Job DescriptionPositionLead Data GovernancePositions1DepartmentData EngineeringDepartmentData EngineeringReporting toHead of Data EngineeringReporting toHead of Data EngineeringLocationGurgaonLocationGurgaonJOB SUMMARY:
We are seeking an experienced Data Governance Lead to establish, mature, and continuously evolve the enterprise data governance function at Axis Max Life Insurance. This role owns the long-term governance vision — building a framework that scales with the organization’s data footprint as new domains, data products, and analytical use cases emerge.
The role operates at the intersection of business and technology — partnering with Data Owners (senior business stakeholders), Data Stewards (business teams), and Data Custodians (Data Engineering and Platform teams) to ensure data assets are governed, discoverable, trusted, and compliant with applicable data protection and insurance regulations.
This is a hands-on leadership role. The incumbent will define and continuously refine the governance operating model, chair governance councils and working groups, select and implement governance tooling appropriate to the organization’s maturity, and drive sustained adoption across the enterprise.
KEY RESPONSIBILITIES:
Governance Vision, Framework Strategy
Define and own the long-term enterprise data governance vision and multi-year roadmap aligned to business strategy
Design the governance framework covering ownership, stewardship, catalog, lineage, data quality, and access control
Establish and chair the Data Governance Council — setting agenda, cadence, decision rights, and escalation paths
Own the governance maturity model and scorecard; report progress to executive leadership and the Board on a regular cadence
Data Ownership Stewardship
Identify and onboard Data Owners and Data Stewards across all data domains as they emerge and evolve
Define RACI for core governance activities — catalog maintenance, DQ remediation, access reviews, KPI changes, regulatory response
Drive active accountability — ensure owners and stewards are governing in practice, not just in name
KPI Registry Golden Definitions
Build and maintain the enterprise KPI registry covering base and derived KPIs
Govern KPI definition and formula changes — impact assessment, approval workflow, and version control
Ensure cross-domain derived KPIs have clear ownership, input contracts, and reconciliation rules
Data Catalog Lineage
Select, implement, and continuously evolve the enterprise data catalog appropriate to current and future scale
Drive cataloguing of data products with complete and accurate metadata
Establish end-to-end data lineage — from source ingestion through transformation to consumption
Data Quality
Define minimum data quality standards per domain covering completeness, uniqueness, validity, timeliness, and consistency
Establish automated DQ checks integrated into the data pipeline lifecycle
Build DQ dashboards and proactive alerting — detection ahead of business impact, not after
Access Control Regulatory Compliance
Define and operationalize role-based and attribute-based access control aligned to data sensitivity classification
Drive periodic access reviews and certification — ensure least-privilege access is sustained over time
Maintain audit-ready evidence packs for applicable data protection and insurance regulatory requirements
Respond to internal audit and regulatory observations; drive closure and continuous improvement
Adoption, Enablement Change Management
Design and deliver governance onboarding and continuous enablement for Data Owners and Stewards
Create governance playbooks, templates, and self-service documentation that scale with organizational growth
Track adoption metrics — catalog usage, DQ coverage, access review completion, stewardship activity
Key Technical competencies/skills required
Data Governance Frameworks
Deep understanding of industry data governance frameworks (DAMA DMBOK, DCAM, or equivalent)
Experience implementing data ownership, stewardship, and operating models at enterprise scale
Working knowledge of data protection regulations and insurance sector regulatory requirements
Cloud Data Platform (AWS Preferred)
Hands-on experience with cloud-native data platform services for cataloging, storage, processing, and analytics
Understanding of identity and access management, resource-based policies, column-level security, and tag-based access control
Experience leveraging audit logging services for compliance evidence and governance telemetry
Data Quality Observability
Experience with data quality frameworks and the ability to evaluate and adopt tools as the ecosystem evolves
Ability to define DQ rules, thresholds, and alerting strategies suited to business criticality
Knowledge of data observability principles and modern data reliability practices
Data Catalog Lineage
Experience implementing or operating enterprise data catalogs and the judgment to select tooling appropriate to scale
Understanding of metadata management, business glossaries, and automated lineage capture
Familiarity with lineage visualization across ingestion, transformation, and serving layers
Data Modeling Architecture
Understanding of data lakes, data warehouses, data marts, and modern layered (medallion) architectures
Familiarity with modern data transformation frameworks and SQL-based modeling approaches
Knowledge of schema design, partitioning, data lifecycle management, and cost-aware architecture
Stakeholder Management Communication
Ability to engage CXO-level business stakeholders on data governance value and trade-offs
Experience running governance councils, working groups, and cross-functional workshops
Strong written communication — policies, standards, playbooks, and executive-ready reporting
Desired qualifications and experience:
Education
Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, Data Science, or related field (Master’s degree preferred)
Experience
8+ years in data engineering, data management, or data governance roles
3+ years in a governance-focused role with enterprise-wide scope
Experience in insurance, financial services, or other regulated industries preferred
Proven track record of building governance capability from inception and evolving it through successive maturity stages
Certifications (Good to Have)
CDMP (Certified Data Management Professional) — DAMA International
AWS Certified Data Analytics or Solutions Architect (or equivalent cloud certifications)
CIPP/A (Certified Information Privacy Professional — Asia) or equivalent privacy certification
