VP Data Strategy

YouGov•New York, NY

About The Position

This position is open to candidates with the right to work in the US or the UK. THE TEAM The Data Strategy & Management organization is the central engine driving YouGov into a fully data-driven enterprise. Its mission is to collect, create, connect, and monetize data assets that power YouGov’s products, enhance customer value, and strengthen competitive advantage. We ensure that YouGov’s “living data” platform continues to evolve into an integrated, intelligent infrastructure — one that not only captures the voice of people around the world, but also seamlessly delivers that intelligence into the workflows of our clients. Our teams are organized into four main functions: Data Strategy & Innovation: Identify market opportunities and emerging data trends; decide which data to collect to drive industry value, product adoption, and customer retention. Data Integration: Work closely with our product and engineering teams to design and implement the modern data platform, ensuring interoperability and quality both within YouGov and amongst our customers. Data Governance Determine and implement data standards, policies and procedures, working cross-functionally with our panel and engineering teams; Data Analytics: Ensure deep internal and external understanding of YouGov’s customer-facing data assets. Together, these functions create a continuous feedback loop — aligning internal data capability with market opportunity. WHAT YOU WILL BE DOING The VP of Data Strategy will play a critical leadership role in shaping how YouGov collects, connects and curates data across all global sources. This position defines the vision for how data flows through the organization — from capture to integration to application — ensuring YouGov’s living data platform is rich, accurate, and strategically aligned with business and client needs. You will identify the most valuable data to collect, decide how best to structure and connect data assets across research, behavioral and contextual datasets, and ensure that YouGov’s data foundation evolves to support innovation and scalability.

Requirements

Vast experience in senior data, analytics, or research strategy roles within market research, media measurement, data platforms, or technology.
Proven experience defining and executing a data strategy focused on data collection, integration, and platform evolution.
Strong understanding of data architecture and modelling — how to structure and connect large-scale, multi-source datasets for usability and scalability.
Deep familiarity with survey and behavioral data collection methods, audience segmentation, and data enrichment practices.
Demonstrated ability to translate complex data landscapes into clear strategic priorities.
Exceptional cross-functional communication skills — able to bridge research, data science, product and technology teams
Working knowledge of data privacy and governance frameworks (e.g., GDPR, CCPA).

Nice To Haves

A strategic yet hands-on mindset — comfortable defining long-term vision and engaging deeply in data structure and collection details.
A passion for connecting disparate data sources to tell coherent, insightful stories about people and behavior.
The ability to make clear, evidence-based decisions about which data to collect and how to structure it for long-term value.
A strong commitment to accuracy, transparency, and ethical data use — core to YouGov’s reputation for trusted insight.

Responsibilities

Define and lead YouGov’s global data strategy, ensuring alignment with the company’s mission and product roadmap.
Map and connect YouGov’s data ecosystem, understanding how different data sources (survey, behavioral, attitudinal, demographic, etc.) relate and can be integrated for maximum analytical value.
Identify strategic data gaps and opportunities, deciding what new data should be collected to strengthen YouGov’s platform and client offerings.
Establish frameworks for data prioritization, guiding where to invest in new collection initiatives versus deepening existing data assets.
Collaborate with research, data science, engineering and product teams to design scalable data models and ensure that new data capture aligns with both operational capabilities and business goals.
Oversee data quality, lineage and completeness, driving initiatives to enhance reliability, timeliness and global consistency of data.
Monitor emerging trends and technologies (e.g., new digital data sources, AI-enabled data enrichment, privacy-preserving collection techniques) to keep YouGov’s approach forward-looking.
Develop and track key performance indicators (KPIs) for data strategy execution, including data coverage, completeness, diversity, freshness, and internal adoption.
Lead and mentor a cross-functional data strategy team, fostering collaboration across departments and regions.