Manager, Data Platform Governance & Operations

This position is listed on behalf of a partner company, who manages all applications and next steps. Our partner is looking for a Manager, Data Platform Governance & Operations based in India. This is a strategic leadership role responsible for building and scaling enterprise data governance across Snowflake, AWS, and modern data platforms. You will lead a high-performing technical team while shaping governance strategy, platform architecture, compliance, and cost management. The role sits at the intersection of data governance, platform engineering, security, and organizational leadership. You will enable secure, self-service access to data while ensuring governance becomes an accelerator for analytics and AI rather than a barrier. The position offers significant influence over platform economics, AI/ML data governance, and enterprise data culture. You will work closely with engineering, security, finance, compliance, AI/ML, and business stakeholders in a fast-moving technology environment. Define and evolve the enterprise data governance strategy, covering RBAC, compliance frameworks, platform security, cost optimization, self-service access, and AI/ML governance maturity. Own the governance architecture for Snowflake, AWS, and emerging data platforms, ensuring strong security, compliance, cost efficiency, and operational scalability. Partner with platform and engineering teams to embed governance capabilities such as role-based access, network security, data masking, and Iceberg integration into enterprise data environments. Establish governance foundations for AI and ML initiatives, including model governance, AI data lineage, responsible data-use policies, and management of Snowpark ML assets. Operationalize governance standards through automated policies, controls, monitoring, reporting, and continuous compliance validation. Lead SOX and related compliance activities, including access controls, audit evidence, segregation-of-duties monitoring, and automated compliance processes. Oversee data catalog and metadata governance, ensuring accurate lineage, PII classification, masking policies, stewardship practices, and data-domain accountability. Establish governance monitoring and reporting capabilities to identify anomalies, measure compliance posture, and provide leadership with actionable visibility. Own Snowflake and AWS platform economics, including warehouse sizing, compute optimization, cost attribution, chargeback models, resource monitoring, and cost-reduction initiatives. Measure and communicate platform ROI, governance effectiveness, audit-risk reduction, compliance improvements, and cost trends to senior leadership. Build, mentor, and scale a high-performing governance engineering team, including hiring senior technical talent, defining career paths, supporting performance development, and fostering continuous learning. Provide technical leadership through architecture reviews, code reviews, technical problem-solving, and governance design decisions. Drive adoption of governed data products and self-service access models across internal teams and data domains. Partner with Data Engineering, Security, Finance, AI/ML, and business stakeholders to ensure governance priorities align with broader technology and organizational objectives. Establish scalable governance practices that can support increasing data consumption and organizational growth while maintaining strong security and compliance guardrails. Requirements: 8+ years of experience in data governance, data platform operations, data management, or a closely related discipline, including 3+ years in people leadership or a senior technical leadership role. Demonstrated experience building and scaling enterprise governance programs in cloud environments such as AWS, Azure, or GCP. Proven ability to hire, mentor, develop, and lead technical teams, with experience in performance management and organizational development. Deep knowledge of Snowflake architecture a