Oceania Data Lead – Senior Manager or Associate Director

The opportunity

As our Oceania Data Lead, you will be accountable for shaping, governing, and activating EY Oceania’s data strategy in alignment with the firm’s global data vision. This is a senior regional data leadership role with enterprise-wide accountability for enabling secure, compliant, and scalable data platforms, analytics, and AI across Oceania.

You will provide leadership across data governance, quality, privacy, and platform adoption, while working in close partnership with the Innovation Lead and Sandpit Manager to ensure Oceania’s sandpit environments are governed by strong data policies and risk controls. Operating within a federated global model, you will represent Oceania in global data governance forums and contribute to the evolution of firmwide data standards and priorities.

This role sits within the Office of the CTIO and partners closely with Technology, Product, Risk, Innovation, and Service Line leaders to ensure data initiatives deliver measurable business value while meeting regulatory and firm-wide governance expectations.

This role can be performed from any of our EY offices across Australia. Our roles can potentially be adjusted to work flexibly with reduced hours. Please speak with us about potential options.

Your key responsibilities

• Lead the execution of EY Oceania’s data strategy, ensuring alignment with global data standards, platforms, and governance frameworks.
• Oversee data governance, security, privacy, and compliance across all analytics, AI, and data environments, ensuring adherence to local regulatory requirements and firm-wide policies.
• Provide data governance oversight across Oceania’s data and AI sandpit environments, working closely with the Innovation and Product Lead and Sandpit Manager to ensure data policies, integrity, and risk controls are consistently applied.
• Define and enforce data usage standards for sandpit environments, including ensuring client, personal, and confidential data is not used, and partnering with the business to identify appropriate alternatives such as synthetic, anonymised, or sanitised data.
• Drive data quality, analytics, and synthetic data initiatives to enable advanced insights, AI model development, experimentation, and privacy-preserving innovation.
• Coordinate regional analytics and insight initiatives to inform business decision-making and improve service delivery outcomes.
• Act as Oceania’s representative in global data governance and data leadership forums, enabling two-way sharing of insights, requirements, and priorities.
• Partner closely with Technology, Product, Risk, Innovation, and Service Line leaders to embed data-driven ways of working and promote a strong data culture across the region.
• Support adoption of global data platforms (e.g. Azure, Fabric) and ensure effective localisation to meet Oceania business needs.

Skills and attributes for success

• Proven experience leading enterprise data strategy, governance, and platform adoption in a large, complex organisation.
• Strong understanding of cloud and enterprise data platforms (e.g. Azure, Fabric) and modern analytics and AI architectures.
• Deep knowledge of data governance, security, privacy, and regulatory frameworks, including operating in highly regulated environments.
• Demonstrated ability to operate effectively in a federated global model, balancing local priorities with global standards.
• Strong stakeholder management and communication skills, with the ability to influence senior leaders across technology, risk, and business domains.

Ideally, you’ll also have the skills and attributes below but don’t worry if you don’t tick all the boxes. We’re interested in your aptitude, attitude and willingness to learn.

• Senior leadership experience in data, analytics, AI, or platform enablement roles.
• Experience supporting innovation or sandbox environments through strong data governance rather than direct operational ownership.
• Familiarity with automation, infrastructure-as-code, and modern data engineering practices.
• Proven program delivery experience across multiple concurrent initiatives.
• Bachelor’s/University degree in technology, data, business, or a related discipline; post-graduate qualifications are desirable.

What we offer you

At EY, we’ll fuel you and your extraordinary talents in a diverse and inclusive culture of globally connected teams. Learn more.

• Career development: At EY, your career is yours to shape! We’ll develop you with future-focused skills and equip you with world-class experiences ey.com/au/careerdevelopment
• Flexible work arrangements: Our flexible work policies empower you to balance your professional and personal life, fostering a culture of trust and autonomy.

• A comprehensive benefits package: From a yearly wellness incentive, to access to additional 8 weeks of flex leave per year, and family-friendly policies, including 26 weeks of gender-neutral paid parental leave, we cater to your diverse needs to help you thrive both personally and professionally www.ey.com/au/benefits

Acknowledgement of Country

EY acknowledges the Traditional Owners and Custodians of the lands on which EY offices are located around Australia. We pay our respects to their cultures, and to their Elders — past, present, and emerging. Find out more about our vision for reconciliation at ey.com/en_au/careers/indigenous

Diversity, equity, and inclusiveness (DE&I) are core to who we are, how we work and how we live our values. We encourage applications from people of all ages, nationalities, abilities, cultures, sexual orientations, and gender identities and are committed to providing an equitable and barrier free recruitment experience for all. We encourage you to share any support and adjustments you need to be your best and participate equitably in our recruitment process. We understand sharing your needs with us can be daunting, so if you have questions before or during your application, we welcome you to get in touch at contactrecruitment@au.ey.com or +61 3 8650 7788 (option 2). Anything you tell us will be kept completely confidential.

Are you ready to shape your future with confidence? Apply today.

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Our preferred applicant will be required to undertake employment screening by EY or our external third-party provider.

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