Chief Data Officer at Michael Page

Based in Cape Town, and reporting into the Group CIO with a dotted line into the Chief Executive Officer, the Chief Data Officer will be responsible for the establishment of new world data operating models, architectures and platforms to deliver data fluency in operational as well as BI contexts. The Chief Data Officer will develop the data procedures and policies, and work closely with various departments to collect, prepare, organize, protect and analyze data assets. The incumbent will also have the following responsibilities:

• Reduce costs and redundancies the result from duplication of data functions across the Group;
• Leverage opportunities to monetize data and insights;
• Improve the commercial position of the function year on year;
• Establish and Chair the Enterprise Data Governance Council;
• Establish and govern the data taxonomy, data stewardship, data quality, and data security;
• Ensure compliance with regulatory and privacy requirements;
• Actively and continuously evolve the platform technologies, architecture and standard patterns to enable the business portfolio teams with solutions in a changing business landscape;
• Establish the Data Platform & Engineering operating model and architecture to support both traditional reporting requirements as well as advanced analytics requirements to enhance business decisions, both operationally and strategically;
• Manage the transition to the modern data platforms and the decommissioning of legacy data platforms to gain the benefits of simplification of the platform environment;
• Establish and continuously improve agile ways of working in the delivery of platform related enhancements;
• Establish the operational team and associated operating model for running he data platform operations upon which data workloads and experiments are productionised;
• Establish the service model and relevant service level agreements with business stakeholders invested in the data platforms;
• Executive Oversight over the data operational teams to deliver its contracted services in line with the relevant service model agreements;
   

The Successful Applicant

Qualification And Experience

• Bachelors degree in Engineering, Science or Information Technology.
• MBA or postgraduate business degree
• Data Certifications highly advantageous

Experience

• 15+ years relevant operational or project related experience of technology platform management in a data/BI environment.
• 10 years in positions requiring executive level influence and personally operating at senior management level would be advantageous; Experience of applying Data Platform and Engineering in a Life Insurance or financial services business context would be advantageous;
• Good knowledge and understanding of interaction between data, technology and business applications for insights and improving decision-making.
• Sound knowledge of insurance products, distribution models and processes would be an advantage.
• Experience of financial Services or Insurance
• 10+ years business management of a technical data platform