Principal Data Governance Lead
A decade working across higher education, technology, and the public sector. I analyse, steward and govern data — building the structures that make it trustworthy, and the bridges that make it usable by the people who need it most.
About
A first class honours graduate in Sociology with Psychology — with an ethnographic dissertation on how gender is performed in public spaces — my route into data was shaped as much by an interest in how people and systems interact as by the technical. My work now sits in the gap between how organisations think data should work and how it actually does. That's meant leading data migrations, building metadata management systems from scratch, and designing governance frameworks that stick — across institutions where data quality has real consequences for real people.
I've built my career across higher education, technology, and the public sector — from King's College London and UWE Bristol to UCAS — which has given me a clear-eyed view of where data processes break down and what it takes to make them reliable. I'm as comfortable in a technical conversation about ETL and schemas as I am presenting findings to stakeholders who've never touched a dataset.
Outside work, I'm drawn to the bigger questions: how data shapes decisions, what it means to be a trusted steward of information, and how analytical thinking can drive better outcomes in complex organisations.
Career
2014
Research Assistant
National Lottery-Funded Project
Work
Metadata Management System & Business Glossary
Managed, tested and delivered an end-to-end metadata management system at UCAS. Identified data assets, built complex catalogues, maintained lineage and flows, and defined schemas — building the foundation for trusted, discoverable data across the organisation.
Large-Scale Data Migration to Salesforce
Led data cleansing, transformation and mapping for a migration from legacy systems to Salesforce at UCAS. Defined mapping rules, handled validation, and maintained data integrity throughout — zero tolerance for quality loss in a high-stakes environment.
Student Data IT Solution — 500,000+ Records
Managed planning, deployment and implementation of the Student Data IT solution at UWE Bristol. Led technical delivery using Power BI, SQL and Azure DevOps, with a focus on data validation, ETL, and building a genuinely data-centric service.
Inclusive Education Strategy 2025
Project managed data deliverables for King's College London's Inclusive Education Strategy — analysing findings across institutional systems, preparing reports, leading briefings, and proposing targeted improvements using predictive analysis and data profiling.
Cross-Functional Data Consultancy & Published Report
Led a sector-significant cross-functional data consultancy project at UCAS, delivering large datasets, statistical analysis and insights to key stakeholders. Coordinated the development, testing and release of a high-profile published analytical report.
Expertise
End-to-end analytical processes — from raw data through to insight. Python, SQL, Power BI and Tableau, with a focus on quality, reliability and making data genuinely usable.
Building the infrastructure that makes data findable and trustworthy. Business glossaries, data catalogues, lineage mapping and governance frameworks embedded into design — not bolted on afterwards. Experienced with Databricks Unity Catalog for unified data governance across cloud environments.
Leading complex migrations and system implementations. ETL, data mapping, validation, Salesforce, Azure and AWS — with a track record of delivering large-scale transformations in high-stakes environments.
Translating complex data concepts for technical and non-technical audiences alike. The communication that makes data work understood, trusted, and used.
Certifications
Certified Data Management Professional (CDMP)
DAMA International
Data Governance Fundamentals
Databricks
AI Ethics
DataCamp
Product Analytics Certification
Credly
Data Analytics Essentials
Cisco