Director of Analytics

Katalyst Systems Impact; Cedar Rapids (IA); On-site; USD 112,500 - 137,500; Full time

Job summary

A local Eastern Iowa transportation company is seeking a strategic, hands-on leader to build and lead its Business Analytics function from the ground up. This role focuses on establishing reporting standards, defining what success looks like, and creating a foundation for a growing organization.

You will collaborate with Operations, Finance, and Technology to improve visibility and decision-making, building analytics capabilities from scratch rather than optimizing an existing BI team.

Qualifications

• 5+ years of progressive experience in business analytics, operational analytics, finance, operations, supply chain, logistics, or other operationally intensive environments.
• Experience leveraging multiple business systems, data sources, and reporting environments to support operational and strategic decision-making.
• Demonstrated ability to translate business questions into analytical solutions that drive measurable business outcomes.
• Strong analytical thinking, business acumen, and problem-solving skills.
• Ability to communicate complex information clearly to both technical and non-technical audiences.
• Strong relationship-building skills with the ability to influence across departments and lead cross-functional initiatives.
• Experience with business intelligence and visualization tools such as Power BI, Tableau, Snowflake, Qlik, Looker, or similar platforms.

Responsibilities

• Define and build the foundational analytics framework, including reporting standards and key KPIs.
• Develop decision-support tools and analytics initiatives with measurable outcomes.
• Translate business questions into actionable analytics projects and prioritize initiatives.
• Turn complex data into practical recommendations to support leadership decisions.
• Collaborate across Operations, Finance, and Technology to drive cross-functional analytics initiatives.
• Evaluate current systems and create a roadmap for analytics, automation, and BI capabilities.

Skills

Strategic leadership

Hands-on execution

Building from zero

Analytics strategy

KPI development

Data visualization thinking

Cross-functional collaboration

Clear communication

Tools

Power BI

Tableau

Snowflake

Looker

Qlik

Job description

Building a Better Trucking Company, Empowered by Improved Analytics.

This Is a Builder's Role

A well-established, locally-owned transportation company in Eastern Iowa is seeking a strategic, hands‑on leader to build and lead its Business Analytics function from the ground up — not to walk into an established BI organization and optimize it further.

This is likely the right fit if:

you get real energy from creating something that doesn't exist yet — establishing reporting standards, defining what "good" looks like, evaluating messy systems, and building the foundation that a growing company will run on for years.

This is probably not the right fit if:

you're looking to step into a mature analytics culture and immediately push into enterprise‑scale AI, advanced optimization, or predictive modeling. You'll get there — but the first phase of this role is building the baseline everything else depends on.

Working across Operations, Finance, and Technology, you'll improve visibility, strengthen decision‑making, and help leadership focus on the initiatives that drive long‑term growth.

What You'll Build & Lead

This role begins as an individual leadership position — with real say in shaping the future structure and capabilities of the Business Analytics function as the organization grows.

Building this function means developing reporting standards, establishing meaningful KPIs, improving data visibility, creating decision‑support tools, prioritizing analytics initiatives, and helping leaders use information more effectively. This role combines business analytics and strategy leadership with hands‑on execution.

This is less about building dashboards and more about helping leaders answer the questions that drive profitability, operational performance, and long‑term growth.

How You'll Make an Impact

Working closely with leaders across the organization, you will:

• Identify trends, opportunities, and risks impacting business performance.
• Develop analytical frameworks and decision‑support tools that improve network performance, fleet operations, pricing strategy, fuel performance, and long‑term growth.
• Translate business questions into analytical initiatives with measurable outcomes.
• Turn complex information into practical, actionable recommendations that support decision‑making.
• Help build a culture of accountability, continuous improvement, and data‑informed leadership.
• Evaluate current systems, processes, and technology while creating a roadmap for future analytics, automation, and business intelligence capabilities.

What We're Looking For

Someone who has successfully solved similar business challenges and — critically — who enjoys the ground‑floor work of turning insight into action where no framework exists yet.

Qualifications

• 5+ years of progressive experience in business analytics, operational analytics, business intelligence, finance, operations, supply chain, logistics, manufacturing, transportation, or other operationally intensive environments.
• Experience leveraging multiple business systems, data sources, and reporting environments to support operational and strategic decision‑making
• Demonstrated ability to translate business questions into analytical solutions that drive measurable business outcomes.
• Strong analytical thinking, business acumen, and problem‑solving skills.
• Ability to communicate complex information clearly to both technical and non‑technical audiences.
• Strong relationship‑building skills with the ability to influence across departments and lead cross‑functional initiatives.
• Experience with business intelligence and visualization tools such as Power BI, Tableau, Snowflake, Qlik, Looker, or similar platforms.

Preferred Experience

• Transportation, trucking, logistics, manufacturing, supply chain, or another operationally intensive industry.
• Direct experience building analytics capabilities, KPIs, reporting, or BI functions from zero — not just improving an existing one.
• Experience identifying opportunities for operational improvement, process optimization, cost reduction, and profitability enhancement through analytics.
• Experience working with ERP systems, Transportation Management Systems (TMS), fleet management systems, or similar enterprise platforms.
• Experience with SQL, databases, automation, AI, or predictive analytics.
• Experience knowing how to build without a "playbook"

Current Technology Environment

One of your first opportunities will be evaluating current systems and data sources to work together to improve visibility, strengthen decision‑making, and support future growth. You'll work with operational data across multiple divisions, business systems and third‑party platforms.

Who Will Thrive Here

Success in this role starts with character, capability, curiosity, and adaptability.

You’ll thrive here if creating something meaningful from a blank slate is more exciting to you than optimizing something that already works. If the idea of defining what analytics maturity looks like for a company — rather than inheriting someone else’s definition of it — genuinely energizes you, we’d love to hear from you.

Compensation

Target starting base compensation: $125,000. Compensation will be competitive and may be adjusted based on experience, demonstrated leadership, and overall alignment with the long‑term vision for the role.