Senior Consultant - Data Strategy, Governance & DataOps

Job Title: Senior Consultant Data Strategy Governance & DataOps
Location: Abu Dhabi / Dubai
Department: Advisory Services

Role Summary

As a Senior Consultant in Data Strategy Governance & DataOps you will lead client engagements that bridge data privacy analytics AI readiness and operational data excellence. Youll help organizations design and implement integrated data frameworks that satisfy global compliance requirements (GDPR CCPA ISO/IEC 27701 UAE data laws) while enabling scalable secure and intelligent data capabilitiesfrom analytics to AI deployment.

Youll work across legal IT data engineering and business functions to ensure data is not only protected and compliant but also discoverable trustworthy and ready for innovation. This role is central to our 2026 strategic expansion into end-to-end data and AI consultancy with a unique focus on privacy-aware DataOpsa differentiator in todays market.

Key Responsibilities

• Conduct Privacy Impact Assessments (PIAs) and Data Protection Impact Assessments (DPIAs) embedding privacy-by-design into analytics and AI workflows.
  
• Design and implement enterprise-wide data classification lineage and mapping frameworks that serve both compliance and analytics use cases.
  
• Analyse end-to-end data flows across M365 Azure SaaS and on-prem systems identifying risks and opportunities for optimization.
  
• Develop and maintain Records of Processing Activities (RoPA) aligned with regulatory and business needs.
  
• Advise on secure data lifecycle management including retention archival anonymization and ethical data use.
  
• Collaborate with data engineering and analytics teams to align governance policies with DataOps practices such as data pipeline observability CI/CD for data and metadata management.
  
• Support the design of cloud-based data architectures (e.g. Azure Synapse Purview Data Factory) that integrate access control quality monitoring and privacy controls.
  
• Facilitate client workshops on data governance maturity AI ethics and DataOps adoption.
  
• Translate regulatory requirements into actionable technical and operational deliverables from policy to pipeline.
  
• Assist in incident response breach analysis and regulatory reporting with deep data context.
  
• Guide clients in building AI-ready data foundations where compliance enables not limits innovation.
  

Required Qualifications

• Bachelors degree in data science Computer Science Information Systems Information Security or a related field.
  
• 46 years of experience in data privacy data governance data architecture analytics or DataOps ideally in a consulting or regulated industry (financial services healthcare government etc.).
  
• Demonstrated experience in data classification lineage mapping and cross-system data flow analysis.
  
• Strong working knowledge of GDPR CCPA ISO/IEC 27001 & 27701 and familiarity with UAE data protection frameworks (e.g. ADHICS DIFC DP Law).
  
• Hands-on exposure to cloud data platforms (Microsoft Azure preferred) including tools like Purview Synapse Power BI or Azure Data Factory.
  
• Understanding of DataOps principles: data pipeline automation testing monitoring and versioning.
  
• Excellent communication facilitation and stakeholder management skills with the ability to explain technical concepts to legal business and executive audiences.
  

Preferred Certifications

• CIPP/E or CIPP/US (Certified Information Privacy Professional)
  
• CIPM (Certified Information Privacy Manager)
  
• ISO/IEC 27701 Lead Implementer or Auditor
  
• Microsoft Certified: Azure Data Engineer Associate or Azure Security Engineer Associate
  
• DAMA-DMBOK Foundation or CDMP (optional but valued)
  

Desirable Skills

• Experience delivering integrated data transformation programs that combine compliance analytics and engineering.
  
• Familiarity with AI governance model risk management or responsible AI frameworks.
  
• Exposure to infrastructure-as-code (IaC) DevOps pipelines or data observability tools (e.g. Great Expectations Monte Carlo).
  
• Ability to work across Microsoft 365 and Azure ecosystems with a security-first mindset.
  
• Fluency in Arabic is a plus given the regional client base.