Director of Data Products

About the Role:

A leading global organization is seeking a visionary and experienced senior leader in Data Product Management to oversee the strategy, roadmap, and execution of data product initiatives. This critical leadership position is responsible for defining and building data products that enable the organization to leverage data as a strategic asset, driving innovation, efficiency, and improved decision-making. The ideal candidate will be a passionate advocate for product-centric data management, with a proven track record of building and launching successful data products that meet the needs of diverse business stakeholders.

Key Responsibilities:

• Data Product Vision & Strategy:
• Develop and champion the vision, strategy, and roadmap for the data product portfolio, ensuring alignment with overall business objectives and data strategy.
• Identify and prioritize opportunities to create new data products that address critical business needs and unlock new value from data assets.
• Stay up to date with industry trends, emerging technologies, and best practices in data product management.
• Data Product Lifecycle Management:
• Lead the full data product lifecycle, from ideation and definition to development, publishing, consumption, monitoring, and enhancement.
• Establish and manage the processes, tools, and infrastructure needed to support the data product lifecycle.
• Data Product Definition:
• Define data product attributes, roles, service level objectives (SLOs), and governance policies in collaboration with business stakeholders, data owners, data stewards, and data engineers.
• Establish data contracts between data managers, owners, and consumers to ensure clear expectations and accountability.
• Data Product Development & Publishing:
• Oversee the development of data integration pipelines, data persistence strategies, and data delivery mechanisms to ensure data products are accessible and usable.
• Establish a data product marketplace or portal to enable internal teams to publish and promote data products.
• Data Product Consumption & Monitoring:
• Implement mechanisms for data consumers to discover, access, and utilize data products effectively.
• Enable data product recommendations and semantic search capabilities to facilitate data discovery.
• Establish monitoring and observability for data products to track usage, identify issues, and inform future enhancements.
• Stakeholder Management & Collaboration:
• Build strong relationships with business stakeholders, data owners, data stewards, data engineers, and other key partners across the organization.
• Facilitate collaboration and communication between data teams and business teams to ensure data products meet organizational needs.
• Advocate for the adoption of data products and promote a data-driven culture.
• Team Leadership & Development:
• Build, lead, and mentor a high-performing team of data product managers.
• Foster a culture of innovation, collaboration, and continuous learning within the team.
• Provide coaching and guidance on data product management best practices.

Required Qualifications:

• Bachelor s degree in a technical or business field (e.g., Computer Science, Data Science, Engineering, Business Administration, Management Information Systems); master s degree preferred.
• 10+ years of experience in product management, with a focus on data-related products and services.
• Deep understanding of data management principles, data architecture, data governance, and data quality.
• Experience with data integration, data warehousing, data lake technologies, and data visualization tools.
• Proven ability to define and launch successful data products for diverse business stakeholders.
• Strong leadership, communication, and interpersonal skills.
• Excellent analytical and problem-solving abilities.
• Ability to influence and drive change across the organization.

Preferred Qualifications:

• Experience building and managing data product marketplaces or portals.
• Familiarity with data product recommendation engines and semantic search technologies.
• Experience with data observability and monitoring tools.
• Knowledge of data governance tools and processes.
• Experience with cloud-based data platforms (e.g., AWS, Azure, Google Cloud Platform).