Key Responsibilities and Required Skills for Information Manager

🎯 Role Definition

The Information Manager is a cross-functional leader who designs, implements, and maintains the organization's information governance and records management programs. This role balances regulatory compliance, risk reduction, information lifecycle management, and enablement of analytics and business intelligence by building taxonomy, metadata standards, retention policies, access controls, and by partnering closely with legal, IT, security, and business stakeholders.

📈 Career Progression

Typical Career Path

Entry Point From:

Records Analyst or Records Clerk transitioning into program ownership and strategy
Data Analyst or Business Analyst with strong metadata and governance exposure
IT Project Manager or SharePoint/Content Administrator moving into information governance

Advancement To:

Head of Information Governance / Director of Information Management
Director of Data Governance or Director of Records & Compliance
Chief Data Officer (CDO) or Chief Information Officer (CIO) for large organizations

Lateral Moves:

Data Governance Manager
Compliance or Privacy Manager
Enterprise Content Management (ECM) Lead

Core Responsibilities

Primary Functions

Lead the development, execution, and continual improvement of an enterprise-wide information governance strategy that aligns with business objectives, regulatory requirements, and digital transformation initiatives.
Design, document, and enforce records retention schedules, disposition policies, and legal hold processes to ensure compliance with GDPR, CCPA, FOIA, SOX and other applicable regulatory frameworks.
Establish and maintain taxonomy and metadata standards across content repositories and business systems to improve findability, interoperability, and data quality for analytics and search.
Oversee the implementation, configuration, and administration of enterprise content management (ECM) and document management systems (e.g., SharePoint, Alfresco, OpenText) to support secure, auditable information workflows.
Create and manage an information lifecycle program—ingest, classification, storage, retention, archival, and disposition—ensuring cost-effective storage and defensible deletion of records.
Build and chair an information governance committee or steering group, driving cross-functional alignment among legal, compliance, IT, security, records, and business units on policies and escalations.
Conduct regular information risk assessments and audits, identify gaps in controls or compliance, and implement remediation plans with measurable milestones and reporting.
Define and monitor information management KPIs and metrics (e.g., records disposition rates, metadata coverage, data quality scores, audit findings) and produce executive dashboards and regular status reports.
Develop, implement, and enforce access controls, classification schemes, and role-based permissions to protect sensitive data, support privacy obligations, and reduce insider risk.
Partner with legal and e-discovery teams to prepare for litigation or regulatory investigations, manage hold notices, and deliver defensible collections and production of records.
Lead enterprise tagging, content classification, and automated metadata extraction initiatives, leveraging AI/ML where appropriate to accelerate classification and reduce manual effort.
Manage vendor relationships and procurements for information management, ECM, eDiscovery, and data governance tools, including contract negotiation, SLAs, and performance oversight.
Create and execute training programs, communication plans, and change management activities to drive adoption of information policies, retention practices, and content management tools across the organization.
Provide subject matter expertise and hands-on support for integration and ingestion projects to ensure new applications and data sources comply with taxonomy, retention, and metadata standards.
Drive continuous improvement of information processes and workflows through automation, scripting, and platform configuration, reducing manual interventions and operational risk.
Coordinate with IT security and infrastructure teams to ensure backups, encryption, logging, and disaster recovery processes preserve information integrity and availability.
Lead cross-functional projects to remediate legacy information sprawl, including data inventories, duplicates removal, consolidation, and migration planning for cloud or archive platforms.
Serve as primary liaison with privacy and compliance teams to operationalize data subject access requests (DSARs), record of processing activities (ROPA), and privacy impact assessments related to information holdings.
Develop and manage budgets for information management initiatives, including licensing, storage, vendor services, and staffing; forecast costs and demonstrate ROI for major programs.
Provide direct supervision, hiring, and performance management for information management staff and contractors, setting objectives, mentoring, and scaling the team as programs grow.
Create policy playbooks, SOPs, and escalation procedures for records handling, retention exceptions, risk acceptance, and incident response to ensure consistent execution across departments.
Support data quality initiatives by defining quality rules, reconciling master records, and collaborating with MDM teams to ensure canonical sources are properly governed and documented.

Secondary Functions

Support ad-hoc data requests and exploratory data analysis to help stakeholders locate authoritative records and metadata for decision-making.
Contribute to the organization's data strategy and roadmap by advising on information architecture, storage cost optimization, and system consolidation opportunities.
Collaborate with business units to translate data needs into engineering requirements, ensuring new solutions comply with information governance standards.
Participate in sprint planning and agile ceremonies within the data engineering team to prioritize governance-related backlog items and deliverables.
Assist audit teams during internal and external audits by producing records inventories, retention logs, and evidence of policy enforcement.
Provide subject-matter guidance for digital transformation initiatives such as cloud migrations, content modernization, and SaaS adoption.
Pilot metadata enrichment and semantic search projects to improve employee productivity and reduce time-to-insight.
Create libraries of templates, retention matrices, and disposition decision aids for business teams to self-serve compliant information handling.
Coordinate training for new hires and business-facing teams on proper classification, storage, and legal hold procedures.
Evaluate and prototype AI/ML tools for automated classification, redaction, and metadata extraction, and recommend enterprise-ready solutions.
Support business continuity and incident response planning related to critical information assets, including prioritized recovery lists and alternate access strategies.

Required Skills & Competencies

Hard Skills (Technical)

Information governance and records management frameworks (policy design, retention schedules, legal holds, disposition).
Experience with enterprise content management (ECM) and document management systems such as Microsoft SharePoint, OpenText, Alfresco, Documentum, or Box.
Metadata management, taxonomy design, ontology work, and search optimization to drive findability and semantic consistency.
Familiarity with data governance platforms and catalog solutions (e.g., Collibra, Alation, Informatica) and integration patterns.
Knowledge of privacy and regulatory frameworks (GDPR, CCPA, HIPAA, FOIA, SOX) and experience operationalizing compliance controls.
eDiscovery and litigation support experience, including hold management and defensible preservation workflows.
Data quality principles, data profiling, and experience coordinating with MDM and data engineering teams; SQL and basic data querying skills.
Cloud and hybrid storage architectures (AWS, Azure, Google Cloud) and experience migrating and archiving content to cloud or archive tiers.
Basic scripting and automation skills (PowerShell, Python, or similar) for automating retention, cleanup, and reporting tasks.
Project management methodologies and tooling (Agile/Scrum, Jira, MS Project) to deliver cross-functional programs on time and on budget.

Soft Skills

Strong stakeholder management and executive communication skills to influence senior leaders and cross-functional teams.
Analytical problem-solving with the ability to translate business requirements into technical and policy solutions.
Leadership and team development experience, including hiring, mentoring, and performance management.
Excellent documentation and process writing skills; ability to create clear policies, SOPs, and training materials.
Change management and training facilitation skills to drive adoption of new processes and tools.
Attention to detail and a methodical approach to risk identification, compliance, and audit readiness.
Negotiation and vendor management skills to secure favorable contracts and manage third-party relationships.
Time management and prioritization skills to balance strategic initiatives with operational demands.
Customer-service orientation with a consultative approach to business partner engagements.
Ethical mindset and discretion when handling sensitive or confidential information.

Education & Experience

Educational Background

Minimum Education:

Bachelor’s degree in Information Science, Library Science, Information Systems, Computer Science, Records Management, Business Administration, or a related field.

Preferred Education:

Master’s degree in Information Science, Library & Information Science (MLIS), Information Management, or MBA with a concentration in Information Systems.
Professional certifications such as Certified Records Manager (CRM), Information Governance Professional (IGP), Certified Data Management Professional (CDMP), or relevant privacy certifications (CIPP/US, CIPP/E).

Relevant Fields of Study:

Library & Information Science
Information Systems / Computer Science
Records Management / Archival Science
Business Administration / Project Management
Law or Privacy & Compliance-related studies

Experience Requirements

Typical Experience Range: 5–10 years of progressively responsible experience in information management, records management, content management, or data governance roles.

Preferred: 7+ years with demonstrable experience designing and delivering enterprise information governance programs, managing ECM implementations or migrations, leading cross-functional committees, and operationalizing compliance for regulated environments.