Manager MDM (Master Data Management)

Manager, Master Data Management

Novelis is one of the world leaders in aluminum recycling and rolling and a leading sustainable aluminum solutions provider. Driven by our purpose of shaping a sustainable world together, we work alongside our customers to provide innovative solutions to the aerospace, automotive, beverage packaging and specialty markets. Headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia, Novelis has approximately 13,000 employees in 32 operating facilities on 4 continents.

Responsibilities & Qualifications

This role is accountable for the operational management and delivery of the enterprise Master and Reference Data Management (MDM) platform and the quality, consistency, and governance of mastered data across Customer, Vendor, Material, and Reference Data domains. Reporting to the Head of Data Management and based in Atlanta, GA, this is a people leadership role managing a team of approximately four MDM analysts, lead analysts, and engineers, with a dotted-line relationship to a cross-pillar data engineer shared with Data Engineering.

The Manager, Master Data Management directs the team's delivery of domain data models, match/merge and survivorship logic, golden record management, hierarchy configuration, stewardship workflows, and domain harmonization across regions and source systems. This role ensures mastered data is governed, quality-assured, and production-ready for downstream analytics, reporting, and AI workloads. The role works in close partnership with the Manager, Data Governance to ensure quality rules, governance workflows, metadata, and access controls are consistently integrated into MDM processes and pipelines.

Master and reference data underpin Novelis' ability to report accurately, optimize operations, and make consistent decisions across 32 global facilities. This role ensures that Customer, Vendor, Material, and Reference Data are harmonized, governed, and reliable at enterprise scaledirectly enabling trusted analytics, compliant reporting, and AI-ready data across all plants and regions.

Capability Alignment

This role is aligned to the Data Management pillar and owns the following enterprise capability:

• Master and Reference Data Platform (Customer, Vendor, Material, Reference)

Responsibilities

MDM Platform Delivery & Operations

• Direct the team's delivery of MDM platform operations, including domain data models, match/merge logic, survivorship rules, hierarchies, golden record management, and reference data structures across all four governed domains.
• Ensure MDM-specific data products published through the Data Catalog are properly configured, access-routed, and operationally supported through the team's work.
• Hold the team accountable for MDM platform reliability, mastered data quality, metadata completeness, and governance compliance across all governed domains.
• Oversee platform administration including environment management, connector configurations, source system mappings, and upgrade and patch execution.
• Ensure mastered data meets production-readiness standards for downstream analytics, reporting, and AI use cases.

MDM Governance, Stewardship & Domain Harmonization

• Own execution of MDM governance for master and reference data, including stewardship workflows, approvals, escalations, and operating cadence, aligned with the enterprise Data Governance framework.
• Direct the team's partnership with the Manager, Data Governance to ensure metadata, lineage, access controls, and data quality rules are embedded in MDM processes.
• Drive stewardship adoption for MDM domains through clear role definitions, enablement, and practical workflows for Data Stewards and Data Owners.
• Define and track MDM stewardship engagement metrics, including coverage, task completion and SLA adherence, issue backlog aging, remediation throughput, and adoption of match-and-merge and survivorship rules.
• Lead data domain harmonization for master and reference data, ensuring consistent definitions, hierarchies, code sets, and golden record rules across regions and source systems.
• Provide executive visibility into MDM adoption, stewardship effectiveness, and domain harmonization progress through dashboards and periodic reporting.

Cross-Functional Partnership

• Partner with the Manager, Data Governance to ensure governance workflows, quality controls, and catalog capabilities are integrated with MDM platform operations.
• Coordinate with Data Engineering to ensure data flows between source systems, the MDM platform, the enterprise lakehouse, and downstream consumers are reliable, governed, and performant.
• Partner with business data owners and stewards across all regions to ensure MDM platform capabilities serve enterprise needs, maintaining clear accountability that IT owns the platform and business owns the data standards and decisions.

Strategic Traceability & Enterprise Alignment

• Align work execution to Novelis' enterprise strategic data outcomes including trusted data, operational reliability, metal flow optimization, 330 sustainability goals, and cash focus/operational efficiency.
• Support the enterprise Data & AI Governance framework, ensuring governance is embedded into all MDM workflows and deliverables.
• Contribute to quarterly planning, feature scoping, and sprint execution aligned to the enterprise delivery roadmap and KPI framework.

People Leadership & Engagement

This role is a leader of people first and a manager of process second, accountable for intentionally engaging the team, specifically:

• Connect. Hold deliberately scheduled engagement sessions with every team member short, listening-first conversations, not status reviews with equal rhythm for remote and non-local team members. Open team meetings with people topics (growth, recognition, blockers) before task topics.
• Empower. Push decisions and ownership to the team. Sponsor ideas on their merit regardless of tenure or title. Maintain a current growth plan for every team member and connect each with a peer mentor, preferably from another team or pillar.
• Act with intention. Track the team's engagement (retention, survey results, session cadence) alongside delivery commitments, and apply the front-line engagement budget deliberately to build team connection.
• Lead and manage a team of approximately four MDM lead analysts, analysts, and engineers, with a dotted-line relationship to a cross-pillar data engineer shared with Data Engineering for IDMC platform integration support.
• Set clear performance expectations, conduct calibrated performance reviews, and provide ongoing coaching, mentoring, and career development for each team member.
• Define team structure, capacity allocation, work prioritization, and succession planning to ensure operational continuity and talent depth across all MDM disciplines.
• Foster a culture of operational discipline, engineering excellence, continuous improvement, and accountability within the team.
• Represent the MDM function in IT architecture reviews, planning forums, and audit or regulatory inquiries related to master and reference data.

Success in this role is measured by an intentionally engaged, empowered team that delivers not by delivery alone.

Accountability Boundaries

IT owns the data management platforms and their engineering; business partners own the policies, standards, stewardship decisions, and business rules that run on top of them.

Minimum Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Information Systems, Data Management, or a related field.
• 7+ years of experience in master data management, data management, or enterprise data governance, with at least 3 years in a people leadership or team management role.
• Demonstrated experience managing MDM platform operations across multiple data domains (e.g., Customer, Vendor, Material, Reference) in an enterprise environment.
• Strong knowledge of MDM concepts including domain modeling, match/merge frameworks, survivorship logic, hierarchy management, and golden record resolution.
• Experience with enterprise data management platforms (e.g., Informatica MDM, IDMC, or equivalent).
• Effective communication skills, with the ability to partner across data engineering, data governance, business stakeholders, and represent the MDM function in architecture reviews and audit inquiries.

Preferred Qualifications

• Master's degree in a technical or business-related field, or equivalent advanced experience.
• Professional certification such as Certified Data Management Professional (CDMP) or equivalent.
• Experience in manufacturing, industrial, or sustainability-focused organizations where master and reference data are critical to operations.
• Experience leading data domain harmonization across multi-region, multi-source-system environments.
• Familiarity with enterprise privacy and data protection concepts (e.g., GDPR) as they apply to master data domains.
• Experience integrating MDM with data lakes, analytics platforms, governance catalogs, or data marketplaces in cloud-native environments.

Please note that we are unable to provide visa sponsorship for this position. Candidates must be legally authorized to work in the United States without the need for current or future sponsorship.

What We Offer

This role offers a hybrid schedule