In this paper we study the exponential twist, i.e. a path-integral exponential change of measure, of a Markovian reference probability measure $\P$. This type of transformation naturally appears in variational representation formulae originating from the theory of large deviations and can be interpreted in some cases, as the solution of a specific stochastic control problem. Under a very general Markovian assumption on $\P$, we fully characterize the exponential twist probability measure as the solution of a martingale problem and prove that it inherits the Markov property of the reference measure. The ''generator'' of the martingale problem shows a drift depending on a "generalized gradient" of some suitable "value function" $v$.