Senior Taxonomist – Legal and Compliance (Hybrid)

We're seeking someone to join our team as a Senior Taxonomist in Enterprise NFR to lead the design, governance, and evolution of enterprise taxonomies and related semantic assets used across the Non-Financial Risk domain.

In the Legal & Compliance division, we assist the Firm in achieving its business objectives by facilitating and overseeing the Firm’s management of legal, regulatory and franchise risk. This is a Vice President level position within NFR Data & Analytics. NFR Data & Analytics is a function in the Legal and Compliance Division responsible for designing and optimizing surveillance models, approaches and tools using advanced analytical techniques like supervised and unsupervised machine learning, Natural Language Processing (NLP) and evolving techniques like graph analytics.

The surveillances and other tools help identify suspicious and/or illegal behaviors like money laundering, market manipulation, insider trading, unfair sales or trading practices and other financial crimes. The team also supports the structuring, standardization, and discoverability of NFR information assets through taxonomy, metadata, and semantic capabilities that enable analytics, governance, and AI-driven use cases. In this role, you will lead the development of enterprise taxonomies and information structures that enhance the discoverability, reuse, and intelligent application of NFR data, enabling advanced capabilities such as semantic search, knowledge graphs, and AI-driven insights.

Since 1935, Morgan Stanley is known as a global leader in financial services, always evolving and innovating to better serve our clients and our communities in more than 40 countries around the world.
What you'll do in the role:

• Provide thought leadership and establish standards for taxonomy design, adoption, and governance across NFR and related stakeholder groups.

• Lead taxonomy implementation initiatives from requirements gathering through design, development, governance, and adoption.

• Partner with Technology and Data teams to operationalize taxonomy and semantic capabilities in enterprise platforms.

• Own and maintain enterprise taxonomy assets, including lifecycle management, change control, and quality oversight.

• Define and enhance taxonomy operating models, governance processes, tooling practices, and user support capabilities.

• Represent the taxonomy function in NFR and Firmwide working groups, driving alignment on standards, governance, and best practices.

• Mentor junior team members and guide best practices in taxonomy development.

What you'll bring to the role:

• At least 8 years of experience of taxonomy and metadata management, information architecture, ontology, or knowledge organization within a large enterprise or similarly complex environment with a Bachelor's degree in library science, information science, computer science or related discipline.

• Demonstrated ability to lead enterprise-scale taxonomy governance programmes and drive cross-functional adoption.

• Strong executive stakeholder engagement, communication, collaboration, and change management skills.

• Excellent analytical and problem-solving skills, including business/data analysis and concept or entity extraction to support taxonomy development.

• Experience in the categorization and use of business data in support of business processes such as risk management, vendor management or financial management.

• Experience using enterprise data, metadata, taxonomy management platforms, and related analytical tooling.

• Knowledge of semantic technologies, including SKOS modelling, SPARQL, and broader ontology management practices.

• Understanding of financial services terminology, operating models, data structures, regulatory requirements, and the application of taxonomy frameworks to business processes such as risk, vendor, financial, or procurement management.

All our positions are located in Montreal, Quebec. We offer a hybrid work environment, combining remote work and attendance in the office.

Knowledge of French and English is required.

WHAT YOU CAN EXPECT FROM MORGAN STANLEY:

At Morgan Stanley, we raise, manage and allocate capital for our clients – helping them reach their goals. We do it in a way that’s differentiated – and we’ve done that for 90 years.  Our values - putting clients first, doing the right thing, leading with exceptional ideas, committing to diversity and inclusion, and giving back - aren’t just beliefs, they guide the decisions we make every day to do what's best for our clients, communities and more than 80,000 employees in 1,200 offices across 42 countries. At Morgan Stanley, you’ll find an opportunity to work alongside the best and the brightest, in an environment where you are supported and empowered. Our teams are relentless collaborators and creative thinkers, fueled by their diverse backgrounds and experiences. We are proud to support our employees and their families at every point along their work-life journey, offering some of the most attractive and comprehensive employee benefits and perks in the industry. There’s also ample opportunity to move about the business for those who show passion and grit in their work.

To learn more about our offices across the globe, please copy and paste https://www.morganstanley.com/about-us/global-offices​ into your browser.

Morgan Stanley is an equal opportunity employer committed to building and maintaining a workforce that is diverse in experience and background.  Our recruiting efforts reflect our strong commitment to a culture of inclusion, where individuals are hired, developed, and advanced based on their skills and talents.

Our workforce reflects a broad cross-section of the global communities in which we operate, bringing a variety of backgrounds, talents, perspectives, and experiences.

For more information, please visit: https://www.morganstanley.com/people-opportunities/eeo.