SAP Center of Excellence (COE) - Master Data Governance Specialist / Data Governance & Quality Analyst

The Master Data Governance Specialist / Data Governance & Quality Analyst is responsible for establishing, enforcing, and continuously improving data governance standards and data quality controls across enterprise systems (e.g., SAP S/4HANA and downstream platforms).

Goal of function:

Act as the liaison between business process owners, functional consultants, and the offshore/onshore technical team to ensure consistent application of data governance, data quality, and information governance practices across systems and tools.

Roles and Responsibilities

1. Data Governance Framework & Policies

• Support definition and implementation of:
  • Data governance policies
  • Data standards
  • Naming conventions
  • Data ownership and stewardship models
• Ensure data domains (e.g., Customer, Vendor, Material, Finance) have:
  • Defined owners
  • Clear business rules
  • Approval workflows
• Enforce governance processes for:
  • Data creation
  • Data change
  • Data deactivation
• Support implementation and ongoing maintenance of information governance tooling (e.g., Collibra or similar platforms), including:
  • Business glossaries and data definitions
  • Data domain, ownership, and stewardship metadata
  • Data policies, standards, and rule documentation
  • Lineage, classification, and critical data element (CDE) attributes (where applicable)

2. Data Quality Management

• Define and maintain data quality rules (accuracy, completeness, validity, timeliness).
• Perform regular:
  • Data profiling
  • Data validation
  • Reconciliation checks
• Identify:
  • Data defects
  • Root causes
  • Process gaps
• Drive corrective and preventive actions with IT and business teams.

3. Monitoring & Reporting

• Develop and maintain data quality dashboards and KPIs.
• Publish and maintain governance and data quality metrics, definitions, and ownership information within information governance platforms for leadership visibility and audit readiness.
• Report on:
  • Data quality trends
  • Compliance with standards
  • High-risk data issues
• Provide insights to leadership on:
  • Data risks
  • Improvement opportunities

4. Stakeholder Engagement

• Internal:
• Business Data Owners
• Data Stewards
• SAP COE / IT
• Analytics & Reporting teams
• Risk, Audit, and Compliance teams
• Responsibilities:
• Act as a trusted advisor on data quality and governance.
• Facilitate governance forums and working groups.
• Educate stakeholders on:
  • Data standards
  • Roles and responsibilities
  • Best practices
• Support and enable Data Owners and Data Stewards in using information governance tools by defining standards, templates, and usage guidelines.

5. Process & Control Integration

• Embed data governance into:
  • Business processes
  • System workflows
  • Change management
• Ensure data controls align with:
  • SOX
  • GDPR
  • Regulatory requirements
• Support audits and regulatory reviews related to data.

6. Continuous Improvement

• Identify opportunities to:
  • Automate data quality checks
  • Reduce manual data corrections
  • Improve data lifecycle management
• Support:
  • Master Data Governance (MDG) initiatives
  • Data transformation programs
  • S/4HANA or ERP modernization efforts
• Contribute to the evolution and adoption of information governance tooling capabilities in collaboration with Data Leads, IT, and tool vendors.

7. Act as primary point of contact for data issues

• Communicate data risks and impacts to business
• Provide data quality and performance reporting

Qualifications and experience

Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in Computer Science, Information Technology, Data Management or a related field.

Required professional experience

• 15+ years in SAP Master data management, specifically in S/4HANA implementation or support.
• Proven experience in SAP domains: Material Master, Business Partner (Customer/Vendor), or Finance

Important personal qualities:

• Strong stewardship mindset:  Acts as a custodian of enterprise data, ensuring accuracy, consistency, and adherence to governance standards.
• Analytical and detail-oriented: Demonstrates high rigor in defining, validating, and monitoring data quality rules, metrics, and controls.
• Structured and methodical: Applies disciplined approaches to data profiling, issue analysis, root cause identification, and documentation.
• Influence without authority: Effectively guides data owners, stewards, and stakeholders toward governance compliance through expertise and collaboration.
• Clear and precise communicator: Translates complex data concepts, rules, and quality findings into clear, actionable guidance for business and technical audiences.
• Policy- and control-conscious: Understands regulatory, audit, and compliance expectations and embeds them into governance practices and artifacts.
• Collaborative and facilitative: Works constructively across business, IT, and analytics teams to align definitions, standards, and quality outcomes.
• Tool- and process-oriented: Values structured use of governance and data quality tools and processes to ensure transparency and repeatability.
• Continuous improvement mindset: Proactively identifies opportunities to strengthen governance frameworks, data quality controls, and lifecycle management.
• Professional persistence: Demonstrates patience and consistency in enforcing standards and driving adoption in complex, matrixed environments.

IT skills

• Strong hands-on experience in SAP Master data Management configuration, Business Partner (BP) setup, and Data Replication Framework (DRF).
• Experience with SAP Information Steward, SAP Data Services, or similar data profiling tools.
• Knowledge of SAP modules (MM, SD, FICO) and how master data impacts end-to-end business processes.Experience with Business Rules Framework Plus (BRF+) and workflow modelling.
• Hands-on experience with information governance or metadata management platforms (e.g., Collibra, Alation, Microsoft Purview, or similar).
• Excellent analytical and problem-solving abilities, with high attention to detail, Effective communication skills for interacting with business stakeholders and technical teams, Ability to manage multiple tasks, tickets, and priorities in a fast-paced AMS environment and experience documenting data policies, functional specifications, and data dictionaries.

Core SAP & Technical Skills

• Strong expertise in SAP S/4HANA Run Operations
• Solid understanding of:
  • SAP Finance (FI/CO)
  • SAP Logistics (MM, SD, PP, WM/EWM)
  • SAP Basis & Technical Operations
  • SAP Fiori, Authorizations, Interfaces
• Familiarity with SAP Solution Manager, Focused Run, ChaRM
• Understanding of SAP integrations (CPI, PI/PO, third-party systems)

SAP Products

• SAP S/4HANA
• SAP BW/4HANA / SAC
• SAP Solution Manager / Focused Run
• SAP Fiori & UI5
• SAP CPI / PI-PO
• Supporting Platforms
• ITSM tools (ServiceNow preferred)
• Monitoring tools (SAP ALM, APM, AIOps)
• Cloud platforms (AWS / Azure / GCP – SAP workloads)

Other Requirements:

• Travel upto 20% can be expected
• Ability to support CET timezone (End state will include US as well, need to revisit this at a later time)