About AccelerEd

AccelerEd is the prominent venture of UMGC Ventures, a portfolio company of the University of Maryland Global Campus (UMGC) created to help maintain the affordability of a high quality education for adult learners around the world. We are built on a history of innovation and a passion for education, and our skilled team has deep roots in providing the expertise required to support and scale a broad set of solutions to attract learners and drive revenue growth.

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The Opportunity

VP of Data Engineering, AccelerEd

ADELPHI, MD

The Data Leader is a senior-level role responsible for the organization’s data assets to drive value for business stakeholders. This includes the creation and management of data and analytics strategy, and execution of related programs and practices that drive measurable business outcomes. This role involves establishing, leading, and operating the data function; developing talent and maturing the data-centered culture; building trust and managing data; and evolving technology capabilities.

Responsibilities

LEADERSHIP & STRATEGY

Define data vision, strategy, governance, and associated practices. Lead the creation (and assure the ongoing relevance) of the organization’s data strategy to enable data management, stewardship, governance, analytics, and best-in-class AI function in collaboration with Platform Leaders, Office of the CIO, and Customers.
Build and lead the data organization from the ground up, fostering a data-driven culture and overseeing career development and performance management for a team of analysts, engineers, and architects.
Build strong working relationships with key business leaders to establish the vision for managing data as a business asset — to exploit data and analytics capabilities to maximize the value derived from data assets.
Provide technical vision and leadership to build complex and sustainable data ecosystems that will be used across all Platforms.
Lead Analytics, BI, and Visualization from data stores and data lakes for the client analytics offices.
Lead and manage data science, data modeling, machine learning, AI Ops, and ML Ops service offerings to our customers.
Productize data science, management, governance, privacy, and analytics as an offering to our large institutional customers.
Oversee the implementation of solutions for tracking data quality, data consistency, and lineage.
Build reference data practice that can be adopted across customers and higher education institutions.
Collaborate with internal teams to find areas of opportunities to expand the scope of data engineering with automation and machine learning.
Streamline the entire data ecosystem from end to end to ensure the most efficient, standard, privacy-compliant processes possible.
Develop strong relationships with data science, engineering, and business partners, and improve how we leverage data. Institute an enterprise operating model for data and analytics which is consistent with the capabilities and competencies required to execute the strategy.
Identify new kinds, types, and sources of trusted data to enable business value innovation throughout the organization.
Create and oversee a centralized data management service for internal and external data to ensure quality, traceability, timeliness, usability, and cost-effectiveness.
Define processes for the effective, integrated introduction of new data.
Provide thought leadership around implementation solutions and controls to enable data privacy, compliance, and security as required by state laws and mandates.
Foster the creation of a data-driven culture, related competencies, and data literacy across the enterprise. Lead these transformation efforts by developing D&A talent and maturing the capability of the organization.
Oversee delivery models, methods, and practices for creation of data products and to ensure consistent application and use of data and analytics solutions.
Establish and maintain trust in data assets by instituting governance mechanisms for data and algorithms used for analysis, analytical applications, and automated decision making.
Lead data-driven innovation for the enterprise, including investigation, adoption, and exploitation of artificial intelligence.

BUSINESS VALUE & OUTCOMES

Identify internal and external stakeholders and their goals. Organize, formalize, and prioritize your stakeholders and their wants and needs.
Express business outcomes in terms of your stakeholders (e.g., in terms of revenue growth, or cost and risk reduction).
Focus on business outcomes, not reporting. Inventory the business’ KPIs, not just to report on the business with dashboards and reports. Modern data and analytics strategies use KPIs that describe how data and analytics will be used to improve the business, achieving those business outcomes through specific business actions.
Create an optimal portfolio of business outcomes, contributing the essential data and analytics capabilities necessary to run a successful organization.
Connect with stakeholders to identify stakeholders’ unmet needs that expose new opportunities, and to redesign business processes and interactions as part of the digital transformation.

MANAGEMENT & OPERATIONS

Develop, manage, allocate, and govern the annual budget for Data organization.
Organize and lead a data and analytics center of excellence, and constantly improve the organization’s capacity to develop insights with advanced analytics.
Define members’ responsibilities and accountabilities. Define job roles, recruit candidates, and then manage (directly or indirectly) a team of data and analytics leaders and senior information management professionals in different regions or business units.
Oversee development, publishing, and maintenance of the organization’s data and analytics architecture and platforms, as well as a roadmap for its future development, ensuring that it matches and supports business needs.

Qualifications & Knowledge

SKILLS & ABILITIES

Demonstrated leadership skills and experience leading complex, multidisciplinary talent teams in new endeavors and delivering solutions.
Excellent business and data acumen and interpersonal skills.
Business process transformation by being able to understand how data and analytics can help redesign the way work is done and track how impactful the changes are.
Influencing and emotional intelligence: For example, by asserting ideas and persuading others to gain support across an organization or to adopt new behaviors.
Creative and critical thinking, and outstanding analytical and problem-solving abilities
Ability to deliver by working with business domain teams as well as with technical staff.
Strong talent management skills including talent development, coaching, mentoring, and team motivation.
Adaptability and ability to manage rapid change in business needs, processes, or technologies.

QUALIFICATIONS & EXPERIENCE

At least a bachelor’s degree; Master’s degree preferred.
15 years of prior experience in leading and scaling a data engineering organization, and overall data and analytics functions (e.g. data planning, data governance, data management, data visualization, machine learning, AI, etc).
Significant experience with industry-standard platforms and tooling including AWS, relational and non-relational solutions, Databricks, Snowflake, Qlik, Tableau Alteryx, etc.
Experience leading geographically distributed teams.
Hands-on working experience in architecting, building, and operating data platforms is preferred.
Comfortable in presenting to both business and technical executives, exceptional communication skills
Prior experience in managing data practices at large organizations with hundreds of data sources and 50-100 TB scale.
At least 10 years of leadership experience in technology organizations
Significant experience with industry-standard platforms and tooling including AWS, Azure, Data Cloud, relational and non-relational solutions, Databricks, Snowflake, Qlik, Tableau, etc.
5+ years of leadership experience in leading cross-functional teams, multidisciplinary environments, and/or enterprise-wide data and analytics programs, operating and influencing effectively across the organization and within complex contexts.
Prior experience in developing open-source and in-house data platforms and analytics solutions is nice to have.
Experience in integrating complex, cross-corporate processes, and information strategies, and/or designing strategic metrics and scorecards.
Background in CRM, ERP, e-commerce, education technology, strategy, and management consulting preferred.
Candidates must be authorized to work in the United States for any employer. We are not offering sponsorship now or in the future.

AccelerEd is a leading provider of education technology products and the IT partner to UMGC, one of the largest online universities in the world. We deliver innovative solutions that take the learning experience to the next level.

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Help us transform the future of higher education.

INNOVATION WORKS HERE

Higher education is transforming, and our mission is to help our customers get to the next level. To make an impact, we need technology innovators, thinkers, and leaders who know what it takes to apply new thinking and fulfill a vision of improving the ways educators do what they do best.

AccelerEd is currently seeking a Vice President of Data Engineering to lead our data function to drive value for business stakeholders, and provide leadership, vision, and direction for the company’s entire data and analytics strategy, programs, and practices.