Aurora BG/BU engagement & Activation Manager
Work Level: 2C
Location: Full time, 100VE
PURPOSE OF THE ROLE
This is a leadership role responsible for landing enterprise-wide data democratization and performance management through the build & deployment of a next generation AI powered analytics platform (Uni.IQ) as part of project Aurora. This program role will streamline and radically simplify the current performance management landscape, reducing tool fatigue & enhancing the quality of performance management conversations.
This role defines how data foundation will deliver and support the new performance cycle, most efficiently and effectively, from a data, technology, tooling and cultural perspective. This will include defining the key personas in the new model, active engagement with BG/BUs to ensure the design is fit for purpose for evolving business needs, mapping out the financial and non-financial metrics defined as part of Aurora program with local data landscapes, and optimize the use of existing data, tech, and AI capabilities to support business outcomes.
This role will leverage AI and advanced analytics to elevate the intelligence of the analytical product suite, integrating cognitive insights and ontologies to enable predictive and prescriptive decision-making. This program role will work in close partnership with CDIOs, BG/BU engagement leads in target geographies, domain leads, Data Foundation anchors & wider partner ecosystem to simplify a multitude of different performance capabilities into a single unified platform for efficiency and ease of use.
The ultimate purpose of this role is to enhance the quality of performance management decisions to drive growth, reduce manual efforts and work towards an AI powered leaner, faster decision ecosystem. This role will play a pivotal role in engaging senior stakeholders across BG Personas, ULE personas and BU personas, driving change and landing a capability fit for purpose for today and tomorrow.
WHAT WILL YOUR MAIN RESPONSIBILITIES BE
• Land the 'Enterprise Performance Management(EPM)' program -Aurora, on time-In full, crafting how we run Unilever in numbers, what decisions should be made globally vs locally and what KPIs are needed to support the journey.
• Significantly streamline and radically simplify the current performance management landscape, reducing tool fatigue & enhancing the quality of performance management conversations.
• Actively engage CDIOs, BG/BU leads to take them along the journey, prioritize and drive change/embedding of Uni.IQ.
• Actively engage domains to enable radical simplification of products that operate in the same/similar space of Uni.IQ, thereby unlocking decommission savings in line with business case.
• Simplify & streamline the AI engagements with product domains, CDIOs, foundations & beyond.
• Drive BG engagements during test/launch phases, actively engaging with Aurora design council to implement 'must have' features, while pushing back on 'nice to have' customizations.
• Drive BU data discovery, scoping and planning for taking Aurora Uni.IQ deeper into geographies.
• Assess what needs to change within the analytical product and data landscape to achieve the AI vision, establish the timeline for delivering the end-state and transition states, define the investment required, and support in identifying the AI/ML agentic capabilities necessary to bring the vision to life and simplify the ecosystem.
• Shift the focus from manual data interpretation—such as reading reports—to AI-powered democratization of data, enhancing reusability and operational efficiency, empowering teams with actionable intelligence.
• Lay the foundation for autonomous AI-driven insights by enabling key capabilities, including natural language chat for instant data queries, seamless data export, interactive data playground for Business Analytics Teams, to support tailored business insights
• Cultivate strategic collaborations with BG/BU leaders, academia, and research institutions, leveraging internal and external expertise to drive AI advancements.
• Enable the creation of connected Data Frameworks to enable BGs to drive insight driven cross functional decisions at pace: There is a need to shift from functional data to cross functional connected data to drive impactful decisions and simplification.
• Lower the TCO of performance management capabilities through radical simplification of the current landscape that include multiple static reports, PBI reports, webapps, products, local applications and much more.
• Drive active collaboration across Data, AI strategies and domain priorities to identify focus areas for now & beyond, staying 3 steps ahead of the competition. Enable Platform cost optimization leveraging the continuous improvement processes.
• Accelerate speed to market meeting the business requirements at the most optimal cost. Play a pivotal role in landing Aurora Uni.IQ MVP for success, lock in learnings and enable build to scale.
• Communicate technical progress, challenges and solutions to stakeholders and project owners. Provide regular updates on project status, milestones and resource needs. Identify and mitigate risks.
EXPERIENCES & QUALIFICATIONS
The ideal candidate will be a seasoned data and analytics professional with deep knowledge of efficient technical delivery of data, data science, products and solutions with a consistent, scalable infrastructure, and the right people and processes in place, enabling faster turnaround for the company's analytics needs. They will have hands on practice of delivering data, data science models and products for BG/BU stakeholders, landing value delivery in P&L They will have proven commercial judgment and a 'nose for the money'. Most importantly, the ideal candidate will enjoy rolling their sleeves up to drive towards outcomes, with time tested skills in senior stakeholder management.
Necessary Experience & Qualifications
• Master's degree in finance, Maths, Statistics, Data Science, IT, Analytics or other management discipline
• Overall 10+ years of experience in leading technical delivery of data lakes / foundation and analytics products/solutions
• Proven product/platform management experience delivering Data / Analytics Solutions for business needs of today & tomorrow, within the agreed cost envelope.
• Business Acumen of Finance, Marketing, Customer Development functions would be an added benefit
• Clear understanding of the ways of working of BG/BUs.
• Experience and deep understanding of Agile/DevOps/ML development lifecycle from conception to delivery in Data & Analytics area
• Experience in areas like GPT and AI would be crucial to drive big bets programs
• Experience in Agile Methodology and supporting tools (JIRA, etc), agile prioritisation
• Familiarity with working through a factory model of technical delivery
• Solid know-how of implementing and monitoring performance of efficiency of processes
• Ability to communicate complex technical, analytic and data science solutions in a precise, and actionable manner to senior management
• Strong technical expertise to dissect data/analytics solutions and "know what good looks like". Deep expertise on priority data sets, data sources, mapping complexities, right levels of granularity for various personas and evolving data landscape.
• Ability to manage multiple requests and priorities simultaneously in a highly dynamic and competitive
• Ability to work as a part of a cross-functional team, managing virtual and cross-cultural teams
SKILLS
• Business engagement
• Senior Stakeholder Management
• Data Lake / Analytical Products & Solutions / GPT & AI
• Analytical Program/Project design and delivery
• XOps & Agile Methodologies
• Cross functional Data Expertise & Visualisation
• Business strategy
• Problem solving
• People Management and Development