The role:

This role will be an extension of the Finance & Accounting Control Team and will be responsible to partner with data producers to apply the power of data & analytics to deliver new insights and data-driven solutions to accelerate business outcomes. This role will report to the Sr Director, SOX Governance. In this role you will deliver trusted data to the organization in line with ongoing evolution in company strategy; ensuring stability, quality and meeting the needs to power the organization.

This role will enable the use of data for better strategic decision-making by understanding and addressing the data and analytics needs of stakeholders. The leader in this role is expected to reduce operational friction through standardized, repeatable processes and common approaches to data and analytics issues, to ensure transparency through coordination of efforts to manage risks for data and analytics use within the Finance & Accounting team. 

The Data Steward will manage and oversee Finance & Accounting data assets to help provide high-quality data that is easily accessible in a consistent manner. Be responsible for customer, supplier, and product master data-related activities to ensure our data is complete, accurate, and follows data governance policies. This role will be responsible for cleansing, and enriching master data across multiple data domains.  

This role will help develop procedures that ensure data assets and associated analytics meet certain criteria necessary for Finance & Accounting processes to enhance data and analytics accuracy, increase data timeliness, and improve protection of sensitive data.

What you’ll do: 

Key Responsibilities of a Data Owner at SoFi

Data Governance:

• Ensure compliance with Enterprise Data Governance Policies and Standards as it relates to data production, aggregation and consumption of data
• Operationalize data governance processes in partnership with data owners across the company
• Contribute effectively to the execution of the Enterprise Data Strategy, Critical Data Element (CDE) management and related efforts.
• Establish and maintain related business data specifications and requirements and data standards.
• Partner with data producers and IT Group to implement data standards, business rules and Data Quality (“DQ”) issues and escalation procedures.
• Facilitate and support education and ongoing training in Enterprise data management policies and procedures.

Metadata Management:

• Be the Subject Matter Expert (SME) for the data domain and data attributes. Working with functional units to identify business terms, define rules and standards, lineage mapping and socialize progress among stakeholders throughout the department.
• Develop and maintain data conceptual and logical glossaries and work with IT Group to develop or relate technical glossaries.
• Work with Business Process Owners and the Data Governance User Group(s) to identify, classify and define each assigned CDE and ensure that each element has a clear and unambiguous definition.
• Initiate and oversee changes (i.e. creation, modification, deletion) to CDEs, recommend the prioritization and identify the impact for the key stakeholders.
• Document and maintain data calculation rules, data sourcing rules, data transformation rules and data lineage in a centralized data governance repository.

Data Quality Management:

• Facilitate and support data quality improvement initiatives.
• Collaborate with Data Owners, Business Process owners and IT data to ensure data used for risk, financial, regulatory, operational and management reporting is fit for purpose.
• Based on changes in the business work environment, job responsibilities can change, and additional functions and tasks may be added or removed accordingly. 
• Additionally, this position will perform other duties as required, and participate in special projects as deemed necessary and appropriate by Management.

What you’ll need:

Education: Bachelor’s Degree

Experience: 4-8 years of relevant work experience.

• Requires broad management knowledge to lead project teams in one department/function or large centralized function
• Previous experience in business process and/or data management. Relevant experience in the financial services industry.
• Experience leading a team of data lifecycle partners who work day-to-day with data owners, data stewards, and business leaders to ensure data is connected, clean, and sufficiently complete to enable business decisions, drive business growth, optimize costs, and reduce risk exposure
• Requires business acumen, strategic thinking, financial analytical skills and decision-making skills
• Experience working in an Enterprise Data Management Program is strongly preferred, as well as a sound understanding of data governance practices, metadata management, data quality concepts and familiarity with regulatory requirements in the financial services industry.
• Knowledge of CDE identification, data attributes, metadata management and lineage documentation.
• Experience with relational databases, metadata modeling and taxonomy concepts.
• Experience in process design (including Green Belt or Black Belt certification) is a plus.
• Strategic and independent thinker with Hands-on approach to achieving data governance goals and a collaborative working style with the ability to work with line of business partners to build consensus.
• Effective communicator with ability to build alliances with stakeholders across the Company
• Knowledge of data governance, data quality practices and Project Management tools like Collibra, IBM Infosphere, Datum, Informatica, Attacama, Jira or similar tools.
• Working knowledge of Project Management best practices.
• Strong communication skills both verbal and writing, with attention to detail.
• Ability to multi-task and a fast learner
• Must be versatile, able to work effectively independently or as part of a team on multiple projects simultaneously.
• Experience with building new capabilities, drive organizational impact and act as change agent

Nice to have:

• Big 4 Accounting Firm experience is strongly preferred
• Prefer FinTech, banking and/or financial services experience