Data Strategy & Engineering Lead

In this senior role, you will define and own the Digital & IT data strategy, turning data into a strategic product and trusted asset. You will lead data governance, architecture, analytics, and AI initiatives at enterprise scale to support growth, customer experience, and regulatory compliance. You’ll partner with Product, Technology, and Business leaders to drive data-enabled decisions across products, platforms, and services. This is a mission-driven opportunity to shape data capabilities that underpin Vodafone’s digital transformation and customer confidence.

• Define and own the Digital & IT data strategy aligned with product, technology, and commercial goals
• Establish data, analytics, and AI as core enablers of growth, CX, and operational effectiveness
• Maintain a prioritized roadmap for data platforms, analytics, and AI capabilities
• Own end-to-end enterprise data architecture across digital channels, BSS/IT systems, and network domains
• Ensure seamless data integration across customer journeys and platforms for insight, automation, and predictive capabilities
• Set and govern enterprise standards for data platforms, pipelines, analytics engineering, and AI solutions
• Lead delivery of advanced analytics and AI from ideation to production
• Ensure data products, models, and insights are production-grade, governed, and measurable
• Drive high-value data and AI use cases across CX, product performance, monetization, network optimization, and operations
• Ensure compliance with GDPR and regional data regulations across products and platforms
• Embed data governance as an operational practice across Digital & IT and wider business
• Define data ownership, stewardship, and accountability models
• Ensure data quality, lineage, access control, ethics, and lifecycle management standards
• Define operating model for Data Science and Data Engineering with internal teams and partners
• Influence cross-functional teams across Product, Technology, Networks, Operations, and Commercial
• Foster a culture of accountability, innovation, quality, and continuous improvement

• Senior leadership experience (5+ years) in Data Architecture, Data Science, Analytics, and Data Engineering within large-scale enterprises
• Extensive industry experience (15+ years) across Analytics, Digital & IT, Cloud Technologies, and Network/Infrastructure data domains
• Proven delivery of end-to-end data capabilities spanning strategy to execution
• Experience designing and scaling cloud-based data platforms (GCP, BigQuery, Dataflow, Dataproc, Azure, AWS)
• Strong understanding of modern data architectures (data lakes, lakehouse, streaming, real-time processing, event-driven)
• Experience treating data as a strategic product to drive business outcomes
• Proven establishment of enterprise data governance across functions
• Expert knowledge of data sovereignty, GDPR, privacy, regulatory frameworks
• Experience leading high-performing Data Science, Analytics, and Data Engineering teams
• Knowledge of AI/ML delivery, governance, and value measurement
• Strong stakeholder management and executive communication skills
• Experience operating in complex global organizations with multiple regulatory requirements

• Strategic thinking
• Stakeholder management
• Executive communication
• Cloud platforms: GCP, BigQuery, Dataflow, Dataproc, Azure, AWS
• Modern data architectures: data lakes, lakehouse, streaming platforms, real-time processing
• Data governance and data sovereignty practices