Senior Trust & Assurance Program Manager- Confluent

Introduction
At IBM Software, we transform client challenges into solutions. Building the world’s leading AI-powered, cloud-native products that shape the future of business and society. Our legacy of innovation creates endless opportunities for IBMers to learn, grow, and make an impact on a global scale. Working in Software means joining a team fueled by curiosity and collaboration. You’ll work with diverse technologies, partners, and industries to design, develop, and deliver solutions that power digital transformation. With a culture that values innovation, growth, and continuous learning, IBM Software places you at the heart of IBM’s product and technology landscape. Here, you’ll have the tools and opportunities to advance your career while creating software that changes the world.
Your Role And Responsibilities
The Office of the CISO (OCISO) is part of Confluent’s Trust and Security organization and its mission is to earn and retain trust by championing Confluent’s security, privacy, resilience, and compliance positions, thereby accelerating customer adoption and use of our platform and products.
We are looking for an individual who will partner with Confluent's customers to ensure that we build the most trustworthy platform that meets security, compliance, and privacy requirements.
Success in this role will be finding the best solution not only with the current technologies and practices we currently have on hand, but defining new opportunities for product development, customer engagement strategy, audit and access transparency, and field enablement.
While this role will engage with leadership frequently, we also expect the individual in this role to roll up their sleeves to get things done. The OCISO Trust Lead will “lead by influence”, and oversee and drive trust (security, privacy, resilience and compliance) related customer engagements and interactions.
The APAC OCISO Trust Lead will partner cross-functionally with Sales, Customer Solutions Group, Product, Engineering and Legal teams to provide assurance to customers on Confluent’s security and compliance posture, enable contract reviews and negotiations, and drive externally facing communications with customers
Primary Responsibilities
Drive execution of customer trust engagements and interactions to provide context about Confluent's security and compliance posture and negotiate security terms when necessary
Propose and partner with product, engineering, and security teams to design security and compliance solutions and frameworks to meet customer requirements
Coach and mentor field and security staff on customer security needs and requirements
Be a subject matter expert for the company around customer security assurance, and develop and demonstrate POVs on important existing and emerging regulatory positions impacting cloud service adoption
Build and scale key internal capabilities and programs required to drive customer enablement interactions
Maintain relations with internal teams such as Sales, CSG, Product, Engineering and Legal to drive and enable programs required to build trust with customers
Preferred Education
Master's Degree
Required Technical And Professional Expertise
Required Skills and Experience:
Bachelor’s degree required plus a minimum of 8 years’ experience in Information Security and Compliance
Customer-facing experience at a cloud provider or consulting firm
Experience at a cloud or SaaS provider or as a customer of a cloud or SaaS provider with complex & demanding security and compliance requirements
Experience with a combination of the following: ISO 27001, HITRUST, SOC2, CSA, NIST, etc.
Architectural familiarity across multiple security domains (e.g., identity and access management, data protection, network security, cloud infrastructure) with the ability to synthesize across domains and recommend practical solutions to complex customer security problems
Proven experience independently managing customer trust and assurance engagements end-to-end — from initial scoping and security questionnaires through assessment completion and negotiation — with minimal supervision.
Understanding of digital sovereignty requirements relevant to Cloud adoption
Preferred Technical And Professional Experience
Additional highly desirable experience:
Current Security CISSP, CIPP, CISA, CISM, or equivalent certification completed
Excellent verbal and written communication, organizational, and planning skills
Knowledge and understanding of GDPR, SOC2, ISO 27001, HIPAA, HITRUST, CSA, NIST, C5, and other regulatory security and privacy standards in APAC (such as OSPAR, IRAP)
Experience with industry (Financial Services, Public Sector, etc.) specific regulatory requirements impacting cloud adoption such as GDPR, and other APAC security, privacy and compliance standards and regulations (e.g. from Financial Services regulators such as APRA, MAS, RBI, FSA, OJK, HKMA, etc.)
Prior experience reviewing and negotiating security clauses within customer contracts a plus
Demonstrated ability to assess the broader risk implications of customer security engagements, and to proactively structure work in a way that reduces risk exposure for both the customer and Confluent.
Familiarity with emerging AI/ML security and governance considerations, including data pipeline security, model risk, and evolving regulatory expectations around AI in cloud environments.
Ability to work and lead programs independently

Work arrangement
Yes