Head of Data and Technology

Company Description

At Publicis Groupe Africa, we are leaders in integrated marketing communications, offering a wide range of services across digital, creative, media, technology, and production. Our innovative approach and dedication to client success allow us to craft connected brand experiences that achieve tangible results. With over 60 agencies across 36 countries in Africa, there is no better place to pursue a rewarding career in media, communications, marketing, or advertising on the continent.

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.

Job Title:

Head of Data – Publicis Media Africa

Location:

Johannesburg, South Africa (Pan-African remit)

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.

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.

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, CDP's/DMP's, 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.

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.