Head of Data

1 week ago

Johannesburg, Gauteng, South Africa Publicis Groupe Holdings B.V Full time R2 000 000 - R2 500 000 per year
Overview

Role Purpose

The Head of Data will serve as the regional champion for Publicis Groupe's global data, identity, and governance products - including the Connected ID framework, and Groupe-wide AI and data platforms.

This is a hands-on, entrepreneurial individual-contributor role focused on enriching, expanding, and operationalizing global assets within the African context. The role bridges global product teams and local market execution - ensuring African data partnerships, regulatory realities, and audience behaviors are fully reflected in Groupe systems and activation strategies.

Responsibilities

Key Responsibilities
  1. Regional Data Champion & Integration
  • Act as the custodian and evangelist for Groupe global data products, ensuring their effective use across South Africa and the continent.
  • Translate global frameworks into local activation roadmaps for planners, strategists, and buyers.
  • Ensure interoperability between Epsilon/Connected ID and local client, DSP, and publisher ecosystems.
  • Serve as the Africa liaison to global data and AI leadership, providing feedback and market intelligence.
  1. Data Enrichment & Partnership Expansion
  • Identify, evaluate, and integrate local and regional data partners (telcos, retailers, fintechs, publishers, etc.) to enrich the global identity graph.
  • Apply deterministic and probabilistic models to build layered audience intelligence suitable for activation.
  • Oversee compliance, data quality, and contractual governance in all partner integrations.
  • Maintain metadata, lineage, and cataloging for new data sources to ensure transparency and auditability.
  1. Audience Profiling, Segmentation & Activation
  • Develop audience taxonomies, personas, and segment definitions aligned to global ID and taxonomy standards.
  • Build reusable data products and segment templates for planners and buyers to activate across digital and offline channels.
  • Collaborate with Ad Operations and digital teams to ensure precision in tagging, matching, and attribution.
  • Measure segment performance, match rates, and activation ROI, using insights to refine strategy.
  1. Data Governance, Stewardship & Risk
  • Champion data ethics, transparency, and fairness in all modeling and activation.
  • Implement local stewardship frameworks, defining accountability for data domains and ensuring adherence to Groupe policies.
  • Lead incident response and escalation for any local data-related risk or breach, coordinating with legal, IT security, and global governance teams.
  • Ensure full compliance with POPIA, GDPR, and Groupe data-handling standards.
  1. Change Management & Adoption
  • Build structured adoption roadmaps and training programs to embed data-driven ways of working across media teams.
  • Track and report usage KPIs; run feedback loops to improve adoption and usability.
  • Create case studies demonstrating ROI and efficiency gains from data-driven activation.
  • Act as the internal educator and advocate for data literacy among planners, buyers, and clients.
  1. Measurement, Attribution & Commercial Impact
  • Develop frameworks for attribution, incrementality, and test-and-learn experiments to quantify the impact of data-driven targeting.
  • Partner with client teams to prove commercial value, helping drive client retention and upsell.
  • Contribute to pitch narratives and client workshops, translating technical models into simple, outcome-based language.
  1. Cross-Functional Integration & Engineering Liaison
  • Partner with engineering, IT, and AdTech teams to ensure API integrations, data pipelines, and schema alignments are optimized for local needs.
  • Participate in architectural decisions that affect scalability, latency, and data accuracy across activation environments.
  • Document and monitor data flow, lineage, and SLAs to maintain reliability and performance.
  1. Innovation, Research & Future Readiness
  • Stay current on emerging identity, privacy, and AI technologies - from clean rooms and differential privacy to zero-party and contextual data models.
  • Pilot new innovations with global teams and local partners; document and share learnings to strengthen Publicis Africa's leadership position.
  • Design for scalability and future team expansion, mentoring analysts or contractors when growth allows.
Qualifications

Skills & Experience
  • 8-12 years' experience in data strategy, audience planning, or analytics, ideally within a media, adtech, or consulting environment.
  • Strong grasp of identity resolution, CDPs/DMPs, segmentation logic, and programmatic activation workflows.
  • Proven experience operationalizing global data products locally - including Epsilon, Connected ID, or similar frameworks.
  • Deep understanding of African data ecosystems, privacy laws, and data-exchange realities.
  • Demonstrated ability to enrich datasets, design segments, and activate them end-to-end.
  • Excellent communicator able to simplify technical concepts for business audiences and clients.
  • High entrepreneurial drive; thrives in ambiguous, build-from-scratch environments.
  • Familiarity with SQL, BI tools (Power BI, Looker Studio), or Python for prototyping and validation is advantageous.
Additional information

Success Metrics
  • Growth in data-driven planning and buying adoption.
  • Number and quality of local data partnerships and integrations.
  • Demonstrated ROI uplift, efficiency gains, and precision improvement from data activation.
  • Adoption and usage of Epsilon/Connected ID tools among teams and clients.
  • Training reach, literacy scores, and case study outputs.
  • Positive data compliance audits and zero incident breaches.
  • Tangible contribution to client growth, retention, and new-business wins.
Mindset & Culture Fit
  • Operates like a founder-builder, comfortable with autonomy and experimentation.
  • Balances strategic vision with practical delivery.
  • Naturally collaborative; navigates global-local dynamics with influence and diplomacy.
  • Passionate about data innovation, responsible use, and client value creation.

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