Data Governance Lead

Ares Management Corporation; New York (NY); On-site; USD 200,000 - 220,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Medical, dental, vision benefits

401(k) with company match

HSA/FSA options

Life Insurance

Long-Term Disability

Employee Assistance Program

Commuter Benefits

Job summary

Ares Management Corporation seeks a Vice President of Data Governance to own and operationalize governance across the firm from the Data & AI team in New York. You will design frameworks, stand up tooling, and partner with Legal, Compliance, Risk, Cyber on governance in a rapidly expanding data ecosystem.

This hands-on role requires building end-to-end governance, cataloging data assets, and enabling AI-ready data while ensuring regulatory compliance and strong stakeholder engagement.

Qualifications

• 10+ years in data governance with leadership experience; financial services preferred.
• Proven ability to build data governance programs from scratch.
• Hands-on with modern data platforms like Databricks, Unity Catalog, Azure data services.
• Experience with PII/data privacy compliance programs (GDPR, CCPA).
• Strong executive communication and stakeholder management across Legal, Compliance, Risk, Cyber.

Responsibilities

• Design and mature end-to-end data governance framework, including policies and ownership.
• Define and drive data classification and ensure consistency across systems.
• Establish data governance councils and stewardship roles across investment and corporate functions.
• Oversee data catalog management and metadata standards.
• Lead access management and PII protection in collaboration with Cyber.
• Govern AI data lineage, access controls, and model risk governance.

Skills

Data governance leadership

Executive communication

Stakeholder management

Data quality

Policy design

AI governance concepts

Regulatory compliance awareness

Financial services experience

Education

Bachelor's degree in a relevant field

Advanced degree or certifications (CDMP, DAMA, CIMP) a plus

Tools

Databricks

Unity Catalog

Azure data services

Job description

Job Description

Ares is seeking a Vice President of Data Governance to own and operationalize data governance across the firm. This person will build the frameworks, policies, and operating processes that make data trustworthy, discoverable, secure, and AI‑ready — directly enabling the firm's Enterprise Data Strategy and the AURA AI agent platform. The role sits within the Data & AI team and works across all investment and corporate functions. This is a hands‑on, build‑from‑the‑ground‑up mandate: the VP will design governance frameworks, stand up the tooling and processes to enforce them, and partner with Legal, Compliance, Risk, Cyber, and business stakeholders to ensure governance keeps pace with an aggressively expanding Data & AI ecosystem.

Key Responsibilities

• Data Governance Framework & Strategy Design, implement, and continuously mature the firm's end‑to‑end data governance framework, including policies, standards, operating models, and RACI structures for data ownership and stewardship

  Define and drive the firm's data classification scheme (e.g., public, internal, confidential, restricted/PII) and ensure consistent application across Databricks/Unity Catalog and downstream systems

  Establish data governance councils/forums and stewardship roles across investment and corporate functions

  Align governance roadmap with the Enterprise Data Strategy and the AURA platform roadmap

• Data Catalog Management Own the data catalog strategy and administration (Unity Catalog), including taxonomy, metadata standards, business glossary, lineage tracking, and ownership tagging

  Ensure all critical data assets and supporting documents — fund master data, deal data, portfolio data, LP data — are cataloged, documented, and discoverable

  Partner with data engineering to embed catalog registration into the medallion architecture (bronze/silver/gold) as a standard part of the data lifecycle

  Partner with Compliance to ensure data meet retention requirements and manage the end‑to‑end data lifecycle

• Data Quality Establish an enterprise Data Quality Framework

  Define Critical Data Elements (CDEs), data quality standards, metrics, and SLAs for critical data domains (fund, deal, portfolio, investor)

  Build data quality monitoring, issue management, and remediation workflows

  Develop executive dashboards and governance reporting on quality performance and trends and report quality KPIs to senior stakeholders

  Establish root‑cause and continuous improvement processes for recurring data quality issues

• Access Management & PII Define and enforce data access management requirements, including role‑based access control, least‑privilege principles, and periodic access recertification

  Partner closely with IAM in Cyber to align data access management requirements with the firm's broader identity and access management framework, including provisioning, entitlement reviews, and control testing

  Own the firm's approach to identifying, classifying, and protecting PII and other sensitive data (e.g., investor data, employee data), including masking, tokenization, and retention requirements

  Partner with Cyber and Legal on data privacy compliance (e.g., state privacy laws, GDPR where applicable) and incident response for data exposure events

• Data Governance for AI Define governance requirements specific to AI/agentic systems built on AURA, including: Model & data lineage for AI: tracking which datasets, embeddings, and vector indices feed which agents, and ensuring traceability from source data to AI‑generated output

  AI data access controls: governing what data each agent/persona is permitted to retrieve or act on via Unity AI Gateway, including guardrails against unauthorized cross‑domain data access

  PII handling in AI pipelines: ensuring RAG pipelines, embeddings, and LLM prompts do not leak PII or confidential deal information; defining redaction/masking standards for data entering vector stores

  Model risk & output governance: partnering with Risk/Compliance on evaluation, human‑in‑the‑loop review, and sign‑off processes for agent outputs (e.g., IC memo agents, portfolio agents) before business use

  Third‑party/LLM vendor governance: data handling requirements for external model providers (e.g., data residency, retention, training‑use exclusions) as part of the LiteLLM/LangFuse observability stack

  AI agent registration & catalog governance: ensuring every agent registered in AURA carries documented data sources, access scope, and owner, consistent with the “register once, appear everywhere” model

  Auditability: ensuring LangFuse (or equivalent) observability logs meet governance and audit retention requirements for agent decisions and data usage

  Contributing to and maintaining the AI platform governance sign‑off process with Legal, Compliance, Risk, and Cyber for new agents and use cases

• Stakeholder Management & Enablement Serve as the primary governance partner to Legal, Compliance, Risk, and Cyber on all data‑ and AI‑related data governance matters

  Act as a key member of the E&C (Enablement and Control) governance group, helping evaluate and enable new AI use cases while ensuring appropriate controls are in place before launch

  Educate and enable Business AI Champions and Quant/Technical on governance requirements and self‑service compliance

  Represent data governance in architecture review boards (ARB) for new data and AI initiatives

Qualifications

• 10+ years in data governance, data management, or related roles, with at least 3‑5 years in a leadership capacity; financial services or alternative asset management experience strongly preferred
• Demonstrated experience building data governance programs from scratch, including catalog, classification, quality, and access management frameworks
• Hands‑on familiarity with modern data platforms — Databricks, Unity Catalog, Azure data services — and how governance is operationalized within them
• Working knowledge of AI/ML governance concepts: model risk management, RAG/LLM data handling, responsible AI principles, and emerging AI regulatory frameworks
• Experience with PII/data privacy compliance programs and regulatory frameworks (GDPR, CCPA/state privacy laws, etc.)
• Strong executive communication and stakeholder management skills; able to operate effectively with Legal, Compliance, Risk, Cyber/IAM, and Enablement & Control functions as well as technical and investment teams
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills; able to translate technical governance concepts for non‑technical/investment audiences
• Experience working within regulated financial services environments; alternative asset management experience strongly preferred
• Bachelor's degree required; advanced degree or relevant certifications (CDMP, DAMA, CIMP etc.) a plus

Reporting Relationships

Vice President, Business Intelligence

Compensation

The anticipated base salary range for this position is listed below. Total compensation may also include a discretionary performance‑based bonus. Note, the range takes into account a broad spectrum of qualifications, including, but not limited to, years of relevant work experience, education, and other relevant qualifications specific to the role. $200,000 - $220,000

Benefits

• Ares U.S. Core Benefits include Comprehensive Medical/Rx, Dental and Vision plans; 401(k) program with company match; Flexible Savings Accounts (FSA); Healthcare Savings Accounts (HSA) with company contribution; Basic and Voluntary Life Insurance; Long‑Term Disability (LTD) and Short‑Term Disability (STD) insurance; Employee Assistance Program (EAP), and Commuter Benefits plan for parking and transit.
• Ares offers a number of additional benefits including access to a world‑class medical advisory team, a mental health app that includes coaching, therapy and psychiatry, a mindfulness and wellbeing app, financial wellness benefit that includes access to a financial advisor, new parent leave, reproductive and adoption assistance, emergency backup care, matching gift program, education sponsorship program, and much more.

Ares Management

Ares Management Corporation (NYSE: ARES) is a leading global alternative investment manager offering clients complementary primary and secondary investment solutions across the credit, real estate, private equity and infrastructure asset classes. We seek to provide flexible capital to support businesses and create value for our stakeholders and within our communities. By collaborating across our investment groups, we aim to generate consistent and attractive investment returns throughout market cycles. As of June 30, 2026, Ares Management's global platform had approximately $671 billion of assets under management(1) with more than 4,400 employees operating across North America, South America, Europe, Asia Pacific and the Middle East. For more information, please visit www.aresmgmt.com. Ares Management LLC (together with its related operating and administrative subsidiaries, “Ares Management”) is an Equal Employment Opportunity employer and considers all applicants for employment without regard to race, color, religion, ethnicity, creed, sex, age, national origin, alienage or citizenship status, disability, medical condition, pregnancy, marital status, partnership status, sexual orientation, status regarding public assistance, military or veteran status, domestic violence victim status, gender identity and expression, transgender status, genetic information, status as unemployed, political affiliation or any other characteristic protected by federal, state or local law. Ares Management will consider for employment qualified applicants with criminal histories in a manner consistent with the requirements of the Fair Chance Initiative for Hiring Ordinance. (1) As of June 30, 2026. AUM amounts include funds managed by Ivy Hill Asset Management, LP., a wholly owned portfolio company of Ares Capital Corporation and registered investment adviser.