Lead Operations - TV Audience Measurement at NielsenIQ

Job Description

• The Lead Operations is responsible for the end-to-end operational delivery of South Africa’s official TV audience measurement currency, ensuring robust, timely, and accredited reporting across linear broadcast, time-shift, and streaming/OTT platforms. This role oversees panel health, data ingestion and processing, quality assurance, vendor performance, and client service operations, ensuring compliance with local governance (BRC) and international best practices.

Key Responsibilities

• Currency Operations: Deliver daily audience data to market on time (T+1) as per GfK standards and agreed with client; define and enforce SOPs, SLAs, and runbooks; chair Change Control Board.
• Panel & Field Operations: Oversee panel recruitment, installation, maintenance, and retention; manage meter technology; ensure POPIA compliance.
• Data Ingestion & Integration: Operationalize ingestion from broadcast logs, RPD, ACR signals, and streaming census feeds; maintain metadata structures.
• Processing & QA: Run production processes for weighting, imputation, deduplication, co-viewing; implement multi-layer QA.
•  Accreditation & Compliance: Drive readiness for BRC audits and accreditation; ensure POPIA compliance.
• Vendor & Partner Management: Manage SLAs with fieldwork agencies, data suppliers, and technology vendors.
• Client Operations & Governance: Lead client support and incident communication; represent Operations in industry committees.
• People & Performance: Build and lead a high-performing operations team; own operations budget and resource planning.

Qualifications & Experience

• 10+ years in audience measurement, broadcast operations, or data platform operations; 5+ years in senior leadership. Experience with South African TV ecosystem and client governance. Familiarity with panel methodologies, RPD data, and cross-platform measurement. Strong knowledge of cloud data platforms, ETL pipelines, and QA frameworks. Compliance expertise in POPIA and international security standards.

Key Competencies

• Operational excellence in mission-critical environments; strong stakeholder management; risk and incident management under pressure.

Success Metrics

• On-time daily releases (T+1; T+28); panel health and representativeness; system reliability and uptime; audit readiness and compliance. Monitor and manage costs against budgets.

What We Offer

• Opportunity to shape South Africa’s TV audience currency for the future; high-impact role with visibility across the media industry.