Senior Consultant – Data Strategy, Governance

**Job Title: Senior Consultant – Data Strategy, Governance & DataOps

Location: Abu Dhabi / Dubai

Department: Advisory Services
Role Summary**
As a Senior Consultant in Data Strategy, Governance & DataOps, you will lead client engagements that bridge data privacy, analytics, AI readiness, and operational data excellence. You'll help organizations design and implement integrated data frameworks that satisfy global compliance requirements (GDPR, CCPA, ISO/IEC 27701, UAE data laws) while enabling scalable, secure, and intelligent data capabilities—from analytics to AI deployment.

You'll work across legal, IT, data engineering, and business functions to ensure data is not only protected and compliant, but also discoverable, trustworthy, and ready for innovation. This role is central to our 2026 strategic expansion into end-to-end data and AI consultancy, with a unique focus on privacy-aware DataOps—a differentiator in today's market.

Key Responsibilities

• Conduct Privacy Impact Assessments (PIAs) and Data Protection Impact Assessments (DPIAs), embedding privacy-by-design into analytics and AI workflows.
• Design and implement enterprise-wide data classification, lineage, and mapping frameworks that serve both compliance and analytics use cases.
• Analyse end-to-end data flows across M365, Azure, SaaS, and on-prem systems, identifying risks and opportunities for optimization.
• Develop and maintain Records of Processing Activities (RoPA) aligned with regulatory and business needs.
• Advise on secure data lifecycle management, including retention, archival, anonymization, and ethical data use.
• Collaborate with data engineering and analytics teams to align governance policies with DataOps practices such as data pipeline observability, CI/CD for data, and metadata management.
• Support the design of cloud-based data architectures (e.g., Azure Synapse, Purview, Data Factory) that integrate access control, quality monitoring, and privacy controls.
• Facilitate client workshops on data governance maturity, AI ethics, and DataOps adoption.
• Translate regulatory requirements into actionable technical and operational deliverables from policy to pipeline.
• Assist in incident response, breach analysis, and regulatory reporting with deep data context.
• Guide clients in building AI-ready data foundations where compliance enables not limits innovation.

Required Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in data science, Computer Science, Information Systems, Information Security, or a related field.
• 4–6 years of experience in data privacy, data governance, data architecture, analytics, or DataOps ideally in a consulting or regulated industry (financial services, healthcare, government, etc.).
• Demonstrated experience in data classification, lineage mapping, and cross-system data flow analysis.
• Strong working knowledge of GDPR, CCPA, ISO/IEC 27001 & 27701, and familiarity with UAE data protection frameworks (e.g., ADHICS, DIFC DP Law).
• Hands-on exposure to cloud data platforms (Microsoft Azure preferred), including tools like Purview, Synapse, Power BI, or Azure Data Factory.
• Understanding of DataOps principles: data pipeline automation, testing, monitoring, and versioning.
• Excellent communication, facilitation, and stakeholder management skills with the ability to explain technical concepts to legal, business, and executive audiences.

Preferred Certifications

• CIPP/E or CIPP/US (Certified Information Privacy Professional)
• CIPM (Certified Information Privacy Manager)
• ISO/IEC 27701 Lead Implementer or Auditor
• Microsoft Certified: Azure Data Engineer Associate or Azure Security Engineer Associate
• DAMA-DMBOK Foundation or CDMP (optional but valued)

Desirable Skills

• Experience delivering integrated data transformation programs that combine compliance, analytics, and engineering.
• Familiarity with AI governance, model risk management, or responsible AI frameworks.
• Exposure to infrastructure-as-code (IaC), DevOps pipelines, or data observability tools (e.g., Great Expectations, Monte Carlo).
• Ability to work across Microsoft 365 and Azure ecosystems with a security-first mindset.
• Fluency in Arabic is a plus, given the regional client base.