Architecting Accountability: A Layered Enterprise Data Governance Model for Regulated Industries

Regulated industries such as healthcare, financial services, pharmaceuticals, energy, and public administration operate within highly controlled environments defined by statutory mandates, supervisory oversight, and strict audit requirements. As enterprise ecosystems become increasingly data-driven characterized by exponential growth in structured and unstructured information, distributed cloud infrastructures, real-time analytics, and cross-border data transfers traditional IT governance approaches prove inadequate for ensuring end-to-end accountability, transparency, and regulatory compliance. Enterprise data governance must therefore evolve beyond technical control mechanisms to incorporate board-level oversight, clearly defined decision rights, formal stewardship structures, policy lifecycle management, architectural integration, and measurable compliance monitoring. This paper synthesizes established enterprise data governance frameworks, including ISO/IEC 38505-1, the DAMA Data Management Body of Knowledge (DMBOK), and the Data Governance Institute (DGI) framework, to develop a cohesive model suited to regulated environments. By integrating strategic governance principles, operational data management disciplines, and programmatic stewardship constructs, we propose a structured enterprise governance approach that aligns oversight with execution. The study emphasizes governance lifecycle alignment, stewardship accountability, compliance traceability, audit defensibility, and risk-based control integration as foundational pillars for building resilient, scalable, and sustainable enterprise data governance capabilities in regulated industries.