Director of Insight, Data & Strategy

Our client is a well known, highly respected, brand-led, UK-listed group.

The organisation is part-way through a very successful transformation as it completes a journey become a truly modern, digital-first version of itself, equipped for future growth, with a clear relevance to today's ever-changing consumer landscape.

However, as a result of underinvestment in systems across the business and also, as a consequence of the rapid pace of change and transformation outlined above, the Executive Board wishes to establish a more sophisticated Insight, BI, Data and Strategy capability, operating at Board level,  to support the ongoing change agenda and the day to day running of the group.

To expedite this process, our client wishes to appoint a Director of Insight, BI and Strategy, into a newly created role, whose primary purpose will be to ensure that the business is better able to leverage data/information in order to drive insight and strategy.

Working as a vital resource to the CEO, CFO and the wider Executive team, this individual will be used to interacting with (and influencing) Board Level colleagues, helping to drive better decision making through information.

Whilst the business already has access to multiple data sources, both internal and external, there has been a historic lack of centralisation and co-ordination of the data and data soruces.

Furthermore, up until the creation of this new role, no single person has been in a position to leverage a consolidated, business-wide data set, with access to one version of the truth, whilst also having a clear platform to be involved with Executive Board level decision making.

This role has been established to address these issues, bringing together a broad array of operational and commercial data sets, making the best use of the data through analysis and interpretation and providing the Executive team with a continuous supply of commercial insight to help support strategic decision making.

KEY ACCOUNTABILITIES

• Leverage several sources of data, both internal and external to provide insight and strategic analysis that will help support SLT and Board-level decision making.
• Create, distribute and help to leverage a constant flow of data that shows ‘one version of the truth’ to help the business continue its strategic journey, whilst also decisions around potential M&A activity, broader corporate development ideas and key investment opportunities.
• Work collegiately to help drive greater understanding, adoption and integration of data, advanced analytics and business insight across the business.
• Provide data-driven insights and recommendations to the Executive team.
• Liaise with the existing department-specific insight teams to help provide analysis that deepens the Executive team’s understanding of commercial initiatives, brand presence, customer engagement, product propositions and any other innovation of relevance across both the broader consumer landscape and direct competitors.
• Work closely with the Director of Investor Relations to provide analysis to help frame, shape and support the external narrative to investors and brokers.
• Monitor data trends and emerging tools and technologies to ensure that the Group is accessing and taking advantage of the best possible sources of data.
• Manage the relationship with Dunnhumby and other emerging third party data and insight suppliers.

Applications are invited from talented and ambitious individuals, used to operating/influencing at Board level, whose core interests lie in proactively leveraging data and information to help drive strategy and operational decision making.

Specific details of the ideal background are as below:

• First-class academic background, highly numerate and analytical

• Commercially astute and able to create insight, strategy and commercial innovation as opposed to simply managing data

• Capable of, and interested in, both the granular detail and the ‘big picture’

• Excellent communication skills, including written, face-to-face and for more formal presentations

• Advanced skills in data analysis, statistics and modelling methodologies

• Strong relationship builder, a team-player and naturally collegiate

• Likely to have spent some time within a Consulting firm – ideally within Management, Strategy or Data consulting before moving client-side   
• Able to set clear goals, devise plans, meet deadlines and inspire others to move in an established direction
• Drive and energy – willing to agitate in a constructive way and with a high level of emotional intelligence
• Board level gravitas – showing the strength and conviction to be able to work easily with and constructively challenge senior executives

• Able to work cross-functionally; demonstrating real commercial understanding and buy-in from senior non-financial executives; has a strong commercial instinct to drive value and performance in the wider business
• Happy to work with a small group direct team, with the focus of the role being personal output in support of the CFO and CEO,  blended with a broader role intended to influence other leaders across the business