Group Data Director in London

QIMA is creating the Group Data Director - a new position, the first time the company names one person with real decision rights over its shared data. The mandate exists for one reason: turn data governance into business value, never into a compliance exercise for its own sake. Every initiative you launch must trace to a named business outcome it unlocks - better customer insight, faster and more trustworthy reporting, new revenue opportunities. If it doesn't move the needle, it doesn't make the roadmap.

You will chair the Data SteerCo, with Commercial and Finance represented, and work hand-in-hand with business experts, data owners, and our Data Analytics engineering team. You will own the customer data model end to end and hold binding arbitration authority. You report to the CPTO while the function is built, with a reporting-line review targeted in 2027 as the role matures. This is a growth path: the mandate is designed to expand into full enterprise data governance. If you want to build a function from scratch, hold real decision rights, and turn data into measurable business value, we'd love to hear from you.

Key Responsibilities

• Decision Rights, Anchored in Impact: Hold binding decision rights on shared data definitions and master data standards - a first for QIMA. Arbitrate cross-team disputes. Chair the Data SteerCo. Every decision must unlock a named business outcome: governance for value, never governance for its own sake.
• Unified Customer View: Own the unified customer view end to end, replacing fragmented, system-specific customer records with one reliable view - unlocking accurate growth and retention tracking, and stronger cross-sell. Deliver in stages, proving value within 90 days, with reporting continuity guaranteed throughout.
• Master Data & Shared Definitions: Define and maintain the ontologies, taxonomies, and reference data that QIMA's systems currently define differently. Sequence the work by business urgency and risk, not by theoretical completeness. Name the accountable owner for every critical field.
• Internal Data Products: Own delivery of QIMA's core internal data products (Customer single source of truth, Service Catalogue, semantic layer) as investments with a business case, funded through the appropriate ROI forum (Product or RevOps), with clear SLAs to the teams that consume them. Client-facing value propositions and recommendations remain with Product.
• Change Control & Impact Analysis: Work closely with product teams to ensure new features and system workflows are designed to capture data correctly at the source — right structure, right granularity, right moment. Challenge design decisions (free text vs. controlled list, optional vs. required, field naming) before they ship. Partner with our Data Analytics engineering team on end-to-end data lineage, to assess and communicate the business impact of any data model change before it ships, so decisions get made ahead of the disruption, not after.
• Stakeholder Adoption: Be the accountable owner, not the coordinator, for business experts, Data Owners, RevOps, and engineering. Shift the organization from “my system, my definitions” to one shared standard, earned by the value it unlocks.
• Lead-to-Cash Data Seam: Own the data connections across the lead-to-cash chain, partnering with RevOps and Finance as process sponsors, so revenue reporting is trustworthy end to end.

Qualifications

Candidate Requirements

• Education & Experience: Master's degree in a relevant field. 8-12 years in data governance, master data management, or data product leadership, including direct experience holding formal decision rights or arbitration authority across business units - not only coordination or advisory roles.
• Decision-Making Authority: Proven track record as the accountable, named owner of a cross-functional data domain, with the credibility to make binding calls that stick.
• Business-Value Orientation: You treat governance as a means, not an end. You can look at a data initiative and say, in one sentence, what business outcome it unlocks - and you say no to the ones that can't.
• Data Governance & MDM: Hands-on experience defining data ontologies, taxonomies, master data strategies, and data contracts, taking an organization from fragmented, system-specific definitions to one shared standard.
• Cross-Functional Leadership & Influence: Strong track record aligning stakeholders with competing priorities up to CFO/CMO level, including experience chairing a steering committee or governance forum with real stakes.
• Technical Literacy: Comfortable with SQL, data warehousing concepts (e.g. Snowflake), and BI tools (e.g. Tableau). Can review data models and hold informed technical conversations with engineers and data scientists, without needing to write production code.
• Delivery Discipline: Structured and delivery-oriented. Manages a roadmap with multiple parallel workstreams and brings initiatives to completion against hard deadlines.
• International & Multicultural Environment: Comfortable working across geographies, time zones, and cultures, adapting communication style to different audiences.

Preferred Skills (not mandatory)

• Domain Knowledge: Experience in supply chain, quality management, inspection/testing services, or similar operational domains. Understanding of ERP/CRM data flows (e.g. NetSuite, Zoho).
• Governance Tooling: Familiarity with data catalogue, lineage, or governance platforms.
• Growth Trajectory: Appetite to grow the role into full enterprise data governance ownership as new domains onboard.

All your information will be kept confidential according to EEO guidelines.