Senior Specialist: Data Insights & Intelligence MI/BI at Absa Group Limited (Absa)

Job Summary

• SME specialists who engage with business units helping build out sustainable comprehensive reporting. Maintains a high standard acting as quality assurance as work is delivered. Delivers clearly defined asks to MI / BI / Visualisation teams
• Oversees and conducts the conversion of data into insights that will lead to informed business decisions. Works directly with stakeholders within the assigned departments. 
• To support and enhance intellectual business performance modelling and create measures that drive an optimal value management strategy. To enhance information in order to support optimal decision making."

Job Description

Key accountabilities 

• Subject Matter Expert on management information and business intelligence reporting requirements and related solutions to enable increased throughput and better quality business decisions based on insights. Drives clear standardisation of business rules and creates sustainable channels for data flow within the business. Creates necessary channels and requirements to accommodate ingestion of new data from a range of sources.
• Build strong relationships across business areas, ensuring alignment of data reporting standards with sustainable solutions developed in conjunction with Data Architecture and Engineering teams. Lead and manage complex projects, overseeing deliverables, milestones, risks, and issues.
• Validate, Collaborate & Research - Continuously explore ways to enhance business performance by analysing key profit / cost / process efficiency drivers, key indicators, relationships and trends.  Develop a thorough knowledge of products, systems, platforms and related reporting.
• Collaborates and manages across internal data pillars to deliver on complex projects.  Takes accountability to assess, define and manage project deliverables, milestones, risks and issues.
• As Subject Matter Expert, the Senior MI / BI Analyst fulfils a mentoring role and guides delivery across layers within the business area. 
• Analytical Insights - Guide and mentor team members on data manipulation and analytical techniques to provide analytical insights and recommendations that support decision making to the business.  Design of sustainable BI solutions to address business needs, and driving opportunities to improve processes and strategies with technology solutions.  Prioritise and oversee the implementation of identified development needs in order to improve and streamline operations.
• Expertise and Skills (preferred)
• Data Manipulation & Analysis:
• SQL, Excel, Python/R for data extraction, manipulation, and statistical analysis.
• Experience with data wrangling and ETL processes.
• Data Visualization:
• Proficient in Power BI and other BI applications for creating insightful, actionable dashboards and visualizations.
• Statistical & Analytical Skills:
• Expertise in descriptive and inferential statistics, probability, and trend analysis.
• Database & Big Data Management:
• Familiarity with DBMS (MySQL, PostgreSQL, MongoDB), data warehousing (Snowflake, Redshift), and big data technologies (Hadoop, Spark).
• Scripting & Automation:
• Proficiency in scripting languages (SQL, Python, Bash) and experience with APIs for data integration.
• Cloud Computing:
• Knowledge of cloud platforms (AWS, Azure, Google Cloud) and cloud-based data services.
• Data Governance & Security:
• Understanding of data governance practices, data privacy laws, and security compliance.
• Version Control:
• Proficient in using Git/GitHub for managing code and data analysis projects.
• Problem-Solving & Leadership:
• Strong analytical skills with a focus on optimizing performance, ensuring data quality, and mentoring team members.

Qualifications

Must Have:

• Bachelor’s Degree in Computer Science, Information Technology, Data Science, or a related field.
• Minimum of 5 years in a similar role, combining data analysis and engineering responsibilities.
• Optional Certifications:
• Certified Data Professional (CDP)
• Google Cloud Professional Data Engineer
• AWS Certified Data Analytics – Specialty
• Microsoft Certified: Azure Data Engineer Associate
• Databricks Certified Data Engineer Associate

Education

• Bachelor`s Degrees and Advanced Diplomas: BMI - Business Management and Informatics