Chief Data Officer — Analytics Organisation

The mandate

Four analytics sites have developed overlapping data platforms, definitions and access models. Dublin has been selected as the governance and product anchor, but a recent cross-site incident revealed that the consolidation programme lacks one accountable data executive. Critical models use replicated sources with different refresh and correction rules, and several proposed migrations would move data across jurisdictional boundaries that existing consent and contracts may not support.

The board has created an urgent Chief Data Officer role covering approximately 2,375 employees and material partners and a data-and-analytics perimeter near €520 million. Scope includes data strategy, products, ownership, quality, lineage, access, metadata, residency, platform relationship and governance. Analytics leaders own models; business executives own decisions; technology owns platform operation. The CDO makes trusted data usable across those boundaries and decides when it must remain federated.

The objective is not a Dublin data lake containing everything. The executive must identify authoritative sources, distinguish physical consolidation from common governance and create access patterns appropriate to purpose and jurisdiction. Where migration creates more risk than value, the CDO should preserve local custody while standardising contracts, metadata and quality evidence.

Continuity is essential. Models supporting recurring business decisions cannot lose lineage or change meaning during source transfer. Acceptance must include reconciliation, user impact, rollback and retirement of the former route; a successful copy without decommissioning simply creates another conflicting source.

Semantic governance will require practical correction rights. When a market identifies an error in a shared customer, product or transaction definition, it needs a route to challenge the standard, assess downstream impact and receive a time-bound answer. The CDO will establish versioning and communication so analytical users know when meaning changes. A common term should never mask materially different business events merely to improve apparent harmonisation.

Material definition changes will trigger an inventory of affected models, reports and historical comparisons before the new meaning becomes authoritative.

Users will receive a dated impact notice.

Why this seat is open

This urgent, unplanned position has no predecessor. The cross-site incident and imminent migrations revealed an accountability gap outside the approved organisation design. Interim governance can pause transfers but lacks authority over ownership, architecture and senior data appointments. The board wants a permanent CDO within eight weeks.

What you will own

• Define the target data system across authoritative, federated, replicated and retired sources.
• Establish owners, contracts, quality, lineage and correction rights for material data products.
• Decide physical location and access patterns using purpose, sovereignty, latency, resilience and economics.
• Govern migration acceptance, reconciliation, rollback and complete legacy decommissioning.
• Create common semantic standards while documenting justified market or regulatory differences.
• Set access and use controls with privacy, legal, security and model-risk leaders.
• Build data product, governance, quality and architecture leadership across sites.
• Make data platform cost and consumption visible without shifting technology accountability.

The first 12 months

Within 45 days, the CDO will identify critical conflicting sources, unsupported cross-border flows and upcoming high-risk migrations. By day 90, material data products will have interim owners and contracts, and the executive committee will receive a source and residency decision map.

By month eight, two contrasting products should complete governed migration or federation, including user acceptance and former-route retirement where applicable. Common lineage and quality services will be in production, and access exceptions will carry owners and expiry.

At year-end, 90% of critical data products should have approved ownership, lineage and quality objectives, duplicate authoritative sources should fall by 40% and correction time by 30%. No material residency or consent breach should arise, and critical analytics products should meet availability and recovery objectives throughout consolidation.

What the board will measure

• Trusted data ownership and correction across sites and business uses.
• Consolidation choices grounded in value and sovereignty, not location ambition.
• Actual legacy retirement and fewer conflicting sources.
• Data incidents, quality and access decisions exposed early.
• Leadership and succession across governance, product, quality and architecture.

The person

You are a Chief Data Officer, data-product executive or senior analytics-data leader who has consolidated and federated regulated data estates. You understand architecture without treating governance as a technology function and can translate sovereignty into workable product decisions. Experience across financial services, healthcare, telecommunications or multinational analytics platforms is relevant.

You bring 18–22 years of experience and have controlled at least €295 million in data scope while leading or influencing 1,650 people. The committee will examine a dataset you kept local, a source you retired fully and a migration you stopped when lineage or consent failed.

The role is onsite in Dublin with frequent travel to originating sites and governance forums.

Compensation and terms

Base compensation is €315,000–425,000 plus annual incentive and long-term incentives. Measures include trust, migration outcomes, decommissioning, sovereignty, cost and leadership depth. Centralised volume alone is not success. Final terms reflect the agreed data perimeter and current mix, with standard vesting and risk adjustment.

Confidentiality

The data products, jurisdictions, incident and employer remain confidential. Qualified candidates receive controlled details under an undertaking after reciprocal interest. The Dublin base and rounded scope must not be used to identify the organisation.