Cloud Governance Director

Job Title: Cloud Governance Director

Location: Fully Remote

Employment Type: Full-Time

Position Overview

The Cloud Governance Director is responsible for establishing a Cloud FinOps practice that optimizes cloud costs, ensures financial accountability and transparency, and drives cloud financial best practices within an organization. FinOps, cloud financial operations, is a cloud financial management discipline designed to maximize business value of cloud investments. This role requires an understanding of cloud pricing models, cost optimization levers, and financial analysis. The Cloud Governance Director will manage the day-to-day operations of the program by collaborating with various stakeholders, including finance, engineering, and operations teams, to align cloud spending with business objectives and maximize the return on cloud investments as well as driving expense transparency across products, customers, and lines of business.

Key Responsibilities:

FinOps Strategy Development – 10%

• Lead the development and implementation of a FinOps strategy to manage cloud spending effectively.
• Build and maintain a cloud financial management framework, including budgeting and forecasting.

Cost Management and Optimization – 35%

• Collaborate with teams to establish best practices for cloud cost management.
• Identify opportunities to save costs and drive initiatives that reduce cloud expenditures without sacrificing performance.
• Use analytical skills to monitor, analyze, and report on cloud usage and spending.
• Analyze usage patterns to identify cost-reduction opportunities and implement chargeback mechanisms for accountability.
• Drive expense transparency across products, customers, and lines of business.
• Collaborate with finance, engineering, product, and operations teams to align cloud spending and shared costs with business objectives and maintain financial models.
• Develop and maintain financial models to forecast cloud costs, track spend against budgets, and provide insights into cost trends and anomalies.

Cloud Governance Platform – 35%

• Own and maintain the cloud governance platform to facilitate workflows that support the FinOps program.
• Develop expertise with the toolset and share knowledge across the organization.
• Develop reporting capabilities and communicate to stakeholders; prepare reports and dashboards to track cloud spend and ensure visibility throughout the organization.

Team Development and Education – 10%

• Educate and train teams on cloud cost management.
• Work with stakeholders to ensure financial strategies align with business objectives.

Strategic Planning and Innovation – 5%

• Stay informed with industry trends and emerging technologies.
• Develop and implement cost optimization strategies for cloud environments.

Special Assignments & Projects – 5%

Preferred Qualifications

Skills:

• Technical aptitude: Familiarity with cloud infrastructure, primarily Azure and AWS, and services is critical.
• Data knowledge: Proficiency in analyzing data, familiarity with tools like SQL and creating visualizations with BI platforms.
• Project Management skills: Excellent communication, teamwork, and problem-solving skills are essential for success in this role. Must have the ability to communicate technical and financial concepts to diverse audiences.
• Problem-solving skills: Independently identify and resolve cost-related issues.

Experience:

• Familiarity with IT cost and consumption management concepts is required, and programming skills can be a plus.
• At least 5 years of experience in finance, operations, or IT, with at least 2 years in a role focused on cloud financial management.
• Strong skills in financial analysis, cloud computing, and data management are required.
• A solid understanding of cloud platforms and their pricing models.

Education:

• Bachelor’s degree in Information Technology, Business Administration, or a related field.