Head – Data & Insights

Company: Aldar Education –

WebSite: Dubai, United Arab Emirates

Job Description:**Strategic Leadership and Responsibilities:**

The incumbent will provide strategic leadership in data management and analytics, collaborating with executive leadership, department heads, and stakeholders to translate strategic objectives into actionable data initiatives. Serving as the senior data authority for Aldar Education, the role entails shaping and executing the data and insights strategy, integrating advanced analytics into strategic and operational decision-making processes. The incumbent will communicate complex data concepts effectively to both technical and non-technical stakeholders through compelling data narratives, visualizations, and presentations. Furthermore, they will represent the data function in strategic forums, advocating for a data-centric culture throughout the organization.

**Data Infrastructure and Operational Excellence:**

The role involves leading initiatives to standardize and enhance data quality, structure, and interoperability across Aldar Education. This includes collaborating with teams across Aldar Education and Aldar Group to align on common data definitions, formats, and governance protocols. The incumbent will design and implement scalable data ingestion and transformation pipelines to harmonize data from diverse systems (including iSAMS, PowerSchool, and other MIS platforms) into a unified, analysis-ready format using Azure Databricks, Delta Lake, and PySpark. They will also ensure compliance with data protection regulations (e.g., GDPR) and adherence to security and governance best practices. The incumbent will act as a strategic advisor in shaping the long-term data infrastructure roadmap to support growth, innovation, and scalability across the education group.

**Advanced Analytics and Insights Generation:**

The incumbent will lead the development of predictive models, machine learning solutions, and statistical analyses, utilizing Python and PySpark (pandas, numpy, scikit-learn, xgboost, lightgbm, statsmodels, etc.). They will explore and implement modern AI techniques, including Large Language Models (LLMs) and Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) frameworks, to improve internal knowledge access, automate reporting, and generate contextualized insights from unstructured data. The role includes designing and executing data experimentation frameworks, A/B tests, and scenario modeling to drive continuous improvement in educational outcomes and operational efficiency. Key performance indicators (KPIs) will be defined, monitored, and evolved in collaboration with business units to measure success and guide strategic investments.

**Business Intelligence and Reporting:**

The incumbent will translate analytical insights into clear, actionable visual outputs using tools such as Tableau, matplotlib, and seaborn, including integration with and visualization of data from Salesforce or other CRM systems. They will develop and manage a robust BI and reporting environment, primarily using Tableau to create interactive, self-service dashboards and executive reporting suites. The role involves standardizing reporting across Aldar Education to ensure consistent access to trustworthy, real-time insights for stakeholders at all levels.

**Culture and Capability Building:**

The incumbent will champion a data-driven culture across Aldar Education by providing training, knowledge sharing, and leadership in data literacy, analysis, and visualization. They will collaborate closely with Group Digital Futures and Group Technology to ensure alignment of initiatives, share learnings, and prevent siloed development of tools or insights. Staying current with advancements in data science, analytics, and educational technology is essential for continuous innovation and value delivery.

**Risk Management, Governance and Compliance:**

The incumbent will proactively identify data-related risks across the education portfolio, including issues related to data quality, security, system integration, and ethical use of data. They will lead the development and implementation of strategies to mitigate data risks, ensuring alignment with legal, regulatory and internal policy requirements including GDPR, CCPA, etc. Collaboration with Group Technology and Group Digital Futures is crucial to design and enforce enterprise-grade data security protocols, access controls, encryption standards, etc. The incumbent will champion best practices in data governance, ensuring that data is collected, stored, accessed and shared in a secure, compliant and auditable manner and provide support for audits, compliance reviews and risk assessments by providing clear documentation and oversight of data practices.

**Qualifications:**

* **Minimum Qualifications:** Bachelor’s degree in computer science, Data Science, Information Systems, or a related field; advanced degree (e.g., Master’s, MBA) preferred.
* **Minimum Experience:** 10-15+ years of industry experience, with 8 years in a relevant position/functional role and 1+ year working in the education sector (preferred).

**Job Specific Knowledge & Skills:**

* **Stakeholder Management & Communication:** Demonstrated ability to engage with and influence senior stakeholders across business, operations, and technology; skilled at translating complex data concepts into actionable insights, with experience presenting to executive audiences; a strong collaborator who works effectively across functional and geographic boundaries, including with central Group teams, to align data strategy and execution.
* **Technical Proficiency in Data:** Advanced proficiency in Python and core libraries (e.g., pandas, numpy, scikit-learn, xgboost, etc.) for data manipulation, modeling, and statistical analysis; demonstrated expertise in Tableau for interactive dashboarding, data storytelling, and self-serve BI enablement (experience integrating and visualizing data from Salesforce or other CRM platforms is highly desirable); strong SQL skills and familiarity with data orchestration, version control, and pipeline automation tools (e.g., MLflow, Airflow).
* **Data Analytics & Insights:** Experience designing and delivering end-to-end analytics solutions that support operational, strategic, and business outcomes; ability to define and operationalize KPIs, build experimentation frameworks, and leverage machine learning to derive actionable insights; a track record of using data to drive continuous improvement, innovation, and measurable impact across multi-site or portfolio organizations.

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