Global FSQ Senior Manager Specification Governance

The Senior Manager Specification Governance manages the enterprise-wide governance of the global specification process within the Product Lifecycle Management (PLM)/specification ecosystem to ensure standardization, data integrity, and end-to-end lifecycle control. This role establishes scalable, auditable governance mechanisms that balance regulatory compliance, operational efficiency, speed-to-market, and data quality. The role defines specification change control, manages risk-based conditional approvals (exceptions), leads a team of specification/data governance professionals, and drives implementation of new data requirements to support evolving business and regulatory needs.

Key Ingredients:

Global Data Governance

• Define and maintain scalable and auditable global specification standards, processes, naming conventions, and business rules for specification content and structure to ensure high-quality, reliable product data in the PLM/specification management system.

• Establish and maintain attribute ownership models (functional ownership and accountability), required fields, validation rules and status controls to drive data integrity.

• Lead forums to review new attributes, standards, and material changes to governance rules.

Change Control and Continuous Improvement

• Serve as a key liaison for standardization initiatives, process improvements, and data integrity enhancements across the digital landscape.

• Partner with IT/Digital, R&D, Regulatory, and Quality to translate business, regulatory, and operational needs into clear requirements for specifications.

• Ensure changes are effectively communicated, trained, and adopted across functions and regions; monitor adoption and address gaps.

Risk, Compliance, and Audit

• Establish and oversee conditional approval protocols for exceptions to standard processes.

• Ensure conditional approval processes align with internal and external compliance expectations.

• Serve as escalation point for conditional approval requests, ensuring risk assessment, appropriate approvals, and complete documentation.

• Support internal/external audits by ensuring governance controls are effective, evidence-ready, and consistently executed.

Training, Documentation and Enablement

• Ensure consistent understanding and execution of specification processes across functions.

• Develop and maintain onboarding and training materials (in collaboration with cross-functional partners) for specification creation, review, approval, and change control.

• Assess training effectiveness; continuously improve training content, delivery methods, and supporting job aids/SOPs.

Metrics and Performance Management

• Define objectives and monitor KPIs (e.g., specification completeness, right-first-time quality, approval cycle times, exception volume, audit observations/findings, data quality metrics).

• Provide regular reporting and insights to stakeholders; drive corrective and preventive actions where performance is below target.

• Identify process and system improvement opportunities; lead or support initiatives that strengthen governance maturity and user experience.

People Leadership and Stakeholder Management

• Lead and develop a team of specification and data governance professionals (coaching, performance management, succession planning).
• Drive enterprise-wide alignment across Quality, Regulatory, R&D, Procurement, Supply Chain, Manufacturing, and Digital/IT stakeholders., This position is considered a Normal office environment with moderate travel to customer locations, stores, manufacturing facilities, etc.; offices are open workspaces Additionally, this role requires 40 hours/week schedule, 5 days a week.

• Include specific, qualitative proven experiences versus generic years of experience
• Include both “hard” and “soft” skills
• Include skills that are observable, measurable, and assessable (speaking to their criticality to the role and business)

NOTE: Exclude “preferred” skills that are not required to perform the job effectively.

• Bachelor’s degree (or equivalent experience) in a relevant field (e.g., science, engineering, quality, regulatory, data/technology, supply chain).

• 5+ years of leadership experience managing specifications, quality systems, regulatory/quality data, or related governance at a regional or global level.

• Strong understanding of data governance fundamentals (standards, stewardship/ownership, controls, quality, lifecycle management).

• Proven ability to influence and lead cross-functionally across geographies, including senior stakeholder engagement.

• Strong communication skills (written and verbal) with the ability to simplify complex requirements and drive adoption.

• Highly organized, detail-oriented, and able to manage multiple priorities in a matrixed environment.