Lead Business Analyst

Salt Digital Recruitment; Dubai; On-site; AED 250,000 - 350,000; Full time

Job summary

Salt Digital Recruitment is seeking a Lead Business Analyst in Dubai to shape how business needs translate into effective data and AI solutions. This strategic role involves collaborating with senior executives to guide delivery and influence enterprise priorities.

The ideal candidate will possess over 10 years of experience in business analysis, particularly within data and analytics environments. This position emphasizes strong stakeholder engagement, leadership, and the ability to drive impactful data solutions in a fast-paced setting.

Qualifications

• 10+ years’ experience in Business Analysis roles.
• Extensive experience with enterprise data, analytics, or platform environments.
• Proven track record with senior business and technical stakeholders.

Responsibilities

• Partner with senior stakeholders including Directors and Executives.
• Lead business analysis across enterprise data warehouse and AI programmes.
• Mentor a team of Business Analysts and Senior Business Analysts.

Skills

Enterprise data warehousing

Analytics ecosystems

SQL capability

Excellent communication skills

Stakeholder engagement

Education

Bachelor’s degree in Information Systems

Job description

We’re partnering with a large, forward-thinking organisation undergoing a major evolution in how it uses data, analytics, and AI to drive business value. As part of this journey, we’re looking for a Lead Business Analyst to play a pivotal role in shaping how business needs are translated into high-impact data and AI solutions.

This is a strategic leadership role sitting at the intersection of business, data, and technology. You’ll influence enterprise priorities, guide delivery across multiple initiatives, and elevate the maturity of business analysis within a fast-moving, low-process environment.

If you thrive where structure is still being built, enjoy turning ambiguity into clarity, and want to shape how data products deliver measurable outcomes, this role offers real scope and impact.

What You’ll Be Doing

Strategic Business & Stakeholder Leadership

• Partner with senior stakeholders including Directors, Heads of Function, and Executives
• Lead outcome-focused discovery sessions centered on value, KPIs, and measurable impact
• Translate complex business priorities into clear, structured data and analytics requirements
• Act as a trusted advisor to both business and technical leaders
• Manage expectations, trade-offs, and priorities across concurrent initiatives

Enterprise Data & AI Enablement

• Lead business analysis across enterprise data warehouse, analytics, and AI programmes
• Shape and prioritise data, analytics, and AI use cases aligned to strategic goals
• Act as the primary interface between business leaders and data and AI engineering teams
• Own the business meaning, intent, and value of enterprise datasets and data products
• Ensure business requirements align with enterprise data architecture principles
• Champion modern lakehouse and medallion architecture concepts across business demand
• Validate KPI definitions, business logic, metrics, and data consumption patterns
• Identify cross-domain data dependencies and impacts early

Delivery Structure & Governance

• Bring clarity and structure to delivery where formal Agile and Product structures may be limited
• Define requirement readiness standards and acceptance criteria
• Ensure full traceability from business objectives through to delivered outputs
• Support UAT planning, execution, and senior stakeholder sign-off
• Maintain high-quality documentation and requirement governance
• Align with delivery governance on intake, prioritisation, and release readiness

Data Products & Critical Datasets Ownership

• Identify and prioritise business-critical datasets
• Oversee the evolution of curated data layers and enterprise data products
• Ensure downstream impacts of dataset changes are understood and managed
• Track adoption, usage, and measurable business value from key datasets
• Safeguard backward compatibility and change communication
• Serve as the business-facing owner of dataset purpose and value

People Leadership & Capability Building

• Lead, mentor, and develop a team of Business Analysts and Senior Business Analysts
• Coach on analysis quality, data literacy, and stakeholder engagement
• Review and assure analysis outputs across programmes
• Raise the overall maturity of business analysis practices

What Good Looks Like

You’ll bring both strategic perspective and hands‑on delivery credibility, combining strong stakeholder presence and deep data fluency.

Skills & Expertise

• Strong understanding of enterprise data warehousing and analytics ecosystems
• Deep familiarity with medallion architecture, including bronze, silver, and gold data layers
• Confident working with data models, transformations, and metrics logic
• SQL capability for data validation, investigation, and analytical oversight
• Excellent facilitation, documentation, and communication skills
• Ability to challenge business demand and reshape it into outcome‑driven use cases

Experience

• 10+ years’ experience in Business Analysis roles
• Extensive experience within enterprise data, analytics, or platform environments
• Proven track record working with senior business and technical stakeholders
• Comfortable operating in evolving or low‑process delivery environments
• Demonstrated experience leading or mentoring other analysts

Education

Bachelor’s degree in Information Systems, Computer Science, Business, or a related discipline

Core Competencies

• Customer Focus
• Communication & Influence
• Business Acumen
• Analytical Thinking & Innovation
• Stakeholder Collaboration
• Leading Change
• Performance Management
• Developing Others
• Professional Integrity & Confidentiality