Director of Data

Role Overview

• 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)

Tech Stack

• Azure
• Cloud
• ETL
• Python
• SQL

Benefits

• Competitive Base Salary
• Generous Holiday Package
• 25 Days + 10 Public Holidays
• Private Medical, Dental & Vision
• Employee Wellness Program and Classes
• Flexible model of hybrid working