Lakehouse Separation and Scale Authority — Omnichannel Retail

The mandate

The incoming data-platform head withdrew three days before joining, just as the retailer began separating its lakehouse from a former group company. Shared identities, transformation code and commercial datasets now sit behind expiring transitional agreements, while unstable inventory and promotion pipelines are affecting morning trading decisions. Neither the internal engineering director nor the former parent can hold neutral separation authority.

The interim is expected in Bengaluru within four weeks for twelve months, spanning separation, peak-season stabilisation and permanent-leader induction. Executive search restarts immediately with a revised specification based on the first sixty-day estate assessment. Conversion is not promised; a two-month overlap is budgeted, and the board may extend only if a delayed legal dependency—not avoidable platform work—prevents clean transfer.

Handover is complete when all critical workloads run under retailer-controlled identity, keys, metadata and support; three month-end cycles and one peak event meet agreed freshness and recovery thresholds; and the former group can revoke access without interrupting trade. The successor must execute a recovery exercise, approve the cost baseline and accept the remaining decommission, contract and data-quality obligations.

The interim may set platform standards, stop unsafe migrations, sequence the sanctioned ₹48 crore programme, appoint fixed-term leads and accept non-material workload cutovers. Changes to customer consent, exit from the transitional agreement, spend beyond the envelope, permanent appointments and closure of a material audit issue need sponsor or board approval. Commercial teams retain final ownership of trading decisions made from platform outputs.

CRM replacement, loyalty proposition design and a wholesale analytics reorganisation are outside this assignment. The interim can require interfaces and accountable data owners but does not own merchandising algorithms, cloud renegotiation beyond lakehouse commitments or historical cleansing unrelated to operational, financial or regulatory use. Scope discipline must protect the separation date from attractive adjacent transformations.

Why this seat is open

The aborted appointment left an immediate authority gap during a time-bound corporate separation. Existing leaders each control part of the estate but lack the mandate to arbitrate former-parent dependencies and retail priorities. A temporary executive is required to protect daily trade, complete disentanglement and give the permanent hire an operable platform rather than an inherited separation crisis.

What you will own

• Establish a workload-by-workload separation ledger covering identity, encryption, metadata, code, data rights, support dependency, cutover evidence and exit date.
• Decide migration waves using business criticality, lineage, recoverability, contractual constraint and peak-calendar exposure instead of technology convenience alone.
• Stabilise inventory, order, promotion and margin pipelines through explicit service objectives, reconciliation controls, incident ownership and tested replay procedures.
• Govern retailer-controlled lakehouse zones, product interfaces, access patterns and transformation standards without recreating former-group coupling under new names.
• Negotiate evidence-based dependency closures with the former parent and escalate unresolved legal, licence or support obligations before they threaten cutover.
• Rebase platform unit costs and capacity against trading volume, freshness commitments and peak scenarios, identifying stranded transitional expenditure for removal.
• Induct the permanent leader through a full recovery rehearsal, supplier reviews, operating-cycle shadowing and signed acceptance of residual separation obligations.

Candidate qualifications

• Led a lakehouse or enterprise-data separation during a carve-out, demerger or transitional-services exit with direct accountability for business continuity.
• Operated high-frequency retail, marketplace or consumer data pipelines where inventory, price, promotion and order errors changed same-day commercial outcomes.
• Controlled identity, encryption, lineage and workload migration across independently governed organisations with contested code or data ownership.
• Recovered unstable analytics engineering while preserving month-end, peak-event and regulatory reporting commitments under an immovable separation date.
• Managed senior counterparties across a former parent, cloud provider, internal product teams and board sponsor using auditable dependency acceptance.
• Transferred an executive platform seat after separation, leaving a permanent appointee with tested recovery, transparent cost and explicit technical debt.

Non-negotiables

• Available within four weeks and able to work four days weekly in Bengaluru through the first two migration waves and peak event.
• Will treat the option grant as conditional, illiquid and dilutable, entirely separate from the agreed cash day rate.
• Has held signing authority for a corporate data separation; general cloud-modernisation delivery without legal disentanglement is insufficient.
• No undisclosed financial or delivery relationship with the former group, incumbent cloud platform or shortlisted permanent candidates.

1. 49 words maximum. State your earliest Bengaluru start and one data separation where revoking the former owner’s access was a tested exit condition.
2. 49 words maximum. Which dependencies would you inspect first when shared lakehouse identity must be separated before a peak retail event?
3. 49 words maximum. Describe a cutover you stopped, the evidence behind your decision and how the deadline was recovered.