Data Science & Analytics Manager at Yoco

What you will be doing

Strategic Business Partnership:

• Embed deeply with Go-to-Market and Internal Enablement teams (Systems, Finance, Strategy, Risk) to understand their business challenges and priorities
• Translate business strategy into analytics team roadmap and priorities
• Partner with business leaders to identify high-impact opportunities where analytics and data science can drive value
• Build trusted advisor relationships with stakeholders at all levels, including senior leadership
• Navigate organisational dynamics and competing priorities to secure resources and alignment
• Represent the analytics function in leadership forums and strategic planning discussions

Analytics Maturity & Capability Building:

• Assess and mature data frameworks, analytics processes, and self-service capabilities across business groups
• Coach business partners on how to engage with data effectively - from asking the right questions to interpreting insights
• Build data literacy across the organization through training, documentation, and hands-on support
• Work with teams at different levels of analytics maturity, meeting them where they are and helping them progress
• Establish standards for analytical work, documentation, and knowledge sharing
• Invest in tools, infrastructure, and processes that enable the team to scale their impact

Delivery & Operational Excellence:

• Prioritise across competing demands - balancing strategic projects with operational needs
• Allocate resources effectively across analytics and data science initiatives
• Build delivery systems and processes that drive clarity, accountability, and quality at speed
• Remove blockers, manage risk, and ensure teams have what they need to succeed
• Communicate progress, setbacks, and team impact clearly to stakeholders
• Balance short-term delivery with long-term capability building

Strategic Planning & Execution:

• Translate business objectives into analytics roadmap with clear priorities and success metrics
• Make data-driven decisions about team investments, tools, and resource allocation
• Anticipate future analytics needs and build capabilities proactively
• Balance strategic, high-impact work with operational support and ad-hoc requests
• Ensure analytics work is aligned to business outcomes and demonstrates clear ROI

People Leadership & Team Development:

• Recruit, develop, and retain top analytics and data science talent with diverse skill sets
• Provide clear coaching, feedback, and performance management across both analytics and data science tracks
• Create growth pathways and development opportunities tailored to individual strengths and career aspirations
• Foster a high-performing team where people challenge each other and grow together
• Handle difficult conversations and performance issues with care and directness

About you

Essential experience:

• 5+ years managing analytics, data science, or business intelligence teams, with demonstrated success developing talent and delivering business impact
• Proven track record as a hands-on business partner - deeply embedded with business stakeholders, influencing decisions, and translating between technical and business contexts
• Experience building analytics maturity in organisations, including developing data literacy, self-service frameworks, and analytics best practices
• Strong understanding of both analytics and data science disciplines - you can speak credibly about SQL, statistical methods, experimentation, and ML approaches
• Track record working with business functions at different levels of data sophistication, meeting them where they are and coaching them forward
• Experience managing cross-functional partnerships with go-to-market, finance, operations, or risk teams
• Comfortable navigating ambiguity, managing competing priorities, and making tough decisions with incomplete information

How you work:

• People first: You genuinely care about developing people and building high-performing teams. You create psychological safety while maintaining high standards
• Business embedded: You don't manage from a distance - you're in the weeds understanding business problems, building relationships, and earning trust through results
• Clarity and communication: You provide crystal-clear direction, adapt your message to your audience, and communicate team impact compellingly
• Pragmatic and decisive: You balance trade-offs, make sound decisions with incomplete information, and know when to act vs. when to gather more data
• Maturity builder: You have a nose for where analytics capabilities are immature and a toolkit for how to develop them - whether that's better tooling, training, processes, or coaching
• Results oriented: You focus relentlessly on business outcomes, not just outputs. You connect analytics work to measurable impact and demonstrate ROI
• Organisationally savvy: You navigate politics effectively, influence without authority, build coalitions, and get things done in complex environments
• Growth mindset: You learn from mistakes, seek feedback actively, and continuously improve how you lead and how your team operates

Nice to have:

• Background as a senior analyst or data scientist yourself - you've done the work and understand what your team experiences
• Experience in fintech, payments, or high-growth technology companies
• Familiarity with modern analytics tools and data stack (SQL, Python/R, BI platforms, workflow orchestration)
• Understanding of experiment design, causal inference, or machine learning applications