The Director – Data Operations and Governance is a senior leadership role based in the Evernorth Hyderabad Office and sits within the Digital and Analytics portfolio for The Cigna Group. This role partners closely with US‑based leadership to build, scale, and operate enterprise‑grade data operations and orchestration capabilities that enable digital products, analytics, and AI across the organization.
This role is suited for a hands‑on data leader with deep experience operating modern data platforms and who can function as an enterprise data orchestrator—connecting data products, pipelines, platforms, and governance practices into a cohesive, reliable, and trusted data ecosystem. The Director acts as a key execution partner to US Data and Governance leaders, ensuring data flows, dependencies, and operational standards are aligned across domains and geographies.
Key Responsibilities:
Enterprise Data Orchestration & Operations
- Partner closely with US‑based business and technology leaders to translate strategic priorities into enterprise data operations and orchestration outcomes.
- Lead, build, and develop data operations and analytics teams in Hyderabad to execute and coordinate data delivery across platforms, domains, and products.
- Operate and evolve enterprise data platforms in alignment with shared architectural standards, roadmaps, and integration patterns defined with US stakeholders.
- Provide leadership oversight for data operations execution, ensuring end‑to‑end reliability, performance, and cost efficiency across batch and near‑real‑time data pipelines.
- Establish strong operating discipline around monitoring, SLAs/SLOs, incident management, and cross‑platform issue resolution.
- Collaborate with engineering and platform teams to standardize, simplify, and align data pipelines, reducing fragmentation and improving reuse across enterprise data products.
- Ensure timely, dependable, and well‑coordinated data availability to support analytics, reporting, digital products, and AI use cases.
Data Governance Embedded in Operations
- Implement data governance capabilities (data quality, metadata, lineage, access, privacy) as integrated components of data platforms and pipelines, not as standalone processes.
- Ensure governance standards are operationalized through orchestration, automation, and tooling, in alignment with US governance direction and compliance needs.
- Act as a leader for enterprise data trust, ensuring consistency, transparency, and alignment of data used for executive decision‑making.
- Embed security, risk, and compliance controls into data operations in partnership with US risk, security, and compliance teams.
- Serve as a coordination and escalation partner for data integrity, availability, and cross‑domain data issues across geographies.
Leadership & Stakeholder Engagement
- Maintain strong, ongoing engagement with US stakeholders to align priorities, dependencies, risks, and delivery timelines across data initiatives.
- Provide clear direction, coaching, and performance management for managers and individual contributors across data operations and analytics teams.
- Foster a culture of ownership, execution rigor, and cross‑border collaboration between Hyderabad and US teams.
- Influence without authority in a matrixed environment, aligning multiple teams toward shared enterprise data outcomes.
Education
- Bachelor's or Master's degree in Engineering, Computer Science, Data, or a related field from a top‑tier institution.
Experience
- 18+ years of experience across data platforms, data operations, analytics, and governance, with progression into senior leadership roles.
- Proven experience operating and coordinating large‑scale, enterprise data ecosystems, not just individual systems or domains.
Skills:
- Strong hands‑on background building, operating, and stabilizing modern data platforms before transitioning into people leadership.
- Deep experience with Databricks (workspaces, jobs, clusters, notebooks) and cloud‑based lakehouse architectures.
- Strong understanding of data pipeline orchestration, observability, and operational reliability (monitoring, SLAs/SLOs, incident response, root‑cause remediation).
- Demonstrated ability to embed governance capabilities into data operations, including quality, metadata, lineage, privacy, and access controls.
- Experience partnering closely with US‑based leaders, executing against shared standards and enterprise priorities.
- Strong stakeholder management and communication skills, with the ability to translate complex operational and data topics for senior leaders.
