Director, Data & AI Strategy

NetApp; United States; Hybrid; USD 196,000 - 293,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Health Insurance

Life Insurance

Retirement or Pension Plans

Paid Time Off

various Leave options

employee stock purchase plan

restricted stocks (RSU’s)

Job summary

NetApp is seeking a seasoned Director, Data & AI Readiness to lead a major enterprise data transformation across critical functions. You will define strategy, roadmap, and self-service enablement for AI-powered analytics and data platforms at scale.

You will mentor a global team, partner with executive stakeholders, and deliver measurable business outcomes through governance, data models, and enterprise data products.

Qualifications

• 10+ years of progressive experience in data, analytics, business intelligence and AI/ML.
• 2+ years' experience in enabling enterprises to leverage data to accelerate AI adoption.
• Proven track record delivering enterprise analytics and Agentic AI with measurable business impact.
• Technical depth in modern data architecture — cloud data platforms (Snowflake, Databricks, BigQuery, or equivalent), semantic modeling, knowledge graph, MCP, ETL/ELT pipelines, and BI tooling (Tableau, Power BI, MicroStrategy, or equivalent)
• Applied AI and machine learning experience — hands‑on background with AI agent development, orchestration, and lifecycle management; familiarity with LLM‑based solutions and predictive modeling
• Executive stakeholder management — demonstrated ability to influence VP and C‑suite audiences, drive consensus, and align diverse stakeholders around a shared data and AI vision
• Program and budget management — skilled in managing complex, multi-workstream programs with OKRs tied to business outcomes; experienced in vendor negotiation, contract management, and ROI tracking for analytics and AI investments
• Bachelor's / Master’s degree in computer science, Data Science, Statistics, Information Systems, Business Analytics, or a related field (or equivalent practical experience)

Responsibilities

• Develop and execute a BI/AI strategy and roadmap aligned with NetApp goals across HR, Finance, Tax & Treasury, Customer Support, and PS.
• Build and run AI/ML Center of Excellence with standards and scalable assets across functions.
• Champion adoption with change management and executive alignment for AI-native ops.
• Lead with influence in a global matrix, partnering with function leaders across org.
• Stand up data/tools to support agentic workflows and maintain lifecycle mgmt.
• Identify and prioritize AI outcomes across domains; build business cases and sequencing.
• Oversee deployment and governance of BI/AI agents; ensure auditability and responsible AI.
• Develop and maintain enterprise data model, taxonomy, ontologies for consistency.
• Design semantic models to make data AI-ready for analytics, ML, and LLM copilots.
• Operationalize models and taxonomies via Enterprise Data Catalog.
• Set standards for data modeling, taxonomy and semantics for consistency across domains.
• Contribute to data product framework with domain boundaries and semantic contracts.
• Partner with analytics & AI engineering teams to ensure architecture and metadata for explainable, governed AI.
• Provide insights to shape governance strategy and roadmaps.
• Revamp data governance tooling with IT and Data Engineering.
• Develop strategy and tools to enable ontology and semantic.
• Implement responsible AI framework: fairness, privacy, transparency, oversight, audits; ethics including bias mitigation.
• Ensure compliance with GDPR, CCPA, PIPEDA across data products and AI.

Skills

Data strategy

AI governance

Stakeholder mgmt

Cloud data platforms

ETL/ELT pipelines

BI tooling

LLM orchestration

Knowledge graph

Semantics modeling

Bias mitigation

Education

Bachelor's / Master’s degree

Tools

Snowflake

Databricks

BigQuery

Tableau

Power BI

MicroStrategy

Job description

NetApp is seeking a seasoned Director, Data & AI Readiness to lead a major enterprise data transformation across critical functions. You will define strategy, roadmap, and self-service enablement for AI-powered analytics and data platforms at scale.

You will mentor a global team, partner with executive stakeholders, and deliver measurable business outcomes through governance, data models, and enterprise data products.