Sr. Director/VP, Data & AI Strategy

Cognibox; Canada; Remote; CAD 140,000 - 200,000; Full time

Job summary

Cognibox is seeking a dynamic Sr. Director/VP of Data & AI Strategy to lead the company’s enterprise-wide data strategy in Canada. This role involves driving data excellence, promoting ML/AI capabilities, and enhancing organization-wide analytics and reporting processes. The ideal candidate will leverage extensive experience in data strategy and executive leadership to shape the company’s approach to data as a strategic asset, ensuring measurable outcomes from all data initiatives.

Benefits

Integrated mental health & wellbeing support

Vacation – starting at 3 weeks

Wellness Days & Annual Giving Day

Comprehensive medical and dental coverage

End of the year company-wide shutdown

LinkedIn Learning License for upskilling

Qualifications

• 10+ years in data strategy and ML/AI leadership roles.
• Proven experience with data platforms and architecture.
• Ability to influence and communicate complex ideas.

Responsibilities

• Architect a unified data platform supporting structured and unstructured data.
• Lead ML/AI capabilities to enhance applications and processes.
• Define and execute a data strategy aligned with business objectives.

Skills

Leadership

Data Strategy

Analytics

Machine Learning

Cloud platforms

Education

Bachelor’s in Computer Science

Master’s/PhD preferred

Tools

Snowflake

Databricks

Microsoft Fabric

Job description

Sr. Director/VP, Data & AI Strategy

Department: Technology & Product

Employment Type: Permanent

Location: Remote, Canada

Reporting To: Group CTO

Description

Alcumus is the global leader in comprehensive risk management solutions, specializing in high-risk worker qualification and safety compliance. Our technology platform and expert services enable organizations to streamline their compliance processes and reduce business risks, while ensuring the safety and competency of their workforce.

We are seeking a dynamic and visionary leader to join our team as Sr. Director of Data Strategy and ML/AI. This role is responsible for shaping and driving our enterprise-wide data strategy—leveraging data as a strategic asset to deliver actionable insights, enable innovation through ML/AI, and support scalable, secure, and trustworthy data practices.

This high-impact leadership role requires cross-functional collaboration across Product, Engineering, Operations, Finance, and Compliance. You will be the steward of our data ecosystem, championing a culture of data excellence, insight-led decision making, measurable business outcomes, and embedded ML/AI capabilities.

What that means day-to-day:

Architecture & Platform Leadership:
- Architect a unified and scalable enterprise data platform supporting structured and unstructured data.
- Build a modern Data Lakehouse/Warehouse as a single source of truth.
- Implement reporting and dashboarding solutions that empower internal teams and customers.
- Ensure platform reliability, observability, and security.
- Promote reusable, curated datasets and self-service analytics across teams.
- Collaborate with BI, Engineering, and business stakeholders to enhance analytics delivery.
- Leverage cloud platforms and modern pipeline tooling (e.g., Snowflake, Databricks, Azure, AWS).

ML/AI Strategy & Execution:
- Lead the design and deployment of scalable ML/AI capabilities on top of the data infrastructure to enhance our applications and business processes.
- Deliver high-impact initiatives such as predictive modeling, advanced analytics, and intelligent automation.
- Collaborate with Product and Engineering to embed ML/AI into core application features and workflows.
- Establish success metrics and a governance model for AI deployments.

Data Strategy & Governance:
- Define and execute a modern, enterprise-wide data strategy aligned with business objectives.
- Foster a culture of trusted data stewardship, literacy, and transparency.
- Establish data governance practices including change control, provenance tracking, and auditability.
- Build and evolve a robust data integration, reporting, and analytics platform using a Data Lakehouse, Warehouse, or Data Mart architecture.

Cross-Functional Collaboration:
- Align data initiatives with Product, Engineering, and Operations roadmaps.
- Act as a unifying force across departments to eliminate silos and improve insight delivery.
- Lead enterprise reporting initiatives, benchmarking, and data-driven transformation.
- Ensure measurable outcomes from all data and analytics programs.

What you’ll need to be successful:

Required Qualifications:
- Bachelor’s in Computer Science, Data Science, Engineering, or related field; Master's/PhD preferred.
- 10+ years in data strategy, analytics, or ML/AI leadership roles.
- Proven experience with platforms like Snowflake, Databricks, Microsoft Fabric, etc.
- Deep expertise in data architecture, pipeline orchestration, and real-time analytics.
- Ability to influence executive stakeholders and communicate complex ideas clearly.
- Strong leadership and organizational change skills.

Preferred Qualifications:
- Experience in high-growth or private equity-backed environments.
- Familiarity with SaaS, compliance, or workforce management platforms.

What you’ll get in return:

Alcumus has a remote/hybrid workplace policy. We want you to be able to do your best work here. We emphasize providing many ways to support our team to do their best work, and believe that if you look after your people, they look after everything else!

Personal Health & Wellbeing

> Integrated mental health & wellbeing support

> Vacation – starting at 3 weeks

> Wellness Days & Annual Giving Day – an extra to give back to yourself or your community

>???? Comprehensive medical and dental coverage

> End of the year, company-wide shut down for you to relax and recharge

Future Planning

> LinkedIn Learning License for upskilling & development

Interested but don’t feel you meet all the requirements?

Our recruitment team assesses and reviews all applications against the role and business needs. We believe in people having transferable and soft skills and want you to know that we consider applications that might not meet all the criteria, but have the aptitude and capability, nonetheless. Our priority is to ensure we set people up for success. We will make a final call based on our determining whether we can offer the necessary support to upskill or provide the developmental support needed for you to get the best out of this opportunity with us!

Bring Your Whole Self to Work.

Alcumus is proudly an equal-opportunity employer. We are committed to ensuring that no candidate is discriminated against because of gender identity and expression, race, disability, ethnicity, sexual orientation, age, colour, region, creed, national origin, or sex. We are dedicated to growing a diverse team while continuing to create an inclusive environment where everyone feels safe and empowered to be themselves.

What you can expect if you apply:

• A response to your application within 15 working days
• An interview process consisting of:
• An initial discovery call with the recruiter
• A first stage interview via Microsoft Teams
• Additional interview with the stakeholders you’ll be working with closely in the role

We’re keen to ensure our hiring process allows you to be at your best, so if you need us to make any adjustments, please just let us know.