Define and execute the enterprise data strategy aligned with Foods Connected's product roadmap and commercial objectives
Partner with the CTO and executive leadership to position data insights as a core differentiator in our market
Establish data governance frameworks, policies, and standards appropriate for a PE-backed business preparing for growth
Build business cases and ROI models for data infrastructure investments
Represent data capabilities in product strategy discussions, helping shape our evolution toward data insights products
Define and monitor data quality, accessibility, and utilisation metrics across the business
Build trusted advisor relationships with heads of Professional Services, Finance, HR, Sales, and Operations to understand their data challenges and deliver solutions
Lead development of self-service analytics capabilities that empower non-technical users across the business
Partner with Finance on financial reporting, forecasting models, and business performance analytics
Support Professional Services with customer success metrics, utilisation reporting, and service delivery insights
Deliver executive dashboards providing visibility into key business metrics and trends
Drive enterprise data literacy, promoting a data-driven culture across all functions
Set technical direction for data architecture on Microsoft Fabric, guiding technology choices for product and business intelligence needs
Provide architectural oversight for data pipelines, warehousing solutions, and analytics platforms without necessarily being hands-on day-to-day
Ensure compliance with data privacy regulations (GDPR) and food industry requirements
Champion adoption of modern data practices including real-time analytics and ML-ready data infrastructure
Work closely with the Data Architect to evolve our data systems and address infrastructure gaps
Enable advanced analytics and AI/ML capabilities that serve both customer-facing features and internal intelligence
Directly manage the Data Architect and Senior Data Engineer; provide leadership to the BI Reporting team
Foster a culture of technical excellence, innovation, and continuous learning within a small, high-impact team
Conduct performance reviews, provide coaching, and create clear career development paths
Recruit selectively to build capability as needs evolve, without growing headcount for its own sake
Ensure the team understands how their work contributes to Foods Connected's commercial success
Requirements
Significant experience in a senior data leadership role within a SaaS or product-driven B2B environment
Proven track record of developing and executing data strategies that deliver measurable business outcomes
Demonstrated ability to influence and enable data-driven decision making across multiple business functions
Experience working in PE-backed or growth-stage companies with mature governance expectations
People management experience, with evidence of developing individuals rather than just scaling headcount
Strong SQL and data modelling expertise
Experience with modern cloud data platforms, preferably Microsoft Fabric, Azure Synapse, or similar lakehouse architectures
Familiarity with Power BI or equivalent BI/visualisation tools
Understanding of data pipeline design, ETL/ELT patterns, and orchestration approaches
Knowledge of data governance, quality frameworks, and metadata management
Experience with Python for data engineering or analytics (beneficial)
Exposure to ML/AI implementation in production environments (beneficial)
Understanding of real-time data processing and event-driven architectures (beneficial)
Background in supply chain, food manufacturing, or quality management domains (beneficial)