Sr Director, AI Data Governance & Strategy

Your Career

We are looking for a Senior Director to serve as the enterprise authority on Data Governance at Palo Alto Networks. You will own the strategy and execution of a scaled program serving as the primary arbiter of data integrity to ensure our ecosystem is authoritative auditable and prepared for the unique demands of addition you will also lead programs to drive adoption of Enterprise AI products and services. 

This role is for a program owner with a technical spine who can bridge the gap between business policy and technical execution. You will lead a framework covering both Business Governance (policy stewardship traceability) and Technical Governance (quality lineage observability) balancing high-level business acumen with deep technical fluency.

Beyond traditional oversight you will lead AI Governance while leveraging AI itself to automate and modernize the program. You will partner with engineering to define what to build ensuring our governance platform and AI products are effectively adopted. We seek a leader with a proven track record in enterprise SaaS who has the authority to break ties hold cross-functional teams accountable and drive complex AI initiatives to successful outcomes.

Your Impact

Enterprise Governance Program Ownership: Lead the strategy and end-to-end execution of a scaled dual-track program. You will own Business Governance (stewardship policy and metadata traceability) and Technical Governance (data quality lineage and observability) ensuring the enterprise data ecosystem is authoritative and auditable.

Governance Rituals & Councils: Establish and lead the operational rhythm of governance across the company. You will chair Data Governance Councils and Stewardship Committees fostering a culture of shared accountability and ensuring that data policies are effectively implemented across all business domains.

Defining the Technical Roadmap: Partner deeply with IT Engineering and Product teams to define what is built for governance. Using your technical chops and understanding of business needs you will drive the technical roadmap to ensure our governance platform provides the infrastructure required for both compliance and AI enablement.

Executive Transparency & Communication: Serve as a trusted advisor to Senior Leadership providing clear data-backed reporting on the health progress and risks of the enterprise data ecosystem. You will translate complex technical governance issues into business impact ensuring executive alignment and securing the necessary support for strategic data initiatives.

AI Modernization & Scale: Leverage AI to modernize and scale the governance program itself. You will implement AI-driven automation for metadata tagging data quality monitoring and policy enforcement moving the program from manual stewardship to a scalable automated platform.

AI Product Adoption & Governance: Drive the transition of high-potential AI products from early pilots into full-scale deployment. 

Qualifications :

Your Experience

• Enterprise Governance Leadership: 12 years of experience leading complex data and governance initiatives within a large-scale enterprise SaaS environment. You have a proven track record of navigating the unique data complexities of a multi-billion dollar software business.
• Scaled Governance Mastery: Demonstrated experience designing and running an Enterprise Data Governance program. You have successfully led governance rituals including Data Councils and Stewardship Committees and have a history of establishing Systems of Truth across conflicting business domains.
• Technical Data Spine: Deep fluency in Data Architecture Lineage and Metadata Management. You understand the physics of data well enough to define technical requirements for engineering teams and can hold your own in debates regarding SOR SSOT architecture data contracts and observability.
• Cross-Functional Authority: Proven ability to break ties and hold teams accountable. You have successfully reconciled high-stakes logic conflicts between Finance GTM and Engineering (e.g. Booking-to-ARR or Customer Master definitions) and can communicate these outcomes effectively to the C-suite.
• Product Adoption: Experience driving the enterprise-wide adoption of AI or Data products. You know how to move beyond a POC to ensure a product is operationally sound and delivers measurable value to business users.
• AI Sophistication: Strong familiarity with the AI/ML lifecycle and the specific governance needs of Generative AI. Examples: You understand how to govern unstructured data provenance for RAG pipelines monitor performance with evals  and have a vision for managing agent registries and model transparency.
• Modernization Mindset: A track record of using AI and automation to modernize governance. You have successfully moved programs away from manual spreadsheet-based stewardship toward automated self-healing platforms.
• Education: Bachelors degree in a technical field (CS Math Engineering) is required; an Advanced Degree (MBA or MS) is highly preferred.
• Location: Must be local to SF bay area.

Additional Information :

The Team

Our shared mission to safeguard our digital way of life unites and drives us. You will join a multinational team building data and data science solutions to unlock significant business potential and boost productivity by resolving complex data problems. This involves developing innovative algorithms predictive models conducting advanced statistical analysis and engineering scalable data pipelines. Your work will ultimately lead to data products and actionable insights that empower decision-making across the organization. You will be at the forefront of leveraging cutting-edge technologies and methodologies.

We believe in using AI to amplify not replace human intellect. We expect you to champion this mindset. You and your team will leverage the best tools availablefrom generative AI for code and analysis to agentic data science frameworksto accelerate your impact.

Compensation Disclosure

The compensation offered for this position will depend on qualifications experience and work location. For candidates who receive an offer at the posted level the starting base salary (for non-sales roles) or base salary commission target (for sales/commissioned roles) is expected to be between $241000 - $344500/YR. The offered compensation may also include restricted stock units and a bonus. A description of our employee benefits may be found here.

Our Commitment

Were problem solvers that take risks and challenge cybersecuritys status quo. Its simple: we cant accomplish our mission without diverse teams innovating together.

We are committed to providing reasonable accommodations for all qualified individuals with a disability. If you require assistance or accommodation due to a disability or special need please contact us at  .

Palo Alto Networks is an equal opportunity employer. We celebrate diversity in our workplace and all qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to age ancestry color family or medical care leave gender identity or expression genetic information marital status medical condition national origin physical or mental disability political affiliation protected veteran status race religion sex (including pregnancy) sexual orientation or other legally protected characteristics.

All your information will be kept confidential according to EEO guidelines.

Remote Work :

No

Employment Type :

Full-time