Head of Data
On-siteBerlin, State of Berlin, Germany
Job Summary
Lead the Data & ML organization end-to-end, stabilizing leadership benches through active coaching and strategic hiring while aligning technical standards with the SVP of Engineering. Own definitions, models, and the platform to establish one source of truth, retiring legacy dashboards and migrating reporting with a deliberate pace. Break data-quality problems into concrete use cases to drive margin expansion and cost reduction, translating technical work into core value drivers. Bridge the ML literacy gap with business leadership to shift Data's reputation from reporting support to a strategic enabler, building trusted relationships grounded in real business need. Manage a Director of Engineering who drives day-to-day technical execution of infrastructure and ML models.
Required Qualifications
- 10+ years in data, analytics, or ML leadership
- 5+ years leading multi-team organizations at meaningful complexity and scale
- Comfortable in high-ambiguity, fast-changing environments
- Bias for pragmatic, visible progress
- Track record of turning a data organization from a reporting/service function into a trusted, product- or platform-grade capability
- Experience stabilizing and building leadership benches through hiring, promotion, and, where needed, replacing team leads
- Strong architectural understanding of modern data platforms and semantic layers
- Deep, proven expertise in Data Product Management and business alignment
- Working fluency in applied ML/AI sufficient to sponsor, prioritize, and commercialize initiatives
- Experience with data governance and quality frameworks suited to an AI-native business
- Exceptional ability to make complex technical and data topics simple for non-technical executive and operational audiences
- Track record of driving real change with stakeholders used to a different way of working
- Ability to hold firm on what's technically right while staying genuinely collaborative on how and when change lands
- Ability to not absorb blame that belongs to the business
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