Head of Analytics

Job purpose

This leadership role will create and run Americana’s Advanced Analytics Center of Excellence (CoE). The position is responsible for championing advanced analytics, artificial intelligence, machine learning, and evidence-based decision-making across the business.

The role will also shape and scale analytics capabilities that turn customer, operational, commercial, financial, and workforce data into business value. Working closely with senior leaders, the Head of Advanced Analytics will deliver insights, predictive models, and AI-enabled solutions that strengthen performance, improve efficiency, enhance the customer experience, and support strategic decisions.

Key responsibilities

Advanced analytics leadership

• Set up and lead the Advanced Analytics CoE, including its vision, strategy, governance, roadmap, and operating structure.
• Recruit, guide, and grow a strong team of Data Scientists, Analysts, Data Engineers, and Visualization Specialists.
• Accelerate organization-wide use of advanced analytics, AI, machine learning, and insight-led decision-making.
• Serve as the internal expert for advanced analytics, forecasting, optimization, and AI.

Analytics and AI solutions

• Design and implement advanced analytics, forecasting, optimization, and AI use cases that support growth, productivity, and profitability.
• Lead analytical work across Customer & Growth, Marketing ROI, Personalization, Sales Forecasting, Pricing & Menu Optimization, Promotions Effectiveness, Workforce Planning, Logistics Optimization, and Store Operations.
• Produce predictive and prescriptive insights that improve acquisition, retention, revenue, margin, operational outcomes, and workforce efficiency.
• Make sure analytics outputs are practical, commercially relevant, and tied to business priorities.

Enterprise data and analytics foundations

• Build scalable, reliable data foundations that support advanced analytics and AI initiatives.
• Oversee the integration of customer, operational, commercial, financial, digital, delivery, and workforce data across enterprise platforms.
• Define and manage enterprise KPIs, business metrics, data standards, and data quality controls.
• Maintain consistency and integrity across source systems, analytical models, and reporting layers.
• Contribute to an enterprise analytics architecture that enables self-service analytics and scalable decision intelligence.

Business partnership and decision intelligence

• Work with senior stakeholders to identify, prioritize, and deliver high-value analytics and AI opportunities.
• Own analytics initiatives from problem framing through rollout, adoption, and value tracking.
• Create experimentation and testing approaches, including A/B testing, to support evidence-based decisions.
• Promote use of analytics products, insights, dashboards, and decision-support tools across the business.
• Track and communicate the business impact delivered by analytics and AI programs.

Governance and best practices

• Set standards and best practices for analytics development, machine learning deployment, experimentation, model governance, and documentation.
• Ensure work follows data privacy, security, governance, and responsible AI principles.
• Collaborate with Technology, Data Engineering, and IT teams to build durable, scalable, and secure analytics capabilities.

Team leadership and capability building

• Hire, coach, mentor, and develop top-performing analytics professionals.
• Develop future-ready skills in analytics, forecasting, data science, machine learning, and artificial intelligence.
• Encourage innovation, ownership, collaboration, and ongoing improvement.
• Support knowledge sharing and analytics capability growth across the organization.

Education and experience

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Data Science, Engineering, Mathematics, Statistics, Economics, Analytics, or another quantitative field.
• Master’s degree in Data Science, Analytics, Artificial Intelligence, Statistics, Engineering, Economics, or Business Administration is preferred.
• At least 10 years of progressive experience in Analytics, Data Science, Business Intelligence, Artificial Intelligence, or a related discipline.
• Proven track record of leading advanced analytics teams and delivering enterprise-wide analytics programs.
• Experience in QSR, F&B, Retail, Consumer Goods, E-commerce, Hospitality, or multi-site operations is preferred.
• Clear success in turning analytics into measurable commercial and operational results.

Technical skills

• Deep knowledge of statistics, predictive analytics, machine learning, forecasting, optimization, and data modeling.
• Practical experience with Python, SQL, and modern analytics platforms.
• Ability to use data visualization and BI tools such as Power BI, Tableau, or similar tools.
• Experience with Customer Data Platforms (CDPs), cloud data environments, and enterprise data ecosystems.
• Strong understanding of customer analytics methods such as segmentation, cohort analysis, customer lifetime value (LTV), churn prediction, and retention modeling.
• Exposure to marketing analytics, pricing analytics, experimentation, A/B testing, and demand forecasting.
• Understanding of AI, machine learning lifecycle management, and model deployment practices.

Skills and competencies

• Commercially minded with the ability to translate analytics into tangible business value.
• Strategic thinker who can balance long-term direction with execution.
• Strong stakeholder management and influencing skills at all levels.
• Excellent problem-solving, analytical reasoning, and decision-making ability.
• Able to explain complex analytics clearly to non-technical audiences.
• Strong leadership, coaching, and talent development skills.
• Effective in project, portfolio, and prioritization management.
• Collaborative and comfortable working across functions and markets.
• Curious, innovative, and committed to continuous improvement.

Additional information

This is a full-time, onsite leadership position based in Sharjah Emirate, United Arab Emirates.