Director Master Data Management Jobs in California

Job Summary:
KLA is a global leader in diversified electronics for the semiconductor manufacturing ecosystem. They are seeking a Director of Data Governance to establish and scale a modern data governance capability, design a governance framework, and enable trusted data across various teams to support compliance and operational excellence.
Responsibilities:
• Define and implement an enterprise data governance vision aligned to business strategy, regulatory needs, and digital/AI ambitions.
• Design a scalable governance framework covering data domains, ownership, stewardship, policies, standards, controls, and decision rights.
• Establish a pragmatic governance maturity roadmap, balancing speed-to-value with long-term sustainability.
• Define and stand-up the data governance operating model, including roles (data owners, data stewards, custodians), forums, and escalation paths.
• Lead the formation of a cross-functional Data Governance Council and domain-level working groups.
• Drive adoption through clear incentives, lightweight processes, and embedded governance within business workflows.
• Enable harmonization and interoperability across key enterprise domains (e.g., customer, supplier, product, asset, manufacturing, service, finance) while respecting strong functional ownership.
• Define master and reference data concepts, ownership, and synchronization approaches in the absence of a formal MDM tool.
• Partner with enterprise architecture and application teams to embed governance into system design and integration patterns.
• Establish data quality management practices, including critical data elements, quality rules, monitoring, and remediation workflows.
• Define enterprise data standards, naming conventions, and semantic alignment to support analytics and AI use cases.
• Lead implementation of metadata management practices (business, technical, and operational metadata), including data lineage and glossary development.
• Develop an assurance process for the Design Basis Information (foundational business and compliance decisions, data and specifications) associated with each critical data element to ensure that our products and processes continue to meet regulatory standards.
• Develop and maintain data-related policies and standards (e.g., data access, classification, retention, privacy, and usage).
• Partner with Legal, Security, Privacy, and Compliance teams to ensure governance supports regulatory and contractual requirements.
• Support audit readiness and risk mitigation related to data.
• Define governance requirements for tools supporting metadata, quality, lineage, and master/reference data.
• Evaluate and recommend governance and data management tooling as needed, without assuming immediate MDM deployment.
• Ensure governance is embedded into analytics platforms, ERP, PLM, MES, CRM, and digital platforms.
• Drive cultural adoption of data as an enterprise asset through communication, training, and executive engagement.
• Translate governance concepts into business-relevant outcomes for manufacturing, supply chain, service, engineering, and commercial teams.
• Act as a trusted advisor to senior leaders on data-related decisions and tradeoffs.
Qualifications:
Required:
• 12+ years of experience in data management, data governance, analytics, or related disciplines, with at least 5 years in a senior governance leadership role.
• Direct experience operating within a mature, enterprise-scale data governance environment.
• Demonstrated success building or transforming a data governance capability in a complex, federated organization.
• Strong understanding of data governance frameworks and practical, real-world application.
• Experience governing data across multiple enterprise domains without a fully centralized MDM solution.
• Proven ability to influence senior stakeholders and lead through ambiguity and change.
• Experience in semiconductor, capital equipment, advanced manufacturing, or industrial technology environments and/or experience in a regulated operating environment (medical devices, utilities, government, etc.)
• Familiarity with ERP, PLM, MES, CRM, and analytics platforms common in manufacturing ecosystems.
• Experience supporting analytics, AI/ML, or digital transformation initiatives through strong data foundations.
• Prior ownership of data quality, metadata management, or master/reference data programs.
• Bachelor's Level Degree with a minimum of 12 years of relevant experience OR Master's Level Degree with a minimum of 10 years of relevant experience.
Preferred:
• Experience in semiconductor, capital equipment, advanced manufacturing, or industrial technology environments and/or experience in a regulated operating environment (medical devices, utilities, government, etc.)
• Familiarity with ERP, PLM, MES, CRM, and analytics platforms common in manufacturing ecosystems.
• Experience supporting analytics, AI/ML, or digital transformation initiatives through strong data foundations.
• Prior ownership of data quality, metadata management, or master/reference data programs.
Company:
Kla creates tools and services that promote innovation in the electronics industry. Founded in 1975, the company is headquartered in Milpitas, USA, with a team of 10001+ employees. The company is currently Late Stage.