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# Managing Director, Data & AI

- **Company:** Nelnet
- **Location:** Lincoln, NE, United States
- **Experience:** Expert
- **Contract:** Permanent contract
- **Skills:** Artificial Intelligence, Information Engineering, Data Governance, Data Infrastructure, Data Strategy, Data Management
- **Published:** August 24, 2026
- **Apply:** https://nelnet.wd1.myworkdayjobs.com/MyNelnet/job/Lincoln-NE/Managing-Director--Data---AI_R23020

## About the Role

* Bachelor's degree required in related fields, Required
 * 10+ years leading data organizations at enterprise scale, including leading leaders
 * Demonstrated ownership of an enterprise data strategy from definition through multi-year execution
 * Proven executive-level influence with C-suite and business stakeholders
 * Sufficient practical depth in data engineering and data governance to direct and challenge those teams

Preferred

 * AI/ML and intelligent automation applied to business processes with measurable outcomes
 * Track record operating in regulated / financial-services data environments
 * Experience establishing a modern data operating model (data products, domain ownership, or equivalent)

COMPETENCIES/SKILLS:

 * Strategic thinking & planning
 * Executive level influence
 * Stakeholder management
 * Prioritization & decision making
 * Critical thinking
 * Team management & growth

## Description

The Managing Director, Data & AI owns the full data-to-AI value chain, aligning data strategy, governance, engineering, and AI/ML execution through a unified operating model. This role is accountable for setting strategic direction, advancing data readiness, enforcing governance, resolving strategic tradeoffs, and delivering dependable AI-enabled business outcomes for the segment. In addition, this role contributes to the broader Nelnet data management council., * Data Strategy - Owns the segment-wide data strategy: target-state vision, operating model, domain ownership, investment sequencing, and multi-year roadmap; define how the value of data investment is measured and report against it

 * Value Chain Unification - Unify data engineering, governance, and AI/automation into a single operating model, with shared intake, prioritization, and delivery cadence; resolve funding and capacity tradeoffs across the chain in favor of end-to-end business outcomes
 * Data Platform - Oversee the data platform ecosystem: architecture decisions, consumption governance, cost, and roadmap prioritization
 * Data Governance - Position governance as a business enabler: policy, lineage, quality, and access practices that accelerate trusted consumption rather than gate it
 * AI & Automation - Set strategy for applying AI and automation to business processes; oversee AI democratization, adoption, and the Citizen Developer program
 * Leadership - Lead through directors: coach and develop senior leaders, build succession depth, manage performance proactively, foster cohesion, and hold leaders to a high bar in a fast-moving domain
 * Business Partnership - Translate business objectives into data and AI priorities in partnership with C-suite and senior leadership; build stakeholder relationships and executive credibility to drive adoption


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