Data Operations - Enterprise Market Data Strategy Lead

TEAM OVERVIEW

KKR’s Global Data Operations team is an enterprise data management and delivery organization focused on making the firm’s data more trusted, connected, actionable, and valuable. The team provides leverage across the full data lifecycle, from data sourcing and collection through data quality, enrichment, governance, reporting, and analytics. Working globally across KKR’s businesses and functions, Data Operations partners with stakeholders to translate complex data needs into scalable solutions, stronger operating processes, and high-quality insights that improve transparency, accelerate decision-making, and help the firm operate with greater speed, consistency, and intelligence.

Within Data Operations, KKR is establishing a new Enterprise Market Data Strategy capability to shape the future of one of the firm’s most critical information assets. This role will define and drive the firm-wide strategy for market data, partnering across businesses and functions to optimize investments, unlock greater value from data providers, and ensure market data capabilities evolve alongside KKR’s growth. The leader will influence commercial negotiations, steer enterprise-wide demand management, drive transparency into spending and usage, and build the operating model, reporting, and tools that enable smarter decision-making across the firm. Working at the intersection of strategy, data, finance, and operations, this role offers a unique opportunity to create a scalable market data ecosystem that enhances investment insight, improves efficiency, and delivers measurable enterprise value.

POSITION OVERVIEW

We are seeking a Principal, Enterprise Market Data Strategy to serve as the dedicated enterprise lead for market data strategy, execution, and optimization within KKR’s Global Data Operations organization. This is a newly created role designed to elevate a critical capability area — building a structured, enterprise-wide approach to KKR’s market data landscape, spanning hundreds of vendor relationships, thousands of product subscriptions, and millions of dollars in annual spend across multiple business lines and functions.

The scope of this role is strategic and cross-functional. The person in this seat will own KKR’s overall market data vision, build deep knowledge of the firm’s vendor and product ecosystem, develop a comprehensive enterprise inventory, drive demand management and optimization, create transparency around spend and utilization, and establish the governance cadences and decision-making processes needed to manage market data. They will partner actively with business COOs, Sourcing, Legal, FP&A, Technology, and Data Operations to connect insights across the organization, align market data investments with business priorities, and build a scalable enterprise capability that delivers measurable value across the firm.

The ideal candidate combines deep knowledge of the market data vendor and product ecosystem with the strategic orientation, executive presence, and cross-functional execution discipline required to operate as a senior leader at a world-class investment firm. This person understands financial services workflows, market data products and commercial models, vendor landscapes, and how investment professionals, Technology, Finance, Legal, Sourcing, and Data teams interact around market data decisions. They operate with the independence, judgment, and ownership expected at the Principal level — and they will treat this program as their own franchise to build.

This position reports directly to the Global Head of Data Operations.

RESPONSIBILITIES

• Own KKR’s enterprise market data strategy, including spend optimization, demand management, vendor rationalization, and alignment of market data investments with business priorities.
• Develop and maintain a comprehensive view of KKR’s market data landscape, including vendors, products, contracts, entitlements, usage, and spend.
• Lead evaluation and governance of market data demand, ensuring new requests, existing subscriptions, and vendor relationships deliver measurable business value and ROI.
• Serve as the business owner of the Calero platform, defining its vision, requirements, and operating model to provide enterprise-wide visibility into market data inventory, licensing, usage, and contracts.
• Partner with business leaders, COOs, FP&A, Sourcing, Legal, Technology, and Data Operations to understand needs, manage tradeoffs, and support strategic market data decisions across the firm.
• Drive transparency and accountability through reporting, budgeting, forecasting, renewal planning, and executive-level communications, including Market Data Steering Committee updates.
• Lead commercial optimization initiatives, including vendor consolidation, contract negotiations, license right-sizing, entitlement management, and other opportunities to improve efficiency and reduce costs.
• Ensure effective operational management of the market data ecosystem, including contract compliance, license governance, technology enablement, and support for scalable processes and controls.

QUALIFICATIONS

• 8–12 years of experience in market data strategy, market data operations, data product management, vendor management, or related roles within financial services, market data providers, or information services firms.
• Deep knowledge of the market data ecosystem, including major providers such as Bloomberg, LSEG, FactSet, S&P Global, MSCI, ICE, and Moody’s, as well as their products, licensing models, commercial structures, and competitive positioning.
• Strong understanding of how market data is consumed across investment research, portfolio management, trading, risk, compliance, operations, and finance workflows.
• Experience managing enterprise market data platforms, inventories, entitlements, vendor catalogs, or related solutions such as Calero, TRG Screen, Alveo, or similar technologies.
• Strong commercial and analytical skills, with the ability to evaluate vendor proposals, negotiate complex agreements, analyze usage and spend data, identify optimization opportunities, and build business cases that deliver measurable value.
• Proven ability to influence senior stakeholders and drive enterprise initiatives in a highly matrixed environment, partnering effectively across business, technology, finance, sourcing, and legal teams.
• Experience establishing operating models, governance frameworks, reporting, and decision-making processes for enterprise data, technology, or market data programs.
• Excellent communication and presentation skills, with the ability to develop executive-level materials and present recommendations to senior leadership.
• Bachelor’s degree required.
• Collaborative, intellectually curious, commercially minded, and execution-oriented, with a commitment to excellence and continuous improvement.

PREFERRED QUALIFICATIONS

• Experience at a financial institution with $100B+ in AUM, or at a Tier 1 market data vendor in a strategic, product, or senior client-facing capacity.
• Familiarity with alternative asset management workflows, including private equity, credit, real assets, and insurance investment operations.
• Hands-on experience implementing or administering market data management tools (Calero, TRG Screen, MDSL, or equivalent) including data model design, inventory configuration, and reporting.
• Knowledge of market data regulatory and compliance requirements, including exchange audit processes, redistribution rules, and licensing restrictions.
• Experience with cost allocation methodologies for enterprise data and market data spend, and with enterprise budgeting and forecasting in a financial services context.
• MBA or advanced degree in a relevant discipline.

PREFERRED PROFILE

The ideal candidate is a market data expert who understands the market data ecosystem strategically—not just operationally. They have deep knowledge of market data products, vendors, licensing models, and consumption patterns across financial services, and a proven ability to identify opportunities to optimize costs, improve transparency, and maximize business value. They may come from a market data strategy, product, operations, or vendor management role at a leading financial institution or provider such as Bloomberg, LSEG, FactSet, S&P Global, MSCI, or ICE. Candidates from consulting backgrounds with significant market data advisory experience and a track record of driving enterprise transformation are also well suited.

In their first year, the successful candidate will establish a comprehensive view of KKR’s market data landscape, implement the foundational capabilities needed to manage vendors, contracts, entitlements, and spend at an enterprise level, and deliver measurable optimization opportunities and business value. They will become a trusted advisor to business leaders and the central driver of KKR’s market data strategy. Success in this role requires strong judgment, ownership, and execution, combined with the ability to operate independently and influence across a complex organization.