Manager Data Management - IT Data Management - Akron FirstEnergy Headquarters

FirstEnergy at a Glance

We are a forward-thinking electric utility powered by a diverse team of employees committed to making customers’ lives brighter, the environment better and our communities stronger.

FirstEnergy (NYSE: FE) is dedicated to safety, reliability, and operational excellence. Headquartered in Akron, Ohio, FirstEnergy includes one of the nation's largest investor-owned electric systems, more than 24,500 miles of transmission lines that connect the Midwest and Mid-Atlantic regions, and a regulated generating fleet with a total capacity of 3,780 megawatts.

About the Opportunity

Position Summary

The Manager, Data Management is responsible for leading FirstEnergy’s enterprise data management function across two connected areas: data governance and data platform management. This role provides leadership, operational management, and execution oversight for the enterprise data governance and data platform management functions. 

The governance function focuses on establishing and sustaining enterprise standards, decision rights, stewardship, access controls, data quality practices, and responsible AI and data use. The platform management function provides oversight of the standards, operating model, controls, reliability, cost visibility, and continuous improvement of modern enterprise data platform capabilities, including Databricks and related hybrid data ecosystem components.  Together, this ensures data assets and the platforms that support them are trusted, secure, reliable, accessible, cost-conscious, and positioned to support analytics, data science, artificial intelligence, regulatory obligations, and enterprise decision-making.

This leader partners with Information Technology, Cybersecurity, Legal, Compliance, Operations, Customer, analytics, data engineering, data science, and business stakeholders to connect governance expectations with practical platform execution, enabling teams to deliver data products and insights safely, efficiently, and consistently.

Responsibilities Include

Enterprise Data Governance & Stewardship

• Establish, implement, sustain and continuously improve the enterprise data governance framework, including policies, standards, decision rights, stewardship expectations, and accountability models.

• Lead core governance forums and stakeholder engagement activities to promote consistent data management practices across business and technology teams.

• Oversee enterprise data access practices, including role-based access, approval standards, periodic access reviews, and alignment with security, privacy, records retention, regulatory, and internal control expectations.

• Maintain practical data quality expectations, issue escalation paths, scorecards, and remediation coordination with data owners, stewards, and technology partners.

• Support responsible AI and data usage governance by partnering with Cybersecurity, Legal, Compliance, Risk Management, data science, and business teams on standards, risk considerations, and governance evidence.

Data Platform Management & Operational Oversight

• Provide management oversight for enterprise data platform capabilities, standards, operating practices, and roadmap alignment, with emphasis on reliability, security, governance readiness, developer experience, and business continuity.

• Oversee Databricks and related platform management practices, including workspace and environment standards, Unity Catalog governance patterns, compute and cluster controls, workflow enablement, audit logging, monitoring, and platform support expectations.

• Partner with cloud engineering, architecture, cybersecurity, infrastructure, DevOps, and data engineering teams to establish guardrails for authentication, authorization, service principals, networking, deployment patterns, release management, and operational readiness.

• Guide modernization activities that balance cloud-based lakehouse capabilities with practical integration to on-premises systems, legacy data warehouses, enterprise schedulers, source-system replication tools, and existing operational data delivery processes.

• Oversee platform onboarding materials, support expectations, operating procedures, reusable templates, change management practices, and self-service enablement to improve consistency, scalability, and adoption.

• Monitor platform health, usage, cost trends, operational risks, incidents, and improvement opportunities; partner with technical teams to drive root cause analysis, remediation, and continuous improvement.

• Promote cloud and Databricks cost governance through usage visibility, workload optimization, or chargeback practices where applicable, and FinOps-aligned decision-making.

Leadership, Partnership & Change Enablement

• Set priorities across governance sustainment, platform operations, modernization, risk reduction, and business enablement needs.

• Translate governance and platform management expectations into clear, actionable guidance for technical and non-technical stakeholders.

• Build trusted partnerships across governance, platform engineering, analytics, data science, cybersecurity, compliance, audit, operations, and business teams.

• Communicate platform risks, governance considerations, modernization tradeoffs, operational impacts, and business value clearly to leaders and stakeholders.

• Develop team capabilities, promote standard work, reinforce documentation discipline, and model FirstEnergy’s Core Values & Behaviors through collaboration, accountability, continuous improvement, and safe, reliable execution.

People Leadership & Team Management

• Directly supervise and develop a team of professionals responsible for enterprise data governance and data platform management activities.

• Establish performance expectations, conduct performance reviews, provide coaching and feedback, and support employee development planning.

• Recruit, retain, mentor, and develop talent to build organizational capability and support succession planning.

• Prioritize work assignments, allocate resources, and balance capacity against departmental objectives.

• Foster a culture of accountability, collaboration, inclusion, continuous improvement, and safe, reliable execution.

• Ensure consistent application of company policies, procedures, and compliance requirements.

Qualifications

Education

• Bachelor’s degree in Information Systems, Computer Science, Data Analytics, Business Administration, Engineering, or a related discipline. In lieu of a degree, equivalent related experience may be considered as determined by HR.

Experience

• 7+ years of experience in data governance, data management, enterprise data platforms, information management, analytics, cybersecurity, technology operations, or related disciplines.

• 3+ years of leadership experience managing programs, projects, technical teams, governance functions, platform operations, or cross-functional initiatives.

• Experience developing, sustaining, or improving enterprise governance frameworks, standards, controls, operating models, or stewardship practices.

• Experience overseeing or partnering with cloud platform, infrastructure and operations, or data engineering teams.

• Experience supporting compliance, audit, cybersecurity, privacy, records retention, regulatory, or internal control requirements in a regulated or security-conscious environment.

• Experience leading change, aligning stakeholders, and translating technical or governance concepts into practical business guidance.

Knowledge, Skills and Abilities

• Strong understanding of data governance practices, including stewardship, decision rights, metadata, lineage, data quality, access management, lifecycle management, and responsible data use.

• Working knowledge of modern data platform operating models, including Databricks or comparable cloud data platform capabilities, environment management, Unity Catalog or comparable governance controls, compute governance, monitoring, and operational support.

• Ability to balance governance, security, delivery speed, cost optimization, operational reliability, modernization, and business continuity.

• Ability to lead through influence across organizational boundaries and drive adoption of standards, controls, and reusable practices.

• Strong analytical, problem-solving, risk management, communication, stakeholder management, project management, and change management skills.

• Ability to communicate effectively with senior leaders, technical teams, governance partners, business stakeholders, and audit or compliance audiences.

Preferred Technical Exposure

• Databricks workspace administration concepts, Unity Catalog, Delta Lake, lakehouse architecture, platform monitoring, audit logging, workload controls, and cost optimization practices.

• CI/CD, Git-based practices, Terraform or comparable Infrastructure as Code, Azure DevOps or comparable enterprise tooling, and release or change control practices.

• Hybrid data ecosystem patterns, including legacy data warehouses, enterprise schedulers, source-system replication, CDC tooling, on-premises integration, and phased modernization approaches.

• AI governance, model lifecycle expectations, model repositories or registries, responsible AI practices, model validation support, and GenAI governance forums.

Key Attributes

• Operates with an ownership mindset for governance sustainability, platform reliability, security, cost awareness, and operational discipline.

• Connects governance policy with practical platform execution so teams can move faster while remaining compliant and controlled.

• Builds credibility with both business and technical stakeholders by translating complexity into clear decisions, standards, and next steps.

• Balances modernization momentum with continuity for legacy systems, critical business processes, and regulated utility expectations.

• Promotes standard work, documentation, automation, reuse, and continuous improvement across the data management function.

Benefits, Compensation & Workforce Diversity

At FirstEnergy, employees are key to our success. We depend on their talents to meet the challenges of our changing business environment. We are committed to rewarding individual and team efforts through our total rewards philosophy which includes competitive pay plus incentive compensation, a company-sponsored pension plan, 401(k) savings plan with matching employer contribution, a choice of medical, prescription drug, dental, vision, and life insurance programs, as well as skills development training with tuition reimbursement. Please visit our website at www.firstenergycorp.com to learn more about all of our employee rewards programs. FirstEnergy proudly supports workforce diversity. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, religion, color, national origin, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, age, status as a protected veteran, or status as a qualified individual with a disability. No recruiters or agencies without a previously signed contract. Unable to sponsor or transfer H-1B visas at this time.

Safety

Safety is a core value for FirstEnergy and is essential to all of our business activities. We ensure employees have the tools, information, and processes to perform their duties in a manner that assures safety for themselves, their co-workers, our customers and the public. Our goals are to provide a safe work environment, to maintain an accident-free, injury-free workplace, and to promote and maintain public safety. To meet these goals, we dedicate ourselves to achieving world-class safety standards.

Position Classification

Exempt 

FirstEnergy Human Resources Team