Associate Director, Business Intelligence

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Reporting to the Senior Director of Institutional Research, the Associate Director of Business Intelligence (BI) functions as a key technical and strategic leader, contributing to the planning, execution, and daily operations of the BI team. The Associate Director is responsible for leading BI and data projects from inception to completion, including the development and oversight of data modeling and engineering solutions. The Associate Director is expected to demonstrate rapid learning and technical agility, applying emerging technologies and complex data analysis, data science and predictive modeling to achieve meaningful business outcomes. Active participation in AI initiatives is also a core responsibility.

ESSENTIAL JOB DUTIES

• Lead the planning and execution of Business Intelligence (BI) projects, providing technical direction, managing team performance, and ensuring timely deliverables in collaboration with the Project Management Office (PMO).
• Recommend and implement innovative technologies, methods, and industry-leading data warehousing tools and best practices to advance the BI program and achieve strategic business outcomes.
• Oversee all technical aspects of the Snowflake data warehousing environment, including infrastructure, standards (table naming, schema, user security), performance troubleshooting, and documentation.
• Design and maintain a robust data warehousing system for structured and unstructured data, developing queries, tables, views, and data applications to support the College's Data Strategy roadmap and strategic plan.
• Design and implement robust data models that reduce redundancy, streamline data movement, and ensure adherence to data security and privacy standards across institutional subject areas (e.g., Enrollment Management, Academic Affairs, Finance, HR and Enterprise integration domain).
• Implement end-to-end data pipelines (ETL) utilizing APIs, scripts, web services, files, and RaaS.
• Administer and evolve data pipeline and integration processes, monitoring data usage and performance in Snowflake.
• Enforce data quality, knowledge retention, and process consistency through the curation and expansion of the institutional data dictionary and business glossary.
• Apply complex data analysis, data science, and modeling techniques to develop advanced reports and analytical solutions, including statistical analysis, predictive modeling, and data mining to identify trends and patterns in business and academic performance.
• Identify business-relevant performance metrics and KPIs with area leaders (e.g., Enrollment Management, Finance, Academic Affairs, HR), and apply innovative visualization and advanced analytics to develop interactive dashboards that create new business value.
• Drive the College’s Artificial Intelligence (AI) initiatives by researching and utilizing cutting-edge technologies, implementing AI and Machine Learning models to support data initiatives, and presenting on AI usage to the broader College community.
• Communicate effectively with internal teams and external business users through written, verbal, and visual storytelling, and develop detailed technical specifications, data mapping, and data flow documentation for major analytics projects.
• Handle complex data issues with minimal supervision, using sound judgment to escalate critical issues to management.
• Commit to professional development by fostering team learning, cross-training, and knowledge building.
• Map data from new sources to the central data model to support the creation of new or extension of existing reports/dashboards and perform data validation. Provide requirements and execute data extraction, transformation, and load procedures. 
• Use complex data analysis and query, data science and data modeling techniques to develop reports and data analytics solutions. This includes engineering solutions in the form of business dashboards, reports and data visualizations integrating with internal and external public data sources like College Board or IPEDS. Provide statistical analysis of data, predict trends on business and academic performance, use data mining to extract information from data sets and identify correlations and patterns.

• Handle complex data issues with minimal supervision, while escalating critical issues to management using sound judgment. Enforce data quality, knowledge retention, and process consistency through the curation and expansion of the institutional data dictionary/catalog.
• Communicate effectively with internal teams and external business users through written, verbal and visual storytelling. Develop detailed technical specifications, data mapping and data flow documentations for major data analytics projects.
• Perform other duties as assigned.
  

QUALIFICATIONS – Qualifications are deemed required or preferred and represent what is needed to effectively perform job. 

• Bachelor’s Degree in Computer Science, Management Information Systems, Business, or a similar field, or equivalent combination of education and experience required.
• 10 years’ combined experience as data modeler, business intelligence analyst or advanced report writer required.
• 6 years’ experience in database systems management. Hands-on experience in data model/data warehouse design. Solid understanding of dimension/fact table structure and data aggregation required.
• 5 years of experience in ETL tools and procedures required.
• Programming language(s) for ETL and data pipelining required.
• 3 years of Tableau or other dashboard development experience required.
• Higher Education experience preferred.
• Experience working with Ellucian Banner, Slate, Canvas or Workday preferred.
• Experience with Snowflake administration preferred.
• Experience in Python programming for API extraction preferred.
• Alteryx or Snaplogic ETL experience preferred.

KNOWLEDGE, SKILLS, AND ABILITIES – May be representative, but not all-inclusive, of those knowledge, skills, and abilities commonly associated with the job.  

• Demonstrated organization, creativity, and agile problem-solving approach to resolve problems of diverse scope and complexity within deadlines. 
• Excellent organizational, creativity, and problem-solving skills. 
• Ability to multi-task and manage time effectively. 
• Active participation in organization level activities and events related to learning, training, special projects etc.
• Experience ingesting, organizing, and representing data within a data model in formats that are easy to use, understand and meet business objectives.  
• Expertise in defining and managing relational data, dimensional data, unstructured data, and master data to effectively translate and communicate data to both technical and non-technical audiences. 
• Can develop end-to-end solutions from constructing the data set to visualizing information in a tool like Tableau or Argos reports and dashboards. 
• Demonstrates best practices to use modern layouts, typography and interaction design. 
• Excellent knowledge on data modeling, data extraction and data transformation using SQL, PostgreSql, Oracle or ETL tools. 
• Excellent written and oral communication skills and ability to deliver messages and ideas effectively for different audiences. 
• Experienced with data mapping, business process analysis, criteria and data flow documentation in written or visual format. 
• Excellent presentation and storyboarding skills.
• Experience working with data models or data warehouses. 
• Capable of working on problems of diverse scope and complexity, is resourceful in developing solutions encompassing challenges to deliver solutions before the deadlines.
• Following standard practices and procedures in analyzing situations or data to obtain trustworthy results.
• Is a fast learner and able to apply new and emerging technologies to the existing BI product portfolio to achieve meaningful business outcomes through applying complex data analysis, data science and the data modeling techniques, from descriptive and diagnostic analytics to more advanced predictive modeling. 
• Ability to keep updated on the latest technologies with technology training and professional development.
• Self-motivated, responsible and detail oriented. 
• Ability to work independently and with a team.
• Strong SQL query, PL/SQL and Oracle relational databases skills
• Strong Excel skill and efficient use of visual tools
• Ability to optimize performance of data models
• Experience working with data stewards and data governance
• Knowledge of SDLC and project management best practices
• Familiarity with AWS Redshift or Snowflake preferred
• Python or other scripting or data integration technologies preferred

PHYSICAL ABILITIES – Activities commonly associated with the performance of the functions of this job. The physical demands described below are representative of those that must be met by an employee to successfully perform the essential functions of this job. Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform essential functions.

• Requires ability to lift and move objects that are light
• Requires ability to move materials occasionally
  

WORK ENVIRONMENT – Environmental or atmospheric conditions commonly associated with the performance of the functions of this job.

• Usual Office Conditions

Disclaimer: This job description in no way states or implies that these are the only duties to be performed by the employee occupying this position.  Employees may be required to follow other job-related instructions and to perform other job-related duties as requested, subject to all applicable state and federal laws.  Certain job duties described herein may be subject to possible modification in accordance with applicable state and federal laws.

IN-OFFICE EXPECTATIONS

This position is primarily a hybrid role with expected days in the office each week.

The hybrid arrangement will be made upon hire. Candidates must reside within a reasonable commuting distance of the Boston campus to ensure operational effectiveness. This arrangement must be approved as outlined in the Remote Work Policy.

Compensation: $116,950.00 - $146,250.00 annually, commensurate with experience. Grade of Position: 23-13E Employment Category: Regular

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Scheduled Weekly Hours: 36.25 Division of Physical & Digital Infrastructure

In addition to a competitive salary, Emerson College is committed to the health and well-being of our employees and family members. We offer a generous benefits package to regular staff scheduled to work 20+ hours per week.

Emerson Employment Categories influence work schedules, benefits eligibility, and time off policies. Benefits include outstanding health plans with limited out-of-pocket expenses, dental plans, generous time-off programs, and a 403(b) retirement benefit with a 9% employer contribution once eligible. Additional benefits, such as life and disability coverage and commuter offerings, are available.

Please refer to our benefits website for a full list of benefits and eligibility requirements.