Director, Data Product Centre of Excellence

Director, Data Product Centre of Excellence

Introduction to role:

Are you ready to set the enterprise standard for AI-ready data products and turn uncertainty into momentum? In this role, you will develop how data becomes a strategic asset used at scale to speed decisions, power analytics and AI, and ultimately help bring life-changing medicines to patients faster.

You will lead the direction for our Data Product Centre of Excellence, building the playbook, operating model and toolkit that our federated data community relies on to deliver trusted, interoperable and discoverable data products. From structured to unstructured data, you will guide teams early, reduce ambiguity and translate bold ideas into repeatable, compliant practices that deliver measurable value. Can you imagine rallying diverse experts around a shared approach that accelerates impact across domains?

Accountabilities:

Enterprise Strategy: Define and evolve the vision, operating model, priorities and roadmap for your areas of responsibility within the Data Product Centre of Excellence, establishing a clear path from today’s needs to tomorrow’s enterprise-scale capabilities.

Playbook and Standards: Build, refine and maintain the enterprise playbook, standards and toolkit for building, governing and managing structured and unstructured data products, driving consistency, efficiency, quality and responsible use across the lifecycle.

AI-ready Build and Automation: Improve how AI-ready data products are built by championing automation, compliance as code and emerging approaches such as agentic AI in partnership with product, engineering, architecture and governance teams—shortening cycle time while strengthening quality and compliance.

Enabling Capabilities Product Management: Provide product management for enabling data capabilities, platforms and tooling relevant to your scope, ensuring they work together as a connected toolkit for effective build, deployment, maintenance and consumption.

Community Adoption and Change: Drive adoption of standard methodology across a federated data community through partnership, communication and change leadership—building momentum, aligning partners and embedding new ways of working.

Quality, Readiness and Value Measures: Contribute to oversight of data product quality and readiness, define and track health, performance and adoption measures, and support remediation and optimization to improve value realization.

Portfolio Planning and Alignment: Support data product portfolio planning and prioritisation, aligning initiatives and capabilities to enterprise business needs, domain strategies and the AI roadmap to focus effort where it matters most.

Strategic Product Leadership: Provide product leadership for selected cross-domain or strategically important data products where coordination and structured delivery can accelerate outcomes and showcase the standard for others to follow.

Essential Skills/Experience:

Significant experience in data product management, data governance, data management or enterprise data strategy, ideally within a sophisticated global and regulated environment.
Experience contributing to standards, operating models, frameworks or 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 input and alignment to business and AI objectives.
Good understanding of AI-ready data requirements, including quality, compliance, discoverability, sustainability, lifecycle management and fitness for use, with examples of applying this in practice to support valuable business outcomes.
Demonstrated ability to influence partners across federated organisations and support adoption of standard methodology through collaboration, communication and change leadership.
Brings innovation and external perspective, with experience applying modern technologies and approaches to improve the speed, quality and compliance of data product delivery.
Knowledge of supervised data environments and relevant policy expectations, including privacy, security, risk and compliance considerations applicable to enterprise data products.

Desirable Skills/Experience:

Proven experience standing up or scaling a data product centre of excellence or similar capability in a global enterprise.
Hands-on familiarity with metadata management, lineage, observability and data quality platforms, and their integration into developer workflows.
Experience with data architectures dedicated to specific areas and interoperability standards, enabling discoverability and reuse across sophisticated ecosystems.
Track record applying agentic AI, large language models and compliance-as-code to data management and governance workflows.
Strong storytelling, influence and change leadership skills, with the ability to translate standards into practical adoption across diverse teams.
People leadership experience in matrixed environments, mentoring product and data professionals to deliver outcomes.

When we put unexpected teams in the same room, we unleash bold thinking with the power to inspire life-changing medicines. In-person working gives us the platform we need to connect, work at pace and challenge perceptions. That's why we work, on average, a minimum of three days per week from the office. But that doesn't mean we're not flexible. We balance the expectation of being in the office while respecting individual flexibility. Join us in our unique and ambitious world!

Why AstraZeneca:

Join a passionate, fast-evolving technology community where your expertise in data, platforms and AI turns into real-world patient impact. You will work at the heart of modern science and digital innovation, partnering early with diverse experts to set direction, test ambitious ideas and scale what works. We invest in the tools and learning to help you move fast, from hackathons to modern engineering practices, and we value kindness alongside ambition—so you can experiment, collaborate and see your work change how decisions are made across the company.

Lead the blueprint for AI-ready data products and turn possibility into impact—submit your application to shape how enterprise data powers the next generation of medicines!

Date Posted

25-Jun-2026

Closing Date

08-Jul-2026

Our mission is to build an inclusive and equitable environment. We want people to feel they belong at AstraZeneca and Alexion, starting with our recruitment process. We welcome and consider applications from all qualified candidates, regardless of characteristics. We offer reasonable adjustments/accommodations to help all candidates to perform at their best. If you have a need for any adjustments/accommodations, please complete the section in the application form.