D2C Data & Business Intelligence Manager

Job description

Job Description

We’re now recruiting a D2C Data & Business Intelligence Manager to join the D2C Insights team. The team that drives customer-focused, data-led decision making across our direct-to-consumer strategy, product, PR & content, and business development teams. The team are responsible for insights across customer research, customer feedback, market intelligence, competitor analysis, and data-driven insights. They ensure that strategic direction and business decisions are underpinned by a deep understanding of AJ Bell’s customers and broader market dynamics.

The D2C Data and BI Manager leads a small but dynamic and experienced group of BI developers and engineers who work across customer, financial and commercial data held in our Enterprise Data Warehouse Snowflake alongside our CRM and Customer Data Platform Bloomreach.  The team also work with specialised data sources such as website and app analytics and with data from external providers.   The team is the first port of call for always-on data insights for D2C teams and are responsible for maintaining and enhancing our core data assets which support BI, analysis and importantly our customer communications.

The team are continually working to understand our customers better through meticulous tracking and analysis. We’re passionate about delivering an increasingly personalised and segmented approach to every customer touchpoint to empower our customers to reach their financial goals. Plus, we know the best decisions are data-driven – so we give our senior management team the best business intelligence at their fingertips and work to support increasing data literacy and self-service.  We ensure the insights are clear and actionable as we move towards becoming an ever more data-driven organisation.

This role is a hands-on leader for the team, who can ensure we continue to have strong technical processes and governance whilst working with technical and non-technical colleagues to gather requirements, develop and deliver elegant and robust solutions,  and embed insights.  The role leads a small team and will need to ensure team members are supported and empowered to deliver their ambitious roadmap. Curious, proactive, and committed to understanding how and why people invest, the D2C Insights team plays a vital role in embedding a culture of insight and evidence-based decision making at every level of the D2C division.

What does the job involve?

The key responsibilities of the role are as follows:

• Leadership of a growing and high performing team of data engineers and BI developers  – coaching individuals and the team to deliver their best for the business. Foster a culture of collaboration, innovation, and continuous learning to drive professional growth and development within the team.
• Ensuring strong technical and business processes including documentation so that our data pipelines and data assets are robust, and that change is delivered in a governed and controlled manner and at the pace our stakeholders require
• Working closely with our stakeholders in D2C (particularly Marketing and Product) to understand their plans and strategies to develop an operating model and plans that deliver robust data products and dashboards when required.  You’ll also engage with and work closely with our central data and technology teams to deliver changes and create an aligned way of working and ensure cross-functional alignment.
• Continually assess our ways of working and roadmaps, proactively identifying opportunities for efficiency and innovation
• You’ll ensure change is delivered in line with agreed plans which will involve prioritising and managing the team’s workload.  You’ll take on running sprint planning meetings and daily stand ups with team, identifying blockers and addressing where necessary. You will also ensure the team’s work is of the highest standard by undertaking code reviews and QA’ing before delivery to the business.
• Supporting the team to develop engaging and accurate dashboards and reports.  You’ll take the lead on rolling these out to the business ensuring colleagues understand how to navigate and interpret the data including leading on our approach to self-service and data literacy across the division.  You’ll continually evolve our report suite in line with stakeholder feedback

Working closely with our central data and technology colleagues to collaborate on projects, share best practice and agree on common ways of working across the AJ Bell data community

• Proactively identify risks or opportunities highlighted through data and reporting, taking the lead on surfacing these to senior management along with context and what practical options we have to address them.
• Ensure compliance with regulatory requirements and industry standards related to data privacy, security, and confidentiality. You’ll ensure the team have effective controls in place, monitor any risks to the team and own the rectification of any data incidents.
• Supporting and enabling the business to achieve its regulatory requirements, including consumer duty.

About you:

We’re looking for someone with a broad range of competence, knowledge and skills would help you succeed in this role, but it is not critical to meet every single criteria listed below. We encourage a wide range of applicants.

• Proven experience in leading data and reporting teams in financial services or highly regulated industries
• Demonstrable experience of delivering improved outcomes from data and BI particularly governance, efficiency and scalability
• Previous responsibility for business-critical data assets and platforms
• Experience of working with diverse data sources across customer, transactional and external data and different cadences including real time.  Experience of working with third party data enhancement and marketing data sources such as Google Analytics is highly desirable
• Outstanding stakeholder engagement and management skills
• Excellent long-term planning and short-term prioritisation skills, including effective communication and ensuring delivery of priorities
• Experience in analysis and development within a BI environment
• Agile/scrum experience would be a benefit
• Good levels of data and market awareness
• Highly effective communication skills and comfortable working with both technical and non-technical teams
• Excellent analytical and problem-solving skills, with the ability to interpret complex datasets and generate actionable insights.
• Flexible approach to work and adaptable to changing environment
• Self-motivated
• Embraces continuous learning
• In-depth knowledge of cloud-based data architecture, database development and management.  Previous experience with Snowflake in particular is desirable
• Strong understanding of data and systems integration and data pipelines including development approaches.
• Broad knowledge of business intelligence principles, approaches and tools/platforms.  Power BI is preferred
• Understanding of marketing and communication technologies, particularly CRM platforms and orchestration tools.  Experience with Bloomreach is desirable.
• Best practice for systems and data governance including development processes and documentation
• Reporting architecture and approaches including self-service enablement
• Understanding of marketing and product performance metrics and approaches.  Exposure to Google Analytics and user engagement tools and testing platforms such as Contentsquare, AppsFlyer, Optimizely is highly desirable
• Proven understanding of GDPR and data governance, preferably in financial services
• Knowledge of AJ Bell and our product offerings, and interest in the investment platform market would be a plus
• Leadership experience with track record of building effective, impactful and happy teams.
• Excellent proficiency in data manipulation languages, particularly SQL, and able to write complex queries and repeatable stored procedures.  Experience in low-code solutions like DBT is highly desirable
• Experience of developing data pipeline and automations, for example via Python
• Data integration using APIs
• Ownership of systems critical data and string experience of maintenance, development and improvement.   Marketing technology or CRM platforms is highly desirable
• Dashboard design, development and delivery.  Experience with Power BI including semantic model development and with DAX is preferred.
• Self-serve approaches and improvements to data literacy and adoption
• Experience in working with modern data platforms such as Snowflake
• MS Office including Word, Excel, Outlook and PowerPoint
• Documentation and workflow management using tools such as JIRA and Confluence

About Us

AJ Bell is one of the fastest-growing investment platform businesses in the UK offering an award-winning range of solutions that caters for everyone, from professional financial advisers to DIY investors with little to no experience. We have over 644,000 customers using our award-winning platform propositions to manage assets totalling more than £103.3 billion. Our customers trust us with their investments, and by continuously striving to make investing easier, we aim to help even more people take control of their financial futures.

Having listed on the Main Market of the London Stock Exchange in December 2018, AJ Bell is now a FTSE 250 company.

Headquartered in Manchester with offices in central London and Bristol, we now have over 1,500 employees and have been named one of the UK’s ‘Best 100 Companies to Work For’ for six consecutive years and in 2024 named a Great Place to Work®.

At AJ Bell you can expect a friendly working environment with a strong sense of teamwork, we have a great sense of pride in what we do, and this is reflected in our guiding principles.

What we offer:

• Competitive starting salary
• Starting holiday entitlement of 27, increasing up to 31 days with length of service and a holiday buy and sell scheme
• A choice of pension schemes with matched contributions up to 8%
• Discretionary bonus scheme
• Annual free share awards scheme
• Buy As You Earn (BAYE) Scheme
• Health Cash Plan – provided by Simply Health
• Discounted private healthcare scheme and dental plan
• Free gym
• Employee Assistance Programme
• Bike loan scheme
• Sick pay+ pledge
• Enhanced maternity, paternity, and shared parental leave
• Loans for travel season tickets
• Death in service scheme
• Paid time off for volunteer work
• Charitable giving opportunities through salary sacrifice
• Calendar of social events, including monthly payday drinks, annual Christmas party, summer party and much more
• Personal development programmes built around you and your career goals, including access to personal skills workshops
• Monthly leadership breakfasts and lunches
• Casual dress code
• Access to a range of benefits from our sponsorship deals

Hybrid working:

At AJ Bell, our people are the heart of our culture. We believe in building strong connections by working together. That’s why we offer a hybrid working model, where you’ll spend a minimum of 50% of your working time per month in the office. For new team members, an initial period will be full-time in the office to help you immerse yourself in our business and build valuable relationships with your colleagues.

AJ Bell is committed to providing an environment of mutual respect where equal employment opportunities are available to all applicants and all employees are empowered to bring their whole self to work.

We do not discriminate on the basis of race, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, age, pregnancy, religion, physical and mental disability, marital status and any other characteristics protected by the Equality Act 2010. All decisions to hire are based on qualifications, merit and business need.

If you like the sound of the above, or just want to know more about the company and the role, we’d love to speak to you.