Director, Data Engineering & Analytics

KeHE Distributors; Naperville (IL); On-site; USD 157,000 - 230,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Health/Rx

Dental

Vision

FSA/HSA

Supplemental life insurance

401(k)

Paid time off

Paid sick time

STD/LTD

ESOP

Holiday pay

Job summary

KeHE Distributors in Naperville, IL seeks a visionary Director, Data Engineering & Analytics to lead strategy and delivery of enterprise data, analytics platforms, and BI capabilities. This leader will mentor managers, align data products with business goals, and drive scalable solutions across Finance, Commercial, Operations, and IT.

Candidates bring 10+ years in data engineering/analytics, strong cloud experience, and a proven record of leadership in product-centered delivery with focus on

Qualifications

• Proven track record leading data engineering, analytics, BI, or data platform teams in a matrixed enterprise.
• Deep experience with data architecture patterns, cloud data platforms, data warehouses, data lakes, ETL/ELT, governance, and self-service analytics.
• Strong SQL, data quality, metadata, lineage, and enterprise reporting design knowledge.
• Experience with Power BI and cloud-based data services (AWS, Azure, Snowflake, Redshift, Databricks).
• Ability to connect technical delivery to business outcomes and executive decision-making.

Responsibilities

• Provide strategic, technical, and operational leadership across data engineering and analytics platform teams.
• Own and communicate the data and analytics roadmap with stakeholders and enterprise architecture.
• Lead scalable data pipelines, curated data products, reporting solutions, and semantic models.
• Drive modernization of analytics capabilities including cloud platforms, data lakehouse patterns, and self-service analytics.
• Establish delivery metrics, platform health, and governance standards; ensure security and privacy requirements.
• Partner with Finance, Commercial, Operations, Supply Chain, and IT to prioritize analytics use cases with measurable outcomes.
• Hire, coach, and develop managers and contributors; foster a culture of innovation and accountability.

Skills

Data leadership

Data engineering

Analytics leadership

SQL

Power BI

Cloud platforms

Data governance

Stakeholder management

Budgeting

Communication

Education

Bachelor’s degree in CS/Engineering/Analytics

Master’s degree preferred

Tools

Power BI

AWS/Azure

Snowflake/Redshift

Databricks

Fabric

Job description

• Pay Range: $156,640.00/Yr. - $229,598.00/Yr.
• Shift Days: , Shift Time:
• Benefits on Day 1
• Health/Rx
• Vision
• Flexible and health spending accounts (FSA/HSA)
• Supplemental life insurance
• 401(k)
• Paid time off
• Short term & long term disability coverage (STD/LTD)
• Employee stock ownership (ESOP)
• Holiday pay for company designated holidays

Why Work for KeHE?

• Full-time
• Pay Range: $156,640.00/Yr. - $229,598.00/Yr.
• Shift Days: , Shift Time:
• Benefits on Day 1
• Health/Rx
• Dental
• Vision
• Flexible and health spending accounts (FSA/HSA)
• Supplemental life insurance
• 401(k)
• Paid time off
• Paid sick time
• Short term & long term disability coverage (STD/LTD)
• Employee stock ownership (ESOP)
• Holiday pay for company designated holidays

Overview

At KeHE, we’re obsessed with creating solutions, unboxing potential, and serving others - and it all starts with you. As an employee-owned distributor of natural and organic, specialty, and fresh products, we’re committed to making a positive impact and scaling our success together. With a culture that fosters development and opportunity, you’ll be embarking on a career that’s moving forward. When you join KeHE, you’re becoming part of a team that is a force for good.

Primary Responsibilities

The Director, Data Engineering & Analytics is accountable for the strategy, delivery, reliability, and continuous improvement of KeHE’s enterprise data, analytics, and business intelligence capabilities. This leader directly manages and mentors managers and senior professionals responsible for data engineering, analytics platforms, semantic models, reporting solutions, data governance, and operational support. The role partners closely with business and technology leaders to translate enterprise priorities into scalable data products, actionable insights, and measurable business outcomes while ensuring solutions align with KeHE’s architecture principles, security standards, and Mission, Vision, and Values.

Essential Functions

DUTIES, TASKS AND RESPONSIBILITIES:

• Provide strategic, technical, and operational leadership across data engineering and analytics platform teams.
• Own and communicate the data and analytics roadmap in partnership with Product Management, business stakeholders, enterprise architecture, security, and infrastructure teams.
• Lead the design, build, deployment, and support of scalable data pipelines, curated data products, reporting solutions, semantic layers, and analytics platforms.
• Drive modernization of enterprise analytics capabilities, including cloud data platforms, Power BI, data lakehouse or warehouse patterns, orchestration, automation, metadata management, and self-service analytics enablement.
• Establish and monitor delivery, quality, adoption, reliability, and operational health metrics for data products, platforms, and team performance.
• Ensure data solutions follow architecture principles, information security requirements, privacy expectations, data governance standards, and change management practices.
• Partner with business leaders across Finance, Commercial, Operations, Supply Chain, and IT to prioritize high-value analytics use cases and deliver measurable outcomes.
• Champion data quality, master data alignment, lineage, stewardship, access controls, documentation, and sustainable support models.
• Lead teams through product-centric delivery practices, including requirements refinement, design reviews, development, testing, release readiness, validation, adoption support, and continuous improvement.
• Manage budgets, vendor and consulting partner relationships, resource plans, work plans, schedules, risks, and performance expectations.
• Hire, coach, mentor, and develop managers and individual contributors; create individual development plans, succession plans, and clear team goals.
• Foster a culture of innovation, accountability, proactive communication, continuous learning, automation, and cross-functional collaboration.
• Stay current with emerging data, analytics, AI, cloud, governance, and integration trends and apply them pragmatically to improve business outcomes.
• The above statement of duties is not intended to be all inclusive, and other duties will be assigned as needed.

Minimum Requirements, Qualifications, Additional Skills, Aptitude

SKILLS, KNOWLEDGE AND ABILITIES:

• Proven track record leading data engineering, analytics, BI, or data platform teams in a matrixed enterprise environment.
• Strong understanding of modern data architecture patterns, including cloud data platforms, data warehouses, data lakes or lakehouses, ETL/ELT, orchestration, semantic modeling, APIs, and governed self-service analytics.
• Deep experience with SQL, dimensional modeling, data integration, data quality practices, metadata, lineage, and enterprise reporting design.
• Experience with BI and analytics platforms such as Power BI and with cloud-based data services, preferably AWS, Microsoft Fabric, Azure, Snowflake, Redshift, Databricks, or equivalent platforms.
• Ability to connect technical delivery to business outcomes, adoption, ROI, risk reduction, operational efficiency, and executive decision-making.
• Strong knowledge of data governance, data security, access management, privacy, compliance, auditability, and production support expectations.
• Experience establishing KPIs, service levels, delivery metrics, platform health measures, and continuous improvement routines.
• Strong vendor management, budgeting, capacity planning, roadmap planning, and prioritization capabilities.
• Exceptional written, verbal, and presentation skills, with the ability to communicate complex data and technology concepts to executive, business, and technical audiences.
• Strong storytelling skills to translate analytics insights, platform investments, risks, decisions, and tradeoffs into clear leadership-level narratives.
• Strategic thinking, critical problem-solving, and pragmatic execution skills with an entrepreneurial and future-looking mindset.
• Strong relationship management skills and the ability to build trust across business, technology, security, architecture, and operations teams.
• Ability to lead through ambiguity, manage competing priorities, influence without direct authority, and build scalable operating models.

EDUCATION AND EXPERIENCE:

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Data Engineering, Information Systems, Analytics, Engineering, Mathematics, or a related technical field. A Master’s degree is preferred.
• 10+ years of progressive experience in data engineering, analytics, data architecture, and enterprise technology delivery.
• 5 to 7 years of people leadership experience managing managers, technical leads, data engineers, BI developers, analytics professionals, administrators, contractors, or offshore teams.
• Demonstrated experience delivering enterprise data platforms, analytics products, reporting solutions, data pipelines, and governed self-service BI capabilities using agile, product-centric, or hybrid delivery methods.
• Experience with DevOps or DataOps practices, including CI/CD, release management, automated testing, monitoring, incident management, documentation, and operational support.
• Experience with cloud-based providers and enterprise data services, preferably AWS and/or Microsoft data platforms.
• Experience with modern integration and analytics technologies such as SQL, Python, APIs, orchestration tools, Power BI, semantic models, ETL/ELT tools, data catalogs, Redshift, Fabric, Snowflake, Databricks, or equivalent platforms.
• Experience leading cross-functional analytics initiatives that serve business functions such as Finance, Commercial, Operations, Supply Chain, or Enterprise IT.
• Experience with budgeting, vendor management, consulting partner oversight, delivery governance, and executive stakeholder communication.

PHYSICAL REQUIREMENTS

These physical demands are representative of the physical requirements necessary for an employee to successfully perform the essential functions of the job.

Requisition ID

2026-30021

Equal Employer Opportunity Statement

KeHE Distributors provides equal employment opportunities to all employees and applicants for employment and prohibits all forms of discrimination and harassment on the basis of race, color, religion or faith, sex, gender, age, ancestry, national origin, mental or physical disability or medical condition, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, marital status, military or veteran status, genetic information, or any other category protected under federal, state, or local law. This policy applies to all terms and conditions of employment, including recruiting, hiring, placement, promotion, termination, layoff, recall, transfer, leaves of absence, compensation and training as well as the administration of all Human Resources and Talent Acquisition processes.