Senior Lead – Access Management

Northern Trust; Pune District; On-site; INR 3,000,000 - 4,200,000; Full time

Job summary

Northern Trust is seeking a Senior Lead of Access Management to guide authentication, authorization, and identity governance across workforce and client-facing environments. You will partner with cybersecurity, engineering, risk, audit, and business teams to drive secure, scalable IAM platforms and modernization initiatives.

The role emphasizes operational excellence, platform stability, and delivery of strategic IAM roadmaps within a regulated financial services context.

Qualifications

• 7+ years in Identity and Access Management, Cybersecurity Engineering, or related tech.
• 3+ years leading engineering, delivery, governance, or operations teams.
• Experience with IAM tech like Okta, Entra ID, Ping, CyberArk, Saviynt, OAuth/OIDC/SAML, MFA.

Responsibilities

• Lead IAM engineering and operations across authentication, authorization, identity governance, and lifecycle management.
• Oversee daily operation, support, maintenance, and continual improvement of IAM services.
• Ensure availability, resiliency, performance, and operational maturity of identity capabilities.
• Drive remediation of issues, debt, platform risks, and control gaps.
• Establish and monitor SLAs, metrics, and performance indicators.
• Promote secure-by-design access management practices across the organization.

Skills

Leadership

IAM

Cloud security

Regulatory compliance

Tools

Okta

Entra ID

Ping

CyberArk

Saviynt

OAuth

OIDC

SAML

MFA

Job description

The Senior Lead of Access Management is responsible for leading the delivery, engineering, operations, governance, and continual improvement of enterprise Identity and Access Management (IAM) capabilities supporting both workforce and client-facing environments. This role oversees authentication, authorization, identity governance, access lifecycle management, privileged access integrations, and access control services while maintaining alignment with cybersecurity, regulatory, operational, and business objectives.

The position partners closely with cybersecurity, engineering, architecture, infrastructure, application development, risk, audit, and business teams to deliver secure, scalable, and resilient access management services. The Senior Lead serves as a key leader within the IAM organization and is accountable for operational excellence, platform stability, control effectiveness, modernization initiatives, and delivery of strategic roadmap commitments.

Primary Responsibilities

Access Management Engineering & Operations

• Lead teams responsible for authentication, authorization, identity lifecycle management, access governance, and related IAM services.
• Oversee day-to-day operation, support, maintenance, and continual improvement of access management platforms and services.
• Ensure availability, resiliency, performance, and operational maturity of identity and access capabilities.
• Drive remediation of operational issues, technical debt, platform risks, and control deficiencies.
• Establish and monitor service level objectives, operational metrics, and performance indicators.

Workforce and Client Identity Services

• Lead engineering and operational support for workforce and client authentication capabilities.
• Support identity lifecycle processes including joiner, mover, leaver, provisioning, deprovisioning, certification, and entitlement governance.
• Ensure secure onboarding and integration of applications with enterprise access management services.
• Partner with application teams to implement authentication and authorization patterns and controls.
• Support modernization of authentication and authorization capabilities across the enterprise.
• Ensure IAM services operate in compliance with enterprise standards, regulatory expectations, and security requirements.
• Support audits, regulatory reviews, risk assessments, certifications, and control testing activities.
• Track remediation activities and corrective action plans for findings and identified risks.
• Partner with Risk, Audit, Security Architecture, and Technology teams to maintain strong control effectiveness.
• Promote secure-by-design access management practices across the organization.

Program & Delivery Leadership

• Lead delivery of IAM strategic initiatives and modernization efforts.
• Coordinate execution across engineering, infrastructure, operations, architecture, cybersecurity, and business teams.
• Manage priorities, dependencies, risks, resource requirements, and delivery timelines.
• Develop and maintain operational roadmaps aligned with organizational objectives.
• Support execution of workforce and client access transformation initiatives.

Stakeholder Engagement

• Partner with product owners, business leaders, technology teams, and cybersecurity stakeholders to deliver secure and effective IAM capabilities.
• Communicate status, risks, dependencies, and recommendations to leadership.
• Facilitate governance forums and support executive reporting activities.
• Maintain strong relationships with strategic vendors and technology partners supporting IAM services.
• Lead and develop engineers, architects, analysts, and operational support personnel.
• Establish goals and objectives aligned with organizational priorities.
• Drive accountability, performance management, mentoring, and succession planning.
• Foster a culture of operational excellence, innovation, teamwork, and continuous improvement.

Areas of Accountability

• Authorization Services
• Access Governance
• Identity Lifecycle Management (Joiner, Mover, Leaver)
• Role Based Access Control (RBAC)
• Identity Governance & Administration (IGA)
• Federated Identity Services
• MFA and Adaptive Authentication
• Access Certifications
• Application Onboarding & Integration
• Audit & Regulatory Readiness
• Operational Support & Reliability
• IAM Metrics, Reporting, and Control Effectiveness Monitoring

Required Experience

• 7+ years of experience in Identity and Access Management, Cybersecurity Engineering, Security Operations, or related technology disciplines.
• 3+ years of leadership experience managing engineering, delivery, governance, or operational teams.
• Experience with IAM technologies such as Okta, Entra ID, Ping, CyberArk, Saviynt, OAuth, OpenID Connect (OIDC), SAML, MFA, federation, and access governance platforms.
• Experience leading technology initiatives within regulated financial services or similarly regulated environments.
• Familiarity with NIST, FFIEC, ISO 27001, SOC, NYDFS, and related regulatory frameworks.
• Strong leadership, communication, stakeholder management, and delivery management skills.

Success Measures

• Stable and resilient access management platforms.
• Effective identity lifecycle and access governance processes.
• Successful delivery of strategic IAM initiatives.
• Positive audit and regulatory outcomes.
• Strong control effectiveness and risk reduction.
• Improved user experience and operational efficiency.
• Achievement of service level, reliability, and security objectives.