Program Director

Program Director

P&C Insurance customer is seeking a seasoned Program Director to lead a large-scale enterprise Data Modernization Program. This executive-level role will serve as the strategic center for transforming the organization's data landscape from legacy systems and siloed data stores to a modern, cloud-native, scalable data platform built on medallion architecture principles.

The Program Director will bring deep, hands-on experience delivering complex data transformation programs in regulated financial services or insurance environments. Beyond program execution, this leader will actively shape how the organization thinks about data sharing, providing thought leadership with executives, guiding architecture decisions, and resolving ambiguity from prior experience across business, technology, and vendor communities.

Key Responsibilities

• Own end-to-end accountability for the Data Modernization Program: scope, schedule, budget, risk, and quality across all workstreams.
• Define and communicate a clear program vision and roadmap, translating business strategy into executable data transformation plans.
• Serve as the primary escalation point for program-level issues, applying pattern recognition from prior modernization programs to rapidly resolve blockers.
• Establish program governance structures including steering committees, operating rhythms, decision frameworks, and RACI models.
• Proactively share insights and lessons learned from prior data modernization programs to educate stakeholders, pre-empt common failure modes, and accelerate decision-making.
• Act as a trusted advisor to the CIO and business leadership on data strategy, platform selection, and modernization sequencing.
• Partner with data engineering leads to enforce standards for data contracts, schema versioning, partition strategies, and metadata management across all layers.
• Lead RFP processes, vendor selection, and contract negotiations for cloud platforms, data integration tools, and systems integrators.
• Evaluate vendor roadmaps against long-term data strategy and provide recommendations on build vs. buy vs. partner decisions.
• Drive effective governance of third-party delivery teams embedded within the program, ensuring alignment with internal standards and culture.
• Partner with Change Management and Communications to ensure organizational readiness, training, and adoption of modernized data capabilities.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience in Data Modernization projects, preferably with P&C Insurance customers.
• Expertise in Databricks data lake platform.
• Minimum 5 years of experience in a Program Director role leading similar programs.
• Experience with Data Architecture and Data Engineering.
• PMP, PgMP, SAFe, or equivalent Program Management certification is a plus.
• Years of Experience: 19+