Director - Data

INSPIRE | EXHILARATE | DELIGHT

For over seven decades, Chalhoub Group has been a partner and creator of luxury experiences in the Middle East. In its pursuit to excel as a hybrid luxury retailer, the Group has curated a portfolio of over 10 owned brands and strengthened its distribution and marketing expertise for over 400 international names across luxury fashion, beauty, jewellery, watches, eyewear, and art de vivre categories.

Every step at Chalhoub Group is taken to build a future where luxury dreams become reality - bridging cultures and crafting memorable experiences for our consumers. Be it by constantly reinventing itself, committing to innovation, or embracing new technologies, the Group is shaping the future of luxury retail. It delivers seamless omnichannel experiences across more than 950 stores, online platforms, and mobile apps. Driving this innovation journey is The Greenhouse - the Group’s innovation hub, incubator, and accelerator for startups and emerging businesses, regionally and globally.

Chalhoub Group fosters a people-at-heart culture rooted in diversity, equity, and inclusion, and a workplace catalysed by forward thinking and future-proofing. Today, it brings together over 16,000 talented professionals across eight countries in the Middle East, with a presence in LATAM.

Sustainability is at the core of the Group’s strategy, guided by a clear commitment to people, partners, and the planet. Chalhoub Group is proud to be a member of the United Nations Global Compact, a signatory of the Women’s Empowerment Principles, and to have pledged to reach Net Zero by 2040.

What you'll be doing   

Lead the Data and AI Engineering strategy, roadmap, and engineering execution across the Group, establishing a scalable, reliable, secure, and cost-efficient enterprise data platform that supports analytics, reporting, AI/ML, and operational data use cases across Chalhoub's brands and joint ventures.

Build and lead a high-performing Data Engineering organization, establishing engineering standards, platform capabilities, operating models, and technical direction that enable teams to deliver trusted data at scale.

• Define and own the Data and AI Engineering strategy and technology roadmap, covering data ingestion, transformation, orchestration, storage, processing, data quality, observability, scalability, and platform modernization.

• Lead a high-performing Data and AI Engineering organization, defining the technical leadership, engineering capabilities, career development, and measurable KPIs across reliability, quality, delivery, performance, and cost.

• Build and develop the engineering leadership team, mentoring Engineering Managers and Senior Managers and driving capability development across the function

• Own the evolution, reliability, performance, and cost efficiency of the Group's enterprise data platform, including Google BigQuery, Apache Airflow, dbt, Airbyte, and associated cloud data capabilities.

• Ensure Data Engineering platforms, pipelines, and datasets adhere to the Group's Data Governance framework, including data ownership, quality, metadata and lineage, Master Data Management, access controls, privacy and data residency

• Drive the Group's AI/ML technology strategy, ensuring the data and platform foundations required for scalable AI/ML capabilities, including platforms such as Vertex AI and Azure OpenAI, while establishing appropriate model governance and responsible AI practices.

• Lead the engineering of scalable batch, near-real-time, and streaming data pipelines, integrating enterprise platforms including Salesforce B2C Commerce, SAP/Oracle ERP, Infor WMS, CRM, customer platforms, mobile, and e-commerce applications.

• Establish and enforce Data Engineering and DataOps standards, including CI/CD, automated testing, data quality, observability, data contracts, infrastructure-as-code, incident management, engineering governance, and production reliability.

What you’ll need to succeed   

• 15 or more years of experience directing enterprise data governance, MDM, and data product delivery within large-scale, multi-brand retail, e-commerce, or CPG environments.

• Proven experience leading complex data migration and systems integration, extracting data from monolithic platforms (Salesforce B2C, Oracle, SAP EBS, legacy WMS) into modern cloud warehouses.

• Deep technical ecosystem knowledge of Google BigQuery, Looker, Apache Airflow, dbt, and Airbyte, with familiarity across AI/ML platforms (Vertex AI, Azure OpenAI) and responsible AI practices.

• Strong experience establishing DataOps and engineering practices, including CI/CD, automated testing, observability, data quality, lineage, infrastructure-as-code, security, production reliability, and cloud cost optimization.

• Proven matrix leadership of distributed, multi-location teams (onshore business-facing analysts in Dubai and offshore data engineering squads in Bangalore), collaborating with and challenging senior business stakeholders, brand directors, and executive leadership.

• Education in a quantitative field (Computer Science, Data Science, Statistics, or MIS; Master's or MBA in Business Analytics

What we can offer you   

With us, you will turn your aspirations into reality.  We will help shape your journey through enriching experiences, learning and development opportunities and exposure to different assignments within your role or through internal mobility. Our Group offers diverse career paths for those who are extraordinary, every day.  

We recognise the value that you bring, and we strive to provide a competitive benefits package which includes health care, child education contribution, remote and flexible working policies as well as exclusive employee discounts.  

Using GenAI in Your Application Process

To support a fair and consistent experience for all candidates, we ask that assessments and interviews are completed independently and without assistance from generative AI tools. This ensures we understand your strengths, your thinking, and how you approach real situations.

We Invite All Applicants to Apply

It Takes Diversity Of Thought, Culture, Background, Differing Abilities and Perspectives to truly Inspire, Exhilarate and Delight our customers. At Chalhoub Group, we are committed to inclusion and diversity.

We welcome all applicants to apply and be part of our exciting future. We ensure equal opportunity for all our applicants without regard to gender, age, race, religion, national origin or disability status.