Senior Director, Data Product Centre of Excellence in Macclesfield

We're building a connected, end-to-end Enterprise AI engine - uniting data foundations, AI technology, process reinvention, and business-facing AI to accelerate results across the whole value chain. Success depends on being outstanding connectors: you'll actively harness existing capabilities, celebrate and promote reuse, export breakthrough ideas across geographies and functions, and obsess over scaling impact rather than building in isolation. If you thrive in high-collaboration environments where your role is to turn sophisticated, cross-functional problems into reusable, enterprise-wide capabilities - and where the measure of success is adoption and scale, not just innovation - you'll have the platform (and sponsorship) to make it real!

The Senior Director, Data Product Centre of Excellence provides enterprise leadership for defining and scaling AI-ready data product standard methodology across AstraZeneca. The role ensures data products are built, managed and retired through a consistent, domain-aligned operating model that improves speed, quality, compliance, discoverability and value realisation. By establishing the enterprise playbook, standards and production experience for data products, this role enables teams across the organisation to create sustainable, high-quality data assets that reliably power priority analytics and AI use cases. The role also drives alignment between data product strategy, enterprise data capabilities and the broader AI roadmap, strengthening adoption across AstraZeneca’s federated community of data owners, stewards and builders.

Accountabilities:

• Lead the enterprise strategy for the Data Product Centre of Excellence, setting a clear vision, operating model and roadmap for AI-ready, compliant and reusable data products that support critical business and AI priorities.
• Define, own and continuously refine the enterprise playbook, standards and toolkit for building, governing and managing data products across their full lifecycle, ensuring consistency, efficiency, quality and responsible use at scale.
• Reimagine how AI-ready data products are built by driving automation, fostering agentic AI approaches, embedding compliance through code and introducing new methods that accelerate delivery while maintaining control.
• Provide product management leadership for enabling data capabilities, platforms and tooling, so they operate as a single, connected toolkit for effective build, deployment, maintenance and consumption of data products.
• Drive adoption of standard methodology across AstraZeneca’s federated data community by influencing senior collaborators, connecting domains and functions, and embedding a sustainable culture of high-quality data product delivery.
• Lead enterprise oversight of data product quality and readiness through robust frameworks for health, performance and adoption tracking, and direct targeted remediation where improvement is required.
• Oversee portfolio planning and prioritisation for data products, aligning investments to enterprise business needs, domain strategies and the AI roadmap to maximise value realisation.
• Act as product owner for selected enterprise and cross-SET data products, including strategic assets where central leadership is needed to accelerate value delivery and unlock new AI and analytics opportunities.

Essential Skills/Experience:

• Leadership experience in data product management, data governance, data management or enterprise data strategy, ideally within a sophisticated global and regulated environment.
• Proven track record to define enterprise standards, operating models and playbooks that improve consistency, quality, lifecycle management and value realisation for data products.
• Strong experience leading cross-functional product, data and technology initiatives, including prioritisation, roadmap development and alignment to strategic business and AI objectives.
• Deep understanding of AI-ready data requirements, including quality, compliance, discoverability, sustainability, lifecycle management and fitness for use.
• A rich portfolio of examples of using this to deliver profitable use cases.
• Demonstrated success influencing senior partners across federated organisations and driving adoption of best standard methodology change leadership, communication and teamwork.
• Innovates, experiments and brings external perspectives, with a track record of applying innovative technologies and approaches to increase speed, quality and compliance of data.
• Knowledge of regulated data environments and relevant policy expectations, including privacy, security, risk and compliance considerations applicable to enterprise data products.

Desirable Skills/Experience:

• Experience building or leading a centre of excellence focused on data products or AI-ready data capabilities in a large-scale organisation.

AstraZeneca offers an energising environment where digital, data and science come together to tackle some of the world’s most serious diseases. Work with hard-working colleagues who share ideas openly, experiment with new technologies and learn from each other through continuous feedback. Expect access to innovative development experiences that support upskilling and reskilling over the long term. Here there is real scope to build an exciting career while shaping how sophisticated analytics and AI transform patient outcomes worldwide.

If this opportunity excites you and matches your experience, apply now to help define the future of AI-ready data products at AstraZeneca!