Head of Data Governance
The Knot Worldwide
WHAT WE DO MATTERS:
At The Knot Worldwide, we champion celebration - and that starts with celebrating our people. Our employees are passionate dreamers, thoughtful doers, and lifelong learners who power meaningful moments for millions around the world. We’re united by authentic connection, shared purpose, and a deep commitment to the global community we serve. Here, flexibility and belonging go hand in hand with high performance. Driven by our core values, we believe the best ideas come from empowered teams: those who consistently collaborate with intention to design solutions, spark ideas, and drive impact. Our people are at the heart of our success.
ABOUT THE ROLE AND THE TEAM:
The Knot Worldwide is seeking a seasoned and strategic Head of Data Governance to lead our global data standards, privacy framework, and data quality initiatives. This critical role sits at the intersection of technology, analytics, and customer experience.
Reporting to the VP of Platform, Data, and Customer Experience, you will be responsible for defining the policies and technical guardrails that allow our engineering, marketing, and product teams to move fast while maintaining the highest standards of data integrity. You will lead the effort to treat data as a strategic product, ensuring that every customer interaction—from personalization to lifecycle messaging—is powered by accurate, ethical, and compliant data across our entire ecosystem.
Data is foundational to our customer experience, product velocity, financial accuracy, and AI transformation. The Head of Data Governance ensures that we can scale responsibly—with speed, trust, and confidence. This leader is the guardian of our most valuable asset, ensuring that as we grow, our data remains a strategic accelerator rather than a technical or regulatory bottleneck.
RESPONSIBILITIES:
- Access, Privacy & Compliance Ownership: Define and own the execution of global policies for PII, PCI, GDPR, SOC2, and CCPA. While partnering closely with Legal, Security, and Risk, you are the primary owner of policy execution and technical implementation.
- Data Strategy & Policy: Define internal vs. external data access protocols and establish technical standards for data collection, retention, and deletion across the global organization.
- Quality & Standards: Own the technical vision for data quality monitoring, metadata management, and the enterprise data dictionary to ensure a "Single Source of Truth" for core business metrics.
- Platform Integration: Collaborate with Platform Engineering to "bake" governance into our data pipelines, ensuring automated enforcement of data standards, lineage, and access controls.
- Data Stewardship & Culture: Establish and lead a cross-functional data governance council, fostering a culture where data ownership is distributed and understood across Product, Engineering, and Marketing.
- Executive Leadership: Navigate complex organizational dynamics with the ability to influence without authority. Effectively manage stakeholders while possessing the judgment to escalate to executive leadership when required to resolve critical blockers.
A SUCCESSFUL HEAD OF DATA GOVERNANCE CANDIDATES HAVE:
- Experience: 10+ years of progressive experience in data management, analytics, or engineering, including 5+ years leading data governance or data quality programs in high-traffic environments.
- Analytical Proficiency: Strong SQL and analytic skills; adept at hands-on data exploration to inform decisions, define metrics, and guide the optimization of data quality features.
- Executive Communication: Exceptional decision-making skills with the ability to translate complex technical and regulatory requirements into clear strategic choices for executive stakeholders.
- Background: A professional background spanning Engineering, Analytics, or Platform organizations, providing a holistic view of how data flows through a modern tech stack.
- Strategic Vision: Highly skilled at navigating complexity and influencing both technical and business leaders to align on long-term data standards and ethics.
PREFERRED EXPERIENCE:
- Modern Tooling: Hands-on experience with Snowflake, Data Catalogs (e.g., Atlan), and automated quality frameworks.
- CRM & MarTech: Experience governing data within high-scale CRM and engagement platforms like Salesforce and Braze.
- Industry Expertise: Background in Fintech, Marketplaces, or highly regulated industries where data security and accuracy are paramount.
- Advanced Governance: Exposure to AI/ML data governance and model lifecycle management (MLOps).
WHAT SUCCESS LOOKS LIKE IN 12 MONTHS:
- Clear Ownership: All critical datasets and core metrics have defined owners and documented definitions accessible to the entire company.
- Incident Resilience: Data quality incidents are rare, highly visible when they occur, and resolved through established, automated workflows.
- Unified Strategy: Product, Analytics, Finance, and AI teams are operating from a verified "Single Source of Truth."
- Regulatory Confidence: The organization maintains a high state of audit-readiness and compliance with global privacy standards (GDPR, CCPA, etc.).
Velocity: Data governance is recognized as an accelerator for innovation, enabling teams to access and use data faster because the guardrails are clear and automated.
WORK MODEL:
This role is Together@TKWW-eligible. If you’re based in NYC, we follow a hybrid schedule, balancing in-office collaboration of days a week and work-from-home flexibility. If you’re in Austin, this position is remote for now, with the potential to shift to a hybrid model as our local team grows.
At The Knot Worldwide, we believe you are more than a resume and invite you to go for it, take the leap of faith, and apply for this job. Together, we have an incredible opportunity to make it even easier for our customers to plan life’s most meaningful moments and for our small business owners to grow and scale. We would love to have you with us on our journey.
WHAT WE LOVE ABOUT YOU:
- Commit to our customers: You act as one team on behalf of our customers. You lead with head and heart, and build what matters for life's most meaningful moments.
- Raise the bar: You define "great" and work backwards. You don't just accept how it's been done, but boldly define how it should be. You are unafraid to innovate, learn, and keep moving forward toward our shared vision.
- Be all in: You believe in our mission and take ownership of your work. You debate openly to reach the best outcomes, speaking with clarity and care, embracing diverse perspectives, then commit fully.
- Celebrate impact: You measure success by the outcomes you create. You hold yourself accountable to delivering value, while recognizing progress and the lessons learned along the way. You love to win, together.
WHAT YOU LOVE ABOUT US:
We believe in a wide range of holistic offerings to support our employees so that they can live our values day in and day out. From mental wellbeing, physical health and financial planning, to engaging perks and discounts, we are in the business of celebrating and supporting the Moments that Matter, both in and out of the office.. We offer flexible vacation, generous parental leave, and prioritize initiatives that support the growth, development, and happiness of our people.
- For Together@TKWW-eligible roles, this includes regular in-office time to foster collaboration and connection.
- For roles not eligible for in-office expectations, we support connection through virtual collaboration and intentional gatherings.
To facilitate in-person collaboration, we have office spaces in Barcelona, Spain; Delhi, India; Galway, Ireland; London, England; New York, NY; and Washington, D.C.
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US Notice: The Knot Worldwide provides equal employment opportunities (EEO) to all employees and applicants for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, national origin, age, or disability. In addition to federal law requirements, The Knot Worldwide complies with applicable state and local laws governing nondiscrimination in employment in every location in which the company has facilities. The Knot Worldwide expressly prohibits any form of workplace harassment based on race, color, religion, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, national origin, age, genetic information, disability, or veteran status.
Privacy Notice: The Knot Worldwide (TKWW) processes your personal data to evaluate your application, based on the legal ground of taking steps prior to entering into a potential employment contract. Only the data strictly necessary for this purpose is collected. In some cases, your data may also be processed based on TKWW’s legitimate interests (e.g., to improve recruitment practices or manage candidate pools), to which you can object at any time. You have the right to access, rectify, or delete your data, and to object to certain uses. To learn more about your rights, please consult our The Knot Worldwide (TKWW) processes your personal data to evaluate your application, based on the legal ground of taking steps prior to entering into a potential employment contract. Only the data strictly necessary for this purpose is collected. In some cases, your data may also be processed based on TKWW’s legitimate interests (e.g., to improve recruitment practices or manage candidate pools), to which you can object at any time. You have the right to access, rectify, or delete your data, and to object to certain uses. To learn more about your rights, please consult our Privacy Policy. If you wish to file a complaint, you may contact the competent data protection authority. If you wish to file a complaint, you may contact the competent data protection authority.