Senior Director of Data & AI

📍 Location: Abu Dhabi (Relocation support can be provided for this role)

Job title: Senior Director of Data & AI.

In this role you will lead the enterprise-wide data, analytics, and AI agenda. You will be owning strategy, governance, and priorities to drive performance and enable better decision-making across the organisation.

Job Responsibilities:

Data Strategy, Governance & Architecture

• Define and lead the Data & AI strategy aligned with business goals and long-term scalability.
• Establish data governance covering ownership, metadata, quality, security, and access.
• Oversee enterprise data platforms (data lakehouse, warehouse, integration layers, analytics tools).

Analytics, AI/ML Enablement & Business Value Realization

• Lead advanced analytics, predictive models, ML solutions and AI use cases.
• Collaborate with business leaders on high-impact opportunities and prioritization.
• Oversee BI dashboards, self-serve analytics tools, and data products for decision-making.
• Ensure AI/ML governance, ethical principles, monitoring, and lifecycle management.
• Drive business value and maximize ROI from analytics initiatives.

Data Platform Delivery, Operations & Performance

• Oversee engineering, ETL pipelines, model development, ERP/app platform integration.
• Manage platform reliability, security, cost optimization (cloud/on-prem).
• Lead technology vendor management and oversee AI/ML/data platform contracts.

Minimum Required Qualifications

• Bachelor’s in Information Systems, Computer Science, Engineering.
• 10+ years in data/analytics/AI functions; proven experience building large-scale enterprise data platforms and delivering AI/ML solutions.

Preferred Qualifications

• Master’s degree.
• 15+ years in senior leadership roles in data/analytics/AI.
• Expertise across Azure/AWS/GCP, MLOps, cloud architecture, enterprise data frameworks.

Preferred Skills

• Deep expertise in data engineering, analytics, AI/ML, data governance.
• Strong business acumen and ability to translate business needs into data solutions.
• Influences senior stakeholders and drives enterprise-wide decisions.
• Vendor management, SLA governance, contract negotiation.