IT Senior Manager, MDM

Primary Purpose

Evident Scientific is creating a new position within the Information Technology Team to establish, operate, and continuously improve enterprise-wide master data management (MDM), including data governance and ownership, data cleansing, data quality management, data architecture, and seamless cross-system data sharing. The role will help make Evident’s data a trusted, business-owned asset for better decisions, trusted reporting and analytics, and AI enablement.

As Evident establishes a new data governance structure, this role serves as the core driver and operating lead of Evident’s Data Governance Council. You will partner with business leaders across core functions to prioritize work and to establish and embed the standards, hierarchies, ownership, and quality metrics that align with global business objectives.

Role

We are seeking a decisive, hands on, and proven MDM and Data Governance Leader with extensive cross-system (SAP, SFDC, Snowflake, etc.) knowledge to champion and accelerate master data initiatives from concept to execution and fix data issues at the source. This is a player-coach role; it is a high-visibility leadership position to set the standard for how data work is done at Evident while also working directly with the business in supporting data cleansing activities (profiling, defining rules, cleansing, validating, and measuring).

Operating with a strong sense of urgency, you will owe prioritization, execution, and governance of enterprise MDM initiatives. You must be a strong cross-functional influencer capable of breaking down silos, driving alignment across diverse business units, and ensuring critical master data projects deliver maximum business value, sustained data quality improvements, on time and on budget.

Key Accountabilities

Cross-Functional Leadership & Decision Making

• Drive Executive Alignment: Run the Data Governance Council, owning the agenda, decision log and KPI reporting, actively steering cross-functional business leaders toward decisive actions regarding data ownership, standards, and conflict resolution.
• Strategic Prioritization: Establish clear frameworks to prioritize competing data demands across IT, Supply Chain, Finance, Sales, and Operations based on business impact, risk, and resource constraints.
• High-Stakes Problem Solving: Act as the ultimate escalation point for MDM project risks, ownership disputes, and roadblocks, making swift, data-driven decisions to keep initiatives moving forward.
• Roles & Accountability: Define and appoint domain owners and data stewards, with a RACI for key data processes, clear decision rights, and an escalation path. Embed accountability in business roles and processes through training, change management, and quality controls at the point of entry.
• Policies & Standards: Establish common data definitions, critical data elements, quality rules, and lifecycle, access, and classification standards, aligned with privacy, trade and export control, quality, and audit requirements.
• Accountability & Execution: Lead end-to-end MDM projects (e.g., SAP MDM implementation, data cleansing, migration, governance rollout, MDG setup) with strict accountability for timelines, budgets, and resource optimization.

Enterprise MDM Strategy, Data Cleansing & Quality

• Architect Solutions: Define comprehensive project requirements for master data (material, customer, vendor, finance) and challenge technical teams to ensure solutions map perfectly to strategic business needs. Recommend the authoritative source per domain and the MDM target architecture and tooling (platform versus process-led, building on SAP-MDG),
• Lead Data Cleansing: Own the cleansing approach and work in partnership with data owners and stewards to ensure successful delivery of data cleansing efforts. Work to include data profiling and baselining priority domains, removing duplicates, and driving hierarchy & definition standardization across systems.
• Fix Root Causes: Analyze recurring errors and master-data-driven incidents (e.g., shipping or production stoppages, quote and order errors), trace them to the process, system, or control gap, and implement preventive fixes such as validation rules, workflow controls, and training so cleansed data stays clean.
• Enforce Governance: Oversee data quality, migration, and governance deliverables in designated environments (e.g. ERP, CRM), ensuring strict compliance with global data standards and regulatory frameworks. Define and report quality measures such as completeness, accuracy, duplicate rate, and the percentage of critical data elements with a named owner.
• Business Transformation: Actively translate complex technical data structures into strategic business outcomes e.g. (faster quote-to-cash, trusted reporting and analytics, AI readiness), establishing strong buy-in and organizational rapport.

Team Mobilization & Operating Model Velocity

• Inspire & Mobilize: Lead, mentor, and inspire a matrixed team of business analysts, data stewards, system functional leads, and external vendors to deliver high-quality outcomes under tight deadlines Run Data Operations & Visibility: Establish day-to-day data quality monitoring and issue triage and resolution against service levels, and publish standard enterprise data dashboards (quality, ownership, open issues) on a fixed cadence, with a feedback loop to the Council.
• Drive Velocity: Foster a culture of urgency, pushing for fast but deliberate execution during high-impact phases like UAT, cutover planning, and hyper care.
• Vendor Accountability: Hold external consultants and vendors accountable for deliverables, ensuring full alignment with internal timelines, quality standards, and scope boundaries.
• Required Qualifications

• 10+ years of progressive IT experience in data, project and program management experience, with at least 5 years explicitly leading complex MDM initiatives in SAP environments (ECC 6.0 or S/4HANA).
• Proven Leadership: Demonstrated track record of leading large-scale, cross-functional teams and successfully navigating complex organizational politics to achieve project goals.
• Deep Domain Expertise: Robust understanding of SAP master data objects (material, vendor, customer, finance) including hierarchies and cross-system mapping, —possessing credibility and technical depth to challenge technical teams and decisively guide business users. Data Cleansing Skills: Ability to profile, analyze, and cleanse data directly, and to define match, merge, and validation rules and drive root-cause fixes.
• Governance Mastery: data governance frameworks, data quality management, and MDM and governance tooling (e.g., SAP MDG, Collibra, Informatica), including council operation, ownership models, and KPIs, together with project governance, prioritization matrices, and Agile/Waterfall methodologies using tools like Jira, MS Project, or Smartsheet.

Personal Attributes

• Bias for Action: Operates with a natural sense of urgency and speed; thrives in fast-paced environments requiring rapid decision-making.
• Strong Cross-Functional Influencer: Exceptional stakeholder management skills with a proven ability to challenge, negotiate, and build consensus at both staff and executive levels.
• Resilient Conflict Manager: A confident, empathetic demeanor equipped with strong conflict-resolution skills to confidently navigate resistance to change.
• Hands-On Rigor: Detail-oriented and willing to roll up sleeves in the data, holding self and others to consistent standards of quality. Strategic Visionary: Ability to connect micro-level data issues to macro-level business strategies, inspiring others to deliver value in a cost-effective, secure, and highly efficient manner.

Experience / Education

• Bachelor’s degree or above, with a major in Computer Science, Information Technology, Business Administration, or a related field.
• A minimum of 7 years of progressive experience in SAP and enterprise application management.
• Prior leadership experience within a manufacturing or Order-to-Cash environment is highly preferred.