About This Role
This leadership role is SSE's Chief Data Officer, responsible for defining and implementing the group-wide data strategy and building the enterprise capabilities needed to manage data as a strategic asset. The position holds the mandate for data governance, data management, data technologies and platforms, data architecture and engineering, and the data profession. It will also help shape SSE’s direction and requirements for information management, working with relevant functions to create trusted, accessible, and reusable data foundations that enhance operational resilience, improve decision-making, and enable growth, digital products, analytics, and AI.
Responsibilities
- Own and execute SSE’s group-wide data strategy, operating model, priorities, and investment direction, establishing clear mandates, decision rights, and accountability across the enterprise and Business Units
- Establish and operate enterprise data governance and data management as distinct but connected capabilities, covering data domains, ownership and stewardship, metadata, lineage, classification, quality, master and reference data, access, sharing and assurance
- Collaboratively shape the requirements, standards, and interfaces for information management with the relevant accountable functions
- Set the direction for secure, resilient, and cost-effective enterprise data technologies, platforms, and services, including lifecycle, performance, investment, and supplier decisions
- Define enterprise data architecture, modelling, engineering, integration, and API standards, and enable their consistent implementation through reusable patterns, automation, code, and Data Ops practices
- Provide trusted data foundations, standards, and guardrails that enable and support Business Units to deliver reporting, analytics, data products, and AI-enabled solutions safely, consistently, and at pace
- Lead and develop SSE’s data profession, building leadership capability, skills, inclusive career pathways, communities, and data fluency across enterprise and Business Unit teams
- Partner collaboratively with CIOs, Business Unit Data and AI leaders, and control and assurance functions to address cross-SSE dependencies, manage material data risks, and demonstrate measurable improvement in trust, reuse, control, and business value
Requirements
- Extensive senior leadership experience across data and related technology disciplines in a large, complex organisation, with a proven track record of shaping enterprise strategy and translating it into operating capability and measurable outcomes
- Proven experience leading data strategy, data governance, and data management as distinct but connected disciplines, including operating capabilities for ownership, stewardship, metadata, lineage, quality, master and reference data, access, sharing and assurance
- Working knowledge of information management disciplines and their interfaces with data
