Senior Manager of Innovation and Data

ODL, Inc•Vaughan, ON

1d•Hybrid

About The Position

This position leads the corporate innovation agenda including innovation (AI) and data, partnering directly with business functions to identify, prioritize, and deliver technology- and data-enabled improvements to how work gets done. The role exists to move IT from reactive request-taking toward genuine business partnership, and to establish trusted, governed data as the foundation for analytics, artificial intelligence, and decision-making across the enterprise. In doing so, it curbs the growth of shadow IT and shadow data, and the technical debt and security exposure that comes with them. This position reports to the VP of IT/Technology.

Requirements

Bachelor's degree in Information Technology, Data and Analytics, Business, Engineering, or a related field required, or an equivalent combination of education and experience.
7+ years of experience in technology product management, data and analytics leadership, business relationship management, digital transformation, or a comparable role.
Demonstrated experience partnering with business functions to define and deliver technology- and data-enabled business outcomes.
Experience owning a data and analytics function, including data platform or warehouse strategy, pipelines and integration, and business intelligence delivery.
Experience establishing or running a data governance program, including stewardship, data quality, and master data management.
Experience evaluating and deploying emerging technology, including artificial intelligence or intelligent automation, in a production business setting.
Track record of measuring and defending the business value of technology and data investments.
Strong business acumen and genuine curiosity about how the business makes money.
Excellent influence and stakeholder management skills, particularly without direct authority, including the ability to drive governance decisions that cross functional boundaries.
Working fluency in data architecture, data modeling, and analytics concepts, sufficient to set direction and challenge technical approaches.
Ability to distinguish real opportunity from novelty, and the confidence to say no.
Clear communication, including the ability to explain technology and data to non-technical leaders and business context to technical teams.
Comfort with ambiguity and with building process where none exists.
Hiring, coaching, and team-building capability.

Nice To Haves

Master's degree preferred.
Product management, Agile, design thinking, or data management and governance certification preferred.
Experience building a function or team from the ground up preferred.
Experience in a manufacturing, industrial, or multi-site global environment preferred.

Responsibilities

Own corporate innovation agenda (including AI) and enterprise data program, creating a prioritized view of where technology and data investment create the most business value.
Partner with Finance, HR, Sales, Marketing, Customer Service, and Operations leaders to understand their points of friction and opportunities for automation and translate them into technology and data initiatives.
Build and maintain a business outcome-based roadmap for innovation, data, and AI with clear value hypotheses and success measures for each initiative.
Establish and lead enterprise data governance, including data ownership and stewardship, common definitions, quality standards, and access, privacy, and retention policies.
Own the enterprise data platform and warehouse strategy, including the pipelines and integrations that make trusted data available where decisions get made.
Lead the analytics and business intelligence agenda, moving from fragmented reporting toward self-service insight built on a single source of truth.
Set the enterprise approach to artificial intelligence, from use case selection through responsible and secure deployment, with data readiness and governance as the foundation.
Identify, evaluate, and pilot other emerging technologies, including intelligent automation and low-code platforms, and separate genuine value from hype.
Bring shadow IT and shadow data into the light by finding unsanctioned tools and reporting already in use, assessing risk, and offering a supported path forward.
Build and lead a small team spanning innovation and data, hiring and developing the OT/IT Innovation Engineer and Data Engineer roles, and manage vendor relationships and pilot agreements for emerging technology and data partners.
Define and run a lightweight intake, evaluation, and stage-gate process so ideas are assessed consistently and killed quickly when they should be, partnering with Cybersecurity and Enterprise Applications leaders so the work is secure, integrated, and supportable from day one.