Dunnes Stores is Ireland's leading retailer positioned at the cutting edge of food, fashion and home retailing. We are known for offering a wide range of high-quality products to our customers.
Overview
We are undertaking one of the most ambitious digital and operational transformations in the Irish retail sector. As
Head of Enterprise Data
, you will play a pivotal role in unlocking enterprise-wide value from data enabling faster decision-making, regulatory readiness, and AI-powered innovation.
This is not a custodial data role. It is a strategic, business-facing leadership position tasked with shaping and executing a data strategy that cuts across all business units from Supply Chain to Sustainability, from Customer to Compliance. You'll lead a growing multidisciplinary team across data engineering, BI, and governance while collaborating closely with senior executives and business leaders.
You will define how we treat data as a product, steward our enterprise data model, and enable self-serve analytics through modern tooling and federated ownership models. This role sits at the intersection of technology, operations, and commercial value.
Key Responsibilities
Enterprise Data Strategy & Leadership
* Develop and own the enterprise data strategy, aligned with corporate and digital transformation goals.
* Establish and lead a modern data operating model that enables decentralised ownership while ensuring governance and consistency.
* Partner with the Board and C-suite to embed data into business planning, performance management, and risk mitigation.
Data Platform Enablement
* Oversee the build-out of our enterprise cloud data platform, ensuring scalability, high availability, and analytics-readiness.
* Introduce and scale data-as-a-product thinking, supporting domain-oriented data delivery through reusable, trusted data assets.
* Define and drive the roadmap for analytics tooling, BI access, and API/data-sharing interfaces.
Use Case Acceleration
* Prioritise and deliver high-impact data use cases across key domains—e.g. demand forecasting, loyalty performance, store productivity, compliance automation, and ESG reporting.
* Partner with business leaders to co-develop data solutions that drive measurable commercial or operational outcomes.
* Proactively monitor and address the risk of shadow data systems by offering compelling, supported alternatives.
Governance & Quality at Scale
* Lead a pragmatic, business-aligned data governance framework that ensures data quality, lineage, and stewardship without stifling innovation.
* Drive the development of clear, accessible metadata, business glossaries, and shared definitions to reduce reporting conflict and ambiguity.
* Champion responsible data usage, privacy compliance, and data security across all environments.
Team Leadership & Capability Building
* Build, lead, and mentor a cross-functional data organisation including engineering, analytics, BI, and data governance.
* Cultivate a high-performance, delivery-focused culture grounded in trust, transparency, and accountability.
* Embed data fluency across the business via training, communities of practice, and business partnerships.
Required Experience & Profile
* 10–15+ years of experience in enterprise data leadership roles, ideally within large-scale retail, FMCG, or other complex operational environments.
* Proven success delivering enterprise-wide data platforms and business value through data products, analytics, and self-serve tooling.
* Experience with migrating off and decommissioning of on-prem legacy data warehousing
* Strategic mindset with the ability to align technical solutions to commercial and regulatory priorities.
* Strong understanding of cloud data architecture (e.g. Microsoft Fabric, Azure Synapse, Snowflake, Databricks) and modern data stack technologies.
* Experience building and leading multi-disciplinary teams and driving cultural change across siloed or legacy-heavy organisations.
* Deep understanding of data governance frameworks (e.g. DAMA), but with a practical, value-oriented approach.
* Excellent communication and influencing skills, with the ability to partner at the C-suite level and translate between business and technical domains.
If this sounds like the job for you, please apply now
Dunnes Stores is an equal opportunities employer