Director, Data Management

Director, Data Management Lead

Spark Foundry was built during the most transformative time in the history of advertising and marketing. We deliver everything a traditional media agency has to offer and have grown into one of the world's most successful agencies by helping brands evolve their marketing by leveraging identity, commerce, artificial intelligence, and more to connect with people. Transformation is part of our DNA. Spark Foundry's start-up spirit delivers high-touch approaches and a never-ending desire to challenge the status quo. Combined with Publicis Media's powerhouse soul leveraging connected data assets, advanced AI applications, and investment clout, we "Bring HEAT to Brands." No other agency possesses the expertise that we do to address today's most pressing challenges to drive business transformation through media.

The Director, Data Management Lead is the primary client and agency point of contact for media and pharmaceutical data management. This role defines the end-to-end data management approach, guides backend architecture in Databricks and Snowflake, and ensures that data is accurate, secure, compliant, traceable, and fit for reporting, measurement, optimization, and advanced analytics. Embedded within the Data & Analytics organization, this role blends functional data leadership with hands-on engineering. The lead partners across client, media, analytics, technology, privacy, and offshore teams; brings forward scalable data engineering best practices; and can roll up their sleeves to design, build, troubleshoot, and optimize data flows. Knowledge of pharmaceutical media, HCP data, privacy and compliance requirements, and applied AI is highly valued.

Responsibilities:

• Data Governance Strategy & Data Health
• Media Data Operations & Quality Management
• Cross-Functional Process Leadership
• Data Architecture, Business Rules & Transformation Enablement
• Training, Compliance & Change Management
• Global Stewardship & Continuous Improvement

Qualifications:

• 8–10+ years of experience in data management, data engineering, analytics engineering, media data operations, or data governance within an agency, pharmaceutical, or similarly complex environment.
• Demonstrated leadership of client-facing data programs, with the ability to own the overall approach, facilitate technical and functional decisions, and communicate risks and recommendations.
• Strong hands-on experience with Databricks and/or Snowflake, SQL, Python, data modeling, ETL/ELT, orchestration, testing, monitoring, and production support.
• Deep understanding of media and marketing data across digital and offline channels, including campaign hierarchies, taxonomies, platform extracts, delivery metrics, and reporting dependencies.
• Proven experience establishing data governance, quality controls, reconciliation processes, error tracking, lineage, metadata, and operational SLAs.
• Ability to translate business requirements into scalable technical designs and to review or build data flows when delivery requires hands-on support.
• Strong understanding of privacy, security, data handling, auditability, and compliance principles in regulated environments.
• Excellent leadership, stakeholder management, documentation, problem-solving, and communication skills across technical and non-technical audiences.

Tools & Platforms:

• Core engineering: Databricks, Snowflake, SQL, Python, notebooks, ETL/ELT, orchestration, APIs, file transfers, and version control/CI-CD practices
• Governance and operations: data catalogs, lineage, quality and observability tools, issue/error tracking, access controls, documentation, and collaboration platforms
• Business intelligence and analytics: Power BI and comparable reporting, transformation, and workflow tools
• Media and measurement platforms: Campaign Manager 360, DV360, The Trade Desk, paid social platforms, Amazon DSP, Google Analytics, Adobe Analytics, Prisma, and related agency/client systems

Compensation Range: USD $135,375.00 - USD $194,460.00/Annually.