Managing Executive: Chief Data & Analytics Officer at Absa · Sandton

Empowering Africa’s tomorrow, together…one story at a time.

With over 100 years of rich history and strongly positioned as a local bank with regional and international expertise, a career with our family offers the opportunity to be part of this exciting growth journey, to reset our future and shape our destiny as a proudly African group.

Job Summary Managing the data and analytics strategy for Business Bank embedding data as a strategic asset that enables business value through insights and decision making. Drive the Business Bank data maturity journey considering scalability, innovation, and monetisation. Lead and influence a data-driven culture with client and market growth as key design factors.

Job Description

KEY FOCUS AREAS

• Establishes an ambitious data strategy that positions Business Bank as a leader in intelligent, data-driven decision-making.
• Champion the creation and commercialisation of data products that unlock new growth and embed data as a competitive advantage.
• Drive enterprise data maturity through governance, engineering, and quality practices.
• Reimagine business intelligence by evolving insight functions into strategic foresight capabilities.
• Build future-fit analytics and data science capabilities through scalable, test-and-learn approaches.
• Influence the design of modern data infrastructure aligned with business priorities and enabling technologies.
• Lead a unified data operating model that integrates client, product, platforms, and partnerships.
• Mobilise cross-functional teams to embed data into strategic execution and performance management.
• Serve as the orchestrator of data value creation across the enterprise.
• Embed a culture of innovation, experimentation, and predictive analytics.

ACCOUNTABILITIES

Strategy Formulation and Execution

• Shape and lead the enterprise Data & Analytics strategy to embed data as a business-critical capability.
• Drive data maturity uplift through adoption of data practices, platform enablement, and insight activation.
• Lead the creation and monetisation of enterprise data products to enable new value streams.
• Set and articulate a Business Bank long-term strategy with defined objectives, success metrics, and alignment to Group direction and shareholder value creation.
• Develop and communicate a clear strategic vision for the business unit, ensuring alignment with organisational goals, fostering a culture of innovation, and shaping industry discourse.
• Strengthen the bank’s competitiveness through strategic partnerships and industry influence.
• Engage proactively with strategic stakeholders, industry bodies, and regulators to shape and evolve strategy in response to market dynamics and policy developments.
• Oversee the disciplined execution of strategic priorities, ensuring business enablement and operational readiness across the business unit.
• Drive and monitor business unit performance, ensuring timely delivery against strategic goals, and provide transparent reporting on progress, risks, and outcomes.
• Lead transformation as a deeply committed journey, positioning the bank as a customer-centric organisation underpinned by robust journey management and market-leading products.

Customer Primacy

• Enable a unified customer view and insight-driven decision-making to support personalisation and value creation.
• Lead cross-functional partnerships to deploy customer-centric insights across digital, product, and channel teams.
• Leverage global best practices and market intelligence to shape customer experience strategies.
• Apply deep customer understanding to guide capability development, prioritisation, and value creation across the business.
• Champion a culture of customer-centricity that balances exceptional experience with sustainable financial performance.
• Prioritise customer-centric initiatives that use data and insights to elevate customer experience, satisfaction, and loyalty—driving both growth and profitability.
• Promote collaboration across business units and product areas to harmonise capabilities, ensuring seamless and differentiated customer journeys.
• Advocate for the segment agenda at executive level, ensuring alignment and integration with Group priorities and cross-functional stakeholders.

Sustainable Growth

• Accelerate commercial outcomes through data-driven performance management and monetisable use cases.
• Drive growth by identifying scalable data products and embedding analytics into strategic planning.
• Enable and support the delivery of the segment growth agenda in alignment with Group strategic priorities and shareholder expectations.
• Collaborate across the Business Bank Executive team and with key stakeholders to translate strategic intent into executable growth plans.
• Mobilise the business unit to deliver on strategic objectives, securing ownership, accountability, and cross-functional commitment.
• Accelerate the segment and the business unit’s contribution to sustainable, enterprise-wide performance and long-term value creation.
• Ensure investment decisions reflect both customer and product P&L considerations, and that they align to strategic imperatives and financial sustainability.

Client-Driven Innovation and Change

• Embed data-led innovation through rapid prototyping, predictive modelling, and advanced analytics.
• Enable MLOps/DevOps integration for scalable data science use cases.
• Stay informed of industry and competitor trends to ensure business decisions support market relevance and client value.
• Influence business decisions and capability development to support innovative, client-centric solutions across the value chain.
• Actively shape the client experience agenda through strategic input, cross-functional collaboration, and delivery accountability.
• Lead and manage change initiatives with discipline and empathy, driving transformation practices with clearly articulated outcomes, while ensuring business continuity.

Leading Talent

• Build and lead multidisciplinary teams across data engineering, analytics, BI, and data science.
• Lead internal data training and graduate programmes to build future-ready capabilities.
• Adopt and apply enterprise-wide human capital processes in ways that reinforce the organisation’s brand, values, and strategic priorities.
• Ensure leadership and workforce capabilities are developed to meet current and future business needs.
• Foster a high-performance, inclusive culture that supports employee engagement and delivers on the employee value proposition.
• Provide executive oversight on people matters, including performance management, talent recognition, and resolution of escalated issues.
• Attract, develop, and retain top talent, creating pathways for diversified experiences and future-ready skills development. Empower leaders to act as culture shapers and catalysts for transformation.

Operational Effectiveness

• Manage and operationalise the full Data & Analytics portfolio, including governance, platforms, and metrics.
• Oversee delivery and maintenance of enterprise data products and reporting tools.
• Translate strategic priorities into clear operational plans and performance measures, ensuring disciplined execution and timely course correction where required.
• Ensure alignment with other business units to ensure coherent delivery, operational integration, and resource optimisation.
• Represent the business with regulators and in key industry forums, reinforcing strategic positioning and operational credibility.
• Leverage business intelligence, performance insights, and external trends to inform decision-making and shape operational direction.
• Drive operational excellence through comprehensive process reviews aimed at harmonising with customer journeys and enabling faster execution through digital adoption and modernised technologies.

Digital Adoption

• Enable data platform integration into digital journeys and next-gen interfaces.
• Champion automation and digital innovation to enhance strategic agility.
• Identify and champion opportunities to digitise, automate, and innovate in ways that enhance customer experience, operational efficiency, and strategic agility.
• Drive the adoption and optimisation of digital platforms and technologies to unlock business value, scalability, and performance excellence.

Good Governance, Risk and Compliance

• Lead enterprise-wide data governance and quality efforts in alignment with regulatory standards.
• Embed data compliance into operations, analytics, and customer experience.
• Lead the implementation of integrated governance, compliance, and internal control frameworks that uphold the organisation’s integrity and licence to operate.
• Embed a culture of risk-aware decision-making and proactively address complex regulatory and business risks to safeguard long-term sustainability.
• Ensure a robust risk management framework is operational at all levels, integrated into day-to-day decision-making and strategic planning.

Data Monetisation

• Identify and scale high-value data products and monetisation use cases.
• Monitor data product impact to inform roadmap and commercial tracking.
• Harness data as a strategic asset to inform decision-making, optimise performance, and unlock new sources of economic value.
• Leverage internal and external data ecosystems to drive actionable insights and deliver measurable business outcomes at scale.

Stakeholder Management

• Serve as senior liaison with Group CDAO, CAO, and Technology for platform enablement and governance.
• Build trust-based relationships with regulators, partners, and internal stakeholders to drive transformation.
• Build and maintain strong, trust-based relationships with customers, employees, regulators, and strategic partners to enable collaborative execution of the transformation agenda.
• Ensure stakeholder alignment around key priorities, promoting shared ownership of the Bank’s vision and value creation goals.

QUALIFICATIONS AND EXPERIENCE

• Education/ Qualification: Post Graduate Degree: Honours Degree, Post Graduate Diploma and Professional Qualifications [NQF8]

Field of Study:

• Data Science, Information Systems, Business Analytics, or related disciplines

Work Experience:

• 15+ years of experience in Financial Services, including at least 7 years in executive roles across strategy and/or transformation in large, complex enterprises.
• Demonstrated success in leading enterprise data strategy, commercialising data products, and driving data maturity
• Experience in engaging executive stakeholders in strategic data initiatives, governance alignment, and innovation enablement

COMPETENCIES

Leadership Competencies:

• Strategic Thinking
• Business Acumen
• Communication
• Influence
• Leadership
• Creativity and Innovation
• Delivering Results
• Collaboration

Knowledge and Skills:

• Corporate and competitive strategy formulation
• Business transformation orchestration
• Enterprise Data Strategy
• Data Governance & Compliance
• Advanced Analytics & Data Science
• Business Intelligence & Reporting
• Data Engineering & Platform Enablement
• Predictive Modelling & AI/ML
• Data Monetisation & Commercialisation
• Strategic Foresight & Insight Activation
• Stakeholder Engagement & Change Leadership
• Digital Transformation & Innovation

Education

Postgraduate Degrees and Professional Qualifications: Physical, Mathematical, Computer and Life Sciences (Required)

Absa Bank Limited is an equal opportunity, affirmative action employer. In compliance with the Employment Equity Act 55 of 1998, preference will be given to suitable candidates from designated groups whose appointments will contribute towards achievement of equitable demographic representation of our workforce profile and add to the diversity of the Bank.

Absa Bank Limited reserves the right not to make an appointment to the post as advertised