Data Operations - Enterprise Market Data Strategy Lead

COMPANY OVERVIEW KKR is a leading global investment firm that offers alternative asset management as well as capital markets and insurance solutions. KKR aims to generate attractive investment returns by following a patient and disciplined investment approach, employing world-class people, and supporting growth in its portfolio companies and communities. KKR sponsors investment funds that invest in private equity, credit and real assets and has strategic partners that manage hedge funds. KKR’s insurance subsidiaries offer retirement, life and reinsurance products under the management of Global Atlantic Financial Group. References to KKR’s investments may include the activities of its sponsored funds and insurance subsidiaries. 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. 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 d