Master Data Governance Manager / MDM Lead

Own and operate ISP’s enterprise Master Data Management (MDM) and Master Data Governance capability, establishing a single, trusted set of mastered identities and hierarchies for core entities including students, households/parents, staff, schools, programmes, courses, and vendors.

This role is accountable for turning governance into a living operational capability: stewardship networks, decision forums, survivorship rules, identity alignment, data quality operations, and golden record certification.

The role underpins delivery of:

• Unified Data Spine
• Canonical Data Model (CDM)
• Unified Student Profile (USP)
• Unified Customer / Household Profile (UCP)
• Certified KPIs and single route-to-insight

Scope and complexity:

• Enterprise-wide, multi-country environment
• Federated delivery model with central governance
• Operates across ERP, HRIS, SIS, CRM, EdTech, Finance and Learning platforms
• Acts as enterprise authority for master data and governance decisions

This is a hybrid role - with 2 days per week in our Wimbledon office.

ISP Principles

• Begin with our children and students. Our children and students are at the heart of what we do. Simply, their success is our success.
• Wellbeing and safety are both essential for learners and learning. Therefore, we are consistent in identifying potential safeguarding and Health & Safety issues and acting and following up on all concerns appropriately.
• Treat everyone with care and respect. We look after one another, embrace similarities and differences and promote the well-being of self and others.
• Operate effectively. We focus relentlessly on the things that are most important and will make the most difference.
• Are financially responsible. We make financial choices carefully based on the needs of the children, students and our schools.
• Learn continuously. Getting better is what drives us.

Key Responsibilities

• Design and own the end-to-end master data governance framework
• Establish Master Data Governance Council and domain working groups
• Define stewardship model (Group domain owners, Regional Data Stewards, School Data Leads)
• Define RACI, decision rights and escalation routes
• Establish governance cadence, agendas and decision logs
• Identify and prioritise master data domains and entities
• Define canonical entity definitions, attributes, hierarchies and permissible values
• Own master data dictionary and definitions catalogue
• Define and maintain System-of-Record (SoR) mappings
• Prevent parallel or conflicting entity definitions by enforcing a single approved enterprise definition per mastered entity
• Define survivorship rules and conflict resolution logic
• Define match/merge thresholds and confidence scoring
• Approve survivorship logic through governance
• Ensure alignment to identity resolution architecture
• Define data quality dimensions, rules and thresholds
• Establish DQ scorecards and monitoring
• Define root-cause categories
• Operate remediation workflow and cadence
• Identify and onboard stewards across functions and regions
• Provide playbooks, training and tooling guidance
• Ensure stewards actively participate in remediation and decisioning
• Ensure privacy-by-design is embedded into mastered entities
• Define access models for golden records
• Partner with Cyber Security & Privacy Manager on DPIA implications
• Define golden record certification criteria
• Maintain golden record register
• Gate usage of mastered entities into analytics and operational workflows
• Prioritise golden entities required for early-warning retention, attendance, wellbeing and fee-risk models
• Approve enterprise data definitions for mastered entities
• Approve SoR mappings and survivorship rules
• Approve changes to mastered entity structures
• Approve whether an entity is certified as a golden record
• Suspend or block downstream consumption of master data where governance or DQ thresholds are not met

Skills, Qualifications and Experience

• 8–10+ years in MDM / data governance / data management roles
• Hands-on experience implementing stewardship and survivorship models
• Strong experience working with business stewards
• Pragmatic, delivery-oriented governance operator
• Structured, precise thinking
• Strong facilitation and decisioning
• Comfortable with ambiguity
• Outcome-focused

ISP Commitment to Safeguarding Principles

ISP is committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children and young people and expects all staff and volunteers to share this commitment. All post holders are subject to appropriate vetting procedures, including an online due diligence search, references and satisfactory Criminal Background Checks or equivalent covering the previous 10 years’ employment history.

ISP Commitment to Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging

ISP is committed to strengthening our inclusive culture by identifying, hiring, developing, and retaining high-performing teammates regardless of gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation and gender expression, age, disability status, neurodivergence, socio-economic background or other demographic characteristics. Candidates who share our vision and principles and are interested in contributing to the success of ISP through this role are strongly encouraged to apply.