Role overview

This Vice President position leads Aldar’s Group data platform function, responsible for building and operating the data infrastructure that underpins the organisation’s analytics and artificial intelligence capabilities. You will establish accountability across data ingestion, storage, modeling, governance and analytics delivery, ensuring the platform enables self-service consumption across Aldar and its subsidiaries without becoming a constraint on business speed.

Key responsibilities

Define and evolve the Group data platform architecture across ingestion, storage, modeling, processing and serving layers, designed for reuse, scalability, security and cost efficiency.
Own data ingestion from enterprise and subsidiary source systems with reliable, monitored pipelines and establish engineering standards for data pipeline development and platform automation.
Implement platform-level data governance including data principles, cataloguing, lineage, quality monitoring and access controls, while safeguarding master data alignment and reliability.
Enable governed self-service capabilities for Group Digital’s Data & AI teams and business units, providing clear service interfaces and balancing autonomy with control across the organisation.
Ensure production availability, performance and cost discipline of the data platform through monitoring, incident management and capacity planning.
Build and lead the Data Platforms team including data platform engineers and database management specialists, developing data engineering expertise and supporting Emiratization objectives.
Partner with Information Security on data protection controls and establish FinOps discipline across data platform and storage expenditure.

Requirements

Minimum 10–12 years of experience in data platform engineering or data architecture leadership within large, complex organisations.
Minimum 2 years of managerial experience in a related field.
Demonstrated expertise in enterprise data platforms at group or multi-entity scale, including cloud data stacks.
Proven knowledge of data engineering practices, data governance tooling and self-service enablement models.
Engineering leader with architectural depth, credible with both technical teams and executive stakeholders, with a service mindset toward internal consumers.
Bachelor’s degree in a relevant field; Master’s degree is preferable.
Experience building AI-ready data foundations with pipelines and MLOps-adjacent capabilities is advantageous.

What makes this role worth considering

This is a strategic leadership opportunity within a large Group, where you shape the foundational data infrastructure supporting multiple entities and subsidiaries. You will work at the intersection of platform engineering and digital product teams, with genuine influence over how the organisation leverages data and AI for competitive advantage.