Executive Head: Group Data & ML Platform Tribe at Sanlam Group

What will make you successful in this role?

What success will look like for you 12 months into the role:

Built a high performing platform organisation:

• You've built a small group of lean, high-ownership, high-agency teams with clear missions and success metrics and ensured continuous performance improvement each month. Success was measured by the consistent delivery against your service level objectives (e.g. new data acquired from any source in 2 weeks or less) and the achievement of your yearly goals.

Cultivated a growth-oriented environment for top talent:

• You've made your organisation the best place for data product and engineering professionals to flow and grow. Success was measured by the high volume of world class talent you've incubated, attracted and retained, further evidenced through team engagement surveys. 

Achieved unmatched platform spend efficiency:

• You've consolidated all data infrastructure spend towards in-house capabilities and teams, and as a result achieved the best cost efficiency in overall spend the group has ever seen. Success was measured by a significant reduction in total cost of data platform as a % of operating budget, with no spend on external agencies, despite an increase in platform capabilities and uptake.

Built high trust and engagement with stakeholders across the company:

• You've built trust through strong delivery and outstanding product management practices for engaging with internal stakeholders. Success was measured by the unanimous approval of the team by the group data operating board and overwhelming positive feedback through user surveys.

Consolidated all Sanlam’s data onto one modern cloud-based platform: 

• You've brought all of Sanlam Group's data onto a single coherent cloud-based platform for analytical purposes, with a coherent set of visualization, insight and Prediction or ML tools as needed to create value from data across the group. You've ring fenced all operational (non-reporting) workloads on the current on-prem warehouse and found appropriate owners for their modernization on separate technologies. Success was measured by 100% adoption of the data platform by all data science, analytics and reporting teams across the group and successful maintenance of non-analytical tasks prior their migration.

Enabled cost reduction and enhanced agility of operational reporting:

• You've enabled accelerated delivery and agility of regulatory reporting, reducing the time and total cost to maintain reports and adapt to new regulatory changes. Success was measured by reduced timeframes and costs for regulatory reporting.

Minimized time and cognitive load on compliance:

• You made it easy to comply with data privacy and governance policies, and effortless to comply with security policies. Success was measured by negligible time and cognitive load spent adhering to these policies across the group. 

Became a valued member of the Sanlam Group Technology Leadership Team:

• Through your initiatives, your influence and sincere interest in bringing others along with you, you made a material contribution to the overall goals and strategy of the Group Technology leadership team.  

Qualification

• Grade 12
• Bachelor's degree in Engineering, Science or Information Technology recommendable
• Management qualification and Data Certifications will be advantageous

Experience

• 10+ years' experience in leading data platform teams with at least 5 in a modern context with cloud technologies and autonomous high performing team organisational patterns
• A track record of high impact and investing in your own development
• Experience as a delivery lead requiring executive level influence and personally operating at a senior management level in engineering or Data engineering teams would be advantageous