Senior Director, Data Governance and Management

Job title

Senior Director, Data Governance and Management

Department

Technology & Data

Reports to

Executive Vice President, Technology & Data

Salary range

$146,000 – $190,000

Job type

Full-Time, Permanent, Hybrid working 2-3 days per week

Location

Toronto, Ontario

Posting period

Monday, November 23, 2026

The opportunity

Are you motivated by the chance to help ensure all young people in Canada can access mental health support and Feel Out Loud? Kids Help Phone (KHP) is Canada’s Unlock The Hope Youth Charity. We’re the first and Canada's only national 24/7, free, confidential, and multilingual e-mental health service for youth and a global leader in innovation for youth and their well-being.

The Senior Director, Data Governance and Management leads Kids Help Phone’s enterprise data strategy, governance, and management functions, ensuring data is governed, protected, and leveraged as a strategic asset. Reporting to the EVP, Technology & Data, this role is accountable for data governance, quality, stewardship, architecture, analytics governance, lifecycle management, responsible data use, and AI readiness.

Working across leadership, clinical services, research, privacy, legal, and operational teams, the Senior Director establishes enterprise standards, drives the evolution of KHP’s Data Operating Model, and strengthens organizational data capabilities. The role provides strategic leadership on data-related risks, opportunities, and investments, ensuring data practices support organizational goals, innovation, service excellence, and the trust of youth seeking support. It’ll take courage, collaboration, innovation, resilience and trust. If you’re interested in transforming e-mental health solutions with KHP, you can explore this opportunity today!

The responsibilities

Enterprise Data Strategy:

• Develop and lead KHP’s enterprise data strategy and multi-year roadmap, aligning data, analytics, and AI capabilities with organizational priorities.
• Define the vision for data governance, architecture, quality, accessibility, and responsible AI adoption.
• Advise senior leadership on emerging trends, opportunities, risks, and investments related to data and AI.

Enterprise Leadership & Decision Authority:

• Serve as the organization’s senior leader for data governance and management.
• Establish enterprise data standards, accountability frameworks, and governance requirements.
• Provide strategic guidance on data-related risks, investments, priorities, and key organizational decisions.
• Resolve complex, cross-functional issues related to data ownership, quality, metrics, and reporting.

Data Governance & Operating Model:

• Lead and evolve KHP’s Data Operating Model, governance frameworks, and enterprise-wide adoption.
• Establish clear roles, responsibilities, and decision-making processes for data governance and stewardship.
• Identify and mitigate emerging data, technology, and AI-related risks.
• Drive KHP’s data transformation journey, advancing organizational data maturity and governance capabilities.

Data Ownership & Stewardship:

• Lead the enterprise data stewardship program across business and service areas.
• Define stewardship practices, training, and accountability expectations.
• Resolve cross-functional issues related to data ownership, quality, access, lifecycle management, and reporting.

Data Quality, Metrics & Analytics:

• Oversee data quality, reporting, business intelligence, and analytics governance.
• Establish standards for critical data elements, business definitions, metrics, and reporting consistency.
• Advance data and analytics capabilities to support evidence-based decision-making and innovation.
• Oversee internal staff and external vendor support for ongoing development, optimization, and maintenance of data infrastructure and pipelines

Data Sources, Lifecycle & Responsible Use:

• Define governance requirements for data sourcing, retention, lifecycle management, and responsible use.
• Support governance processes for research, data sharing, analytics, AI-enabled initiatives, and regulatory compliance.
• Ensure data practices align with privacy, security, legal, and ethical standards.

Governance, Adoption & Organizational Capability:

• Chair enterprise data governance and stewardship forums and drive accountability across the organization.
• Monitor adoption of governance practices and report on key risks, outcomes, and performance measures.
• Lead stakeholder engagement, communications, and training to strengthen enterprise data literacy and capability.
• Provide leadership and oversight for data governance programs, priorities, resources, and investments.

The qualifications

• Minimum 12 years of progressively senior experience in data governance, data management, analytics, information management or related enterprise data disciplines, including significant experience in senior leadership roles with enterprise-wide accountability.
• Demonstrated leadership experience overseeing complex data, governance or operating-model transformation programs and leading program or project delivery professionals.
• Demonstrated experience designing or operationalizing a data governance framework, stewardship model, decision-rights model or enterprise data standards.
• Strong understanding of data ownership, stewardship, data definitions, data quality, metadata, lineage, lifecycle and metric governance.
• Experience optimizing and modernizing data architecture to enhance reliability, consistency and availability of data to end users.
• Demonstrated experience leading leaders and multidisciplinary teams, including establishing functional strategy, organizational capabilities, performance expectations and succession plans.
• Experience facilitating cross-functional decisions where business, technology, privacy, legal, risk and operational perspectives must be reconciled.
• Experience advising executives and senior governance bodies on complex data strategy, risk, investment and organizational decisions.
• Experience overseeing significant vendor relationships, technology investments and/or enterprise transformation budgets.
• Strong understanding of modern data platforms, cloud data architecture, analytics and BI ecosystems, including platforms such as Power BI and Databricks, and the governance implications of emerging AI capabilities.
• Ability to convert complex governance, risk and technical requirements into practical roles, standards, workflows and decision tools.
• Strong written communication, facilitation, stakeholder management and executive presentation skills.
• Sound judgement when working with sensitive information, ambiguity and competing organizational priorities.
• University degree in data/information management, computer science, information systems, business, engineering, health informatics or a related discipline, or an equivalent combination of advanced professional experience and education. Graduate-level education is an asset.

Preferred / Advantageous

• Demonstrated experience operating in complex, highly sensitive or regulated data environments; experience with health, clinical, youth or similarly sensitive data environments strongly preferred.
• Knowledge of Canadian privacy requirements, research governance, Indigenous data governance and responsible AI governance.
• Experience governing enterprise metrics, reporting products, Power BI, cloud data platforms, data catalogues or lineage capabilities.
• Relevant certification or training such as DAMA/CDMP, DCAM, privacy, risk, audit or data management certification.
• Experience establishing a new governance function and transitioning responsibilities from a transformation program into ongoing operations.

Don’t meet every qualification listed? Studies often report equity-deserving people are less likely to apply for jobs unless they meet every requirement. KHP is dedicated to building a more diverse, inclusive and authentic workplace, so if you’re excited about this role, but your experience doesn’t align with every qualification, we welcome you to apply anyway. You may have the qualifications / experience for this role or other opportunities at KHP!

The application process

To apply for this opportunity, you can tap the “Apply” button on this page and follow the on-screen instructions.

About KHP, Canada’s Unlock The Hope Youth Charity

Kids Help Phone (KHP) is Canada’s only free, national, 24/7, multilingual and confidential e-mental health service for youth to get help and Feel Out Loud. Since 1989, KHP has been the empowering, trusted changemaker giving young people’s feelings, big and small, a non-judgmental place to go through personalized well-being solutions. A made-in-Canada, global leader, KHP continually evolves by blending data, innovation and technology with real human support and clinical knowledge to unlock the hope young people need to thrive in their world. Explore help for all the feelings at KidsHelpPhone.ca.

Inclusion, Diversity, Equity and Accessibility (IDEA)

KHP has a role to play in effecting social change and advancing equity. This is why the practice of IDEA is critical to us. KHP has a long history of celebrating and advancing IDEA through our tailored programs, services, policies, initiatives and task forces with contributions and leadership from teams across the organization. We will not waver on these commitments and will continue leading the way in making the workplace, and the world young people live in, more inclusive, diverse, equitable and accessible.

We believe it’s critical that our services empower everyone who interacts with us to bring their authentic selves to an environment of mutual respect. An open and diverse community can foster the inclusion and amplification of voices that have been, and continue to be, underrepresented.

As such, we welcome applicants from equity-deserving communities (e.g. Indigenous Peoples, racialized persons, persons with disabilities, women, 2SLGBTQ+ individuals, etc.). We strongly believe that alleviating the underrepresentation of equity-deserving groups will help create a stronger KHP and help us better support the needs of youth from coast to coast to coast.

To learn more about how we are committed to advancing IDEA, you can explore KHP’s IDEA 2023–2027 Strategy and Action Plan.

Accommodations

KHP welcomes applications from people living with disabilities. Reasonable accommodations are available upon request during any phase of the application / hiring process. If you’re contacted about an opportunity, you can reply and let us know if you require accommodations at any time.

Compensation and benefits

Salaries at KHP are determined by candidate experience, qualifications and specific skill sets, as well as market and operational considerations. Potential additional benefits at KHP include:

• Hybrid work model
• Comprehensive Employee Benefits Program
• Emergency Travel Assistance
• CAAT Pension Plan
• Wellness programs
• Recognition awards
• Employee and Family Assistance Program (EFAP)

Candidate verification

The successful candidate for this opportunity will be asked to complete a background screen, which may include criminal, credit, employment and educational checks. All offers of employment are conditional on the receipt of satisfactory results of any applicable check.

Privacy

KHP cares about your privacy! We’re required to save select information about opportunities, applications and interviews for set periods of time. To learn more, you can explore KHP’s Privacy Policy or contact us using our general form.

Message to agencies

KHP doesn’t accept unsolicited phone calls, referrals and / or resumes from any source other than directly from candidates. KHP won’t consider unsolicited phone calls, referrals and / or resumes from vendors including and without limitation, search firms, staffing agencies, fee-based referral services and recruiting agencies. The submission of unsolicited referrals and / or resumes by anyone other than a candidate directly to KHP is deemed gratuitous. KHP won’t be obligated or bound in any way to pay a referral or any other fee if a person referred to us from a source other than a direct candidate is subsequently hired.