AI Governance, Privacy, Risk, and Compliance Support

The contractor will help agencies incorporate responsible AI, privacy, security, and compliance considerations into data governance practices. Responsibilities include:

Support agency awareness of AI governance concepts, including ethical, transparent, explainable, accountable, and human-reviewed use of data and AI-enabled systems.

Help document AI-related data use cases, data sources, stewardship responsibilities, risk considerations, and governance checkpoints.

Coordinate with appropriate privacy, security, legal, records, and compliance stakeholders when governance activities involve sensitive, confidential, regulated, or high-risk data.

Facilitate agency exploitation of AI technologies to establish practitioners to automate and/or streamline data governance practices and artifacts.

Reinforce requirements for data classification, access management, data minimization, authorized use, retention, and secure data sharing.

Support documentation of data-related risks, issues, policy exceptions, remediation actions, and audit evidence.

Promote appropriate safeguards for protected or regulated data, including HIPAA, FERPA, CJIS, IRS Pub. 1075, PCI, FTI, PII, and other applicable standards when relevant to agency operations.

Data Governance Strategy and Agency Engagement

The contractor will help agencies align data governance activities to business value, mission priorities, compliance needs, and statewide data strategy. Responsibilities include:

Support agency data governance planning, including charters, roadmaps, operating models, stakeholder maps, and implementation plans.

Assist agencies in defining data governance scope, ownership, roles, responsibilities, decision rights, and engagement processes.

Help identify agency value-based business needs, data pain points, data quality risks, and opportunities for improved data sharing and reuse.

Support agency maturity assessments and develop practical work plans to close governance gaps.

Translate technical data governance concepts into plain-language guidance suitable for executives, business program staff, data stewards, and operational teams.

Promote consistent use of Tennessee’s eight core data governance elements: Organization, Policies, Procedures, Standards/Definitions, Architecture, Data Admin/Controls, Metrics/Reporting, and Audits.

Data Governance Implementation Support

The contractor will support agency use of statewide data governance tools, templates, and documentation practices. Responsibilities include:

Help agencies complete governance artifacts such as RACI charts, business glossaries, data dictionaries, data inventories, data issue logs, policy/procedure mappings, stewardship plans, and governance roadmaps.

Support documentation of data domains, data owners, data stewards, business definitions, data flows, data quality rules, risks, controls, and metrics.

Assist agencies with Playbook-aligned implementation activities and evidence gathering for audit readiness.

Coordinate with the Data Governance Analyst on catalog, metadata, data classification, lineage, and related documentation needs.

Support agency use of governance metrics and maturity indicators to monitor progress and demonstrate business value.

Maintain organized repositories of governance artifacts, meeting records, training materials, communications, and implementation evidence.

Facilitation and Governance Meeting Support

The contractor will serve as a facilitator and working-session lead for agency governance activities. Responsibilities include:

Plan, facilitate, and document agency data governance meetings, workshops, steering committee sessions, and stewardship working groups.

Prepare agendas, meeting materials, decision logs, action item trackers, issue logs, and executive-ready summaries.

Facilitate discussions among data owners, data stewards, business leaders, technology teams, privacy, security, legal, and compliance stakeholders.

Support resolution of cross-functional data issues by clarifying decision points, documenting options, identifying risks, and escalating unresolved matters.

Help agencies operationalize governance committees and recurring governance cadences consistent with statewide guidance.

Support business value case development for data governance initiatives, including benefits, risks, resource needs, expected outcomes, and implementation options.

Change Management, Communications, and Marketing

The contractor will help sustain adoption of data governance practices through clear communications, change management planning, and program marketing. Responsibilities include:

Develop and execute stakeholder engagement and change management plans for agency data governance adoption.

Create communication products such as briefings, talking points, newsletters, intranet content, FAQs, one-page summaries, presentations, and adoption messaging.

Promote data governance as a business-enabling capability, not only a compliance activity.

Communicate the value of data governance in terms of trusted data, reduced risk, improved service delivery, better decision-making, and increased efficiency.

Support messaging for managing data as an enterprise asset, consistent with Tennessee’s data governance policy principles. The Guidebook states that data is recognized as a valued and strategic enterprise asset and that accountability, quality, and compliance must be clearly defined and managed.

Identify adoption barriers and recommend interventions such as targeted communications, leadership briefings, training refreshers, job aids, and facilitation support.

Training Development and Delivery

The contractor will help develop, maintain, and deliver data governance learning products for state agencies. Responsibilities include:

Develop training plans, course outlines, instructor-led materials, self-service learning content, quick reference guides, and role-based learning paths.

Deliver training for data owners, data stewards, data custodians, data producers, data consumers, and agency governance teams.

Support data fluency training aligned to Tennessee’s enterprise data governance methodology, tools, and templates.

Create practical exercises using agency-relevant examples such as data ownership, business glossary terms, data quality dimensions, data classification, data sharing, metadata, and governance meeting practices.

Coordinate training feedback, attendance, adoption metrics, and improvement recommendations.

Reinforce data quality expectations, including accuracy, timeliness, accessibility, completeness, and consistency. Tennessee’s Guidebook identifies these as five critical data quality dimensions.

Required Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities

The successful contractor should demonstrate the ability to:

Facilitate cross-functional meetings with business, technology, privacy, security, legal, compliance, and executive stakeholders.

Develop practical data governance strategies, implementation plans, training plans, communications, and adoption materials.

Translate complex data governance, data management, metadata, data quality, privacy, and AI governance concepts into plain language.

Build trust with agency stakeholders and guide groups toward decisions, documented actions, and measurable progress.

Apply change management practices to support adoption of new roles, responsibilities, processes, and governance behaviors.

Develop business value cases for data governance initiatives.

Support governance documentation aligned to frameworks, policies, procedures, standards, controls, and audit expectations.

Understand data governance operating models, data ownership, data stewardship, metadata, data catalogs, data quality, data lifecycle management, data sharing, and data risk management.

Work independently while coordinating with the Enterprise Data Governance Manager, Data Governance Analyst, and agency stakeholders.

Produce clear, professional, executive-ready written products.

Preferred Qualifications

1. Experience supporting data governance, data management, enterprise information management, organizational change management, training, or stakeholder engagement programs.