Senior Consultant - Data Strategy, Governance & DataOps

Senior Consultant - Data Strategy, Governance & DataOps

Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates Posted on 11/27/2025

CyberGate Defense, an IHC company, is a leading force in cybersecurity innovation, dedicated to enhancing the digital resilience of organizations across the region. Established with the mission to fortify the region's cybersecurity landscape, CyberGate harnesses extensive expertise to tackle complex information security and operational challenges.

Our commitment to driving progress is reflected in our broad range of cybersecurity services and solutions. By leveraging cutting-edge, disruptive technologies, we deliver transformative, human-centric security solutions that safeguard organizations and empower them to navigate a secure and dynamic digital future.

With a wealth of in-house knowledge, CyberGate Defense is well-equipped to address the most intricate cybersecurity issues. We strive to make digital transformation secure, accessible, and beneficial, ensuring that organizations throughout the region thrive in an increasingly interconnected digital world.

Job Description

Job Title: Senior Consultant - Data Strategy, Governance& DataOps
Location: Abu Dhabi / Dubai
Department: Advisory Services

Role Summary

As a Senior Consultant in Data Strategy, Governance &DataOps, you will lead client engagements that bridge data privacy, analytics,AI readiness, and operational data excellence. You'll help organizations designand implement integrated data frameworks that satisfy global compliancerequirements (GDPR, CCPA, ISO/IEC 27701, UAE data laws) while enablingscalable, secure, and intelligent data capabilities-from analytics to AIdeployment.

You'll work across legal, IT, data engineering, and businessfunctions to ensure data is not only protected and compliant, but alsodiscoverable, trustworthy, and ready for innovation. This role is central toour 2026 strategic expansion into end-to-end data and AI consultancy, with aunique focus on privacy-aware DataOps-a differentiator in today's market.

Key Responsibilities

• ConductPrivacy Impact Assessments (PIAs) and Data Protection Impact Assessments(DPIAs), embedding privacy-by-design into analytics and AI workflows.
  
• Designand implement enterprise-wide data classification, lineage, and mappingframeworks that serve both compliance and analytics use cases.
  
• Analyseend-to-end data flows across M365, Azure, SaaS, and on-prem systems,identifying risks and opportunities for optimization.
  
• Developand maintain Records of Processing Activities (RoPA) aligned withregulatory and business needs.
  
• Adviseon secure data lifecycle management, including retention, archival,anonymization, and ethical data use.
  
• Collaboratewith data engineering and analytics teams to align governance policieswith DataOps practices such as data pipeline observability, CI/CD fordata, and metadata management.
  
• Supportthe design of cloud-based data architectures (e.g., Azure Synapse,Purview, Data Factory) that integrate access control, quality monitoring,and privacy controls.
  
• Facilitateclient workshops on data governance maturity, AI ethics, and DataOpsadoption.
  
• Translateregulatory requirements into actionable technical and operationaldeliverables from policy to pipeline.
  
• Assistin incident response, breach analysis, and regulatory reporting with deepdata context.
  
• Guideclients in building AI-ready data foundations where compliance enables notlimits innovation.
  

Required Qualifications

• Bachelor'sdegree in data science, Computer Science, Information Systems, InformationSecurity, or a related field.
  
• 4-6years of experience in data privacy, data governance, data architecture,analytics, or DataOps ideally in a consulting or regulated industry(financial services, healthcare, government, etc.).
  
• Demonstratedexperience in data classification, lineage mapping, and cross-system dataflow analysis.
  
• Strongworking knowledge of GDPR, CCPA, ISO/IEC 27001 & 27701, andfamiliarity with UAE data protection frameworks (e.g., ADHICS, DIFC DPLaw).
  
• Hands-onexposure to cloud data platforms (Microsoft Azure preferred), includingtools like Purview, Synapse, Power BI, or Azure Data Factory.
  
• Understandingof DataOps principles: data pipeline automation, testing, monitoring, andversioning.
  
• Excellentcommunication, facilitation, and stakeholder management skills with theability to explain technical concepts to legal, business, and executiveaudiences.
  

Preferred Certifications

• CIPP/Eor CIPP/US (Certified Information Privacy Professional)
  
• CIPM(Certified Information Privacy Manager)
  
• ISO/IEC27701 Lead Implementer or Auditor
  
• DAMA-DMBOKFoundation or CDMP (optional but valued)
  
• Experiencedelivering integrated data transformation programs that combinecompliance, analytics, and engineering.
  
• Familiaritywith AI governance, model risk management, or responsible AI frameworks.
  
• Exposureto infrastructure-as-code (IaC), DevOps pipelines, or data observabilitytools (e.g., Great Expectations, Monte Carlo).
  
• Abilityto work across Microsoft 365 and Azure ecosystems with a security-firstmindset.
  
• Fluencyin Arabic is a plus, given the regional client base.