Manager Data and AI

National Foods Limited is committed to growth by strengthening its brands, financial foundation, global footprint, and dedication to sustainability. We are seeking a dynamic leader to head the Data & AI function within our Digital, Data & Technology (DDT) division. This role is pivotal in driving measurable value through trusted data, advanced analytics, and AI—including Generative AI—to support strategic decision-making and operational excellence. The successful candidate will oversee the development and governance of analytics and AI platforms, semantic models, and data/AI products, ensuring alignment with our federated organizational structure, security protocols, compliance standards, and business goals.

Key Responsibilities

- Collaborate with the Head of ERP & Application to define and execute the enterprise-wide Data & AI strategy, ensuring it aligns with overall business priorities.
- Own and maintain the Data & AI roadmap, including use-case prioritization, platform development, governance, value tracking, and delivery cadence across a federated model.
- Partner with business leaders to identify, assess, and implement high-impact analytics, AI/ML, and Generative AI use-cases, translating requirements into scalable data and AI products.
- Lead the design of analytics and AI solutions, including data pipelines, semantic layers, model serving patterns, and integration with business workflows.
- Manage the operational development of semantic layers and curated datasets, ensuring data validation, structure, and business readiness with clear KPI definitions.
- Work closely with data engineering teams to ensure timely data ingestion, quality assurance, observability, and pipeline reliability.
- Develop and govern BI products such as dashboards, reports, and self-service datasets across departments including Sales, Finance, Supply Chain, Marketing, Export, HR, and Manufacturing, while driving adoption and maintaining consistent user experience standards.
- Build, deploy, and operationalize machine learning models (e.g., forecasting, segmentation, optimization, risk assessment) and establish MLOps practices including CI/CD, model registry, monitoring, drift detection, quality checks, and version control.
- Lead AI experimentation and delivery initiatives such as copilots, retrieval-augmented generation (RAG), summarization, and knowledge assistants, with a strong emphasis on security, privacy, and quality evaluation.
- Define and enforce Responsible AI and AI governance controls, collaborating with Cybersecurity, Legal, and Compliance teams to manage model risk, approvals, documentation, explainability, and auditability.
- Ensure adherence to data governance policies, quality standards, naming conventions, metadata and lineage practices, and KPI frameworks.
- Establish standardized processes for intake and discovery, proof-of-concept to production criteria, product documentation, and post-deployment value measurement.
- Provide hands-on coaching and guidance on tools and best practices including Power BI, SQL, Python, DAX, machine learning frameworks, and prompt engineering fundamentals to enhance team capability and delivery quality.
- Drive adoption through training materials, workshops, enablement sessions, and ongoing support for analytics and AI queries.
- Manage relationships with vendors and implementation partners for analytics/AI tools, cloud services, model platforms, and platform upgrades, including license and subscription administration.
- Ensure compliance with cybersecurity, privacy, and audit requirements related to data access, reporting layers, models, and AI applications.
- Monitor product adoption and business impact by tracking usage, value realization, SLA adherence, and quality KPIs, and prepare performance reports for leadership.

Required Qualifications

- Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Data Science, Statistics, Mathematics, Engineering, or a related field; Master’s degree preferred.
- Minimum of 5 years’ experience in data, analytics, BI, and/or AI/ML roles with proven leadership in delivering end-to-end data and AI products.
- Hands-on experience with cloud data and AI platforms such as Azure, AWS, or Google Cloud, and familiarity with modern data warehousing and lakehouse architectures.
- Proficiency in BI ecosystems including Power BI, Tableau, or Qlik.
- Practical experience in building and operationalizing machine learning solutions, including MLOps practices like monitoring, drift detection, CI/CD pipelines, and model risk controls.
- Exposure to Generative AI use-cases such as copilots, RAG, and summarization, with a solid understanding of Responsible AI principles, privacy, and security considerations.

Preferred Qualifications and Benefits

- Relevant certifications in analytics, cloud, or AI such as Azure Data Scientist/AI Engineer, AWS ML Specialty, Google Professional ML Engineer, or Power BI certifications are highly desirable.
- Opportunity to work at the Corporate Office in Karachi within a forward-thinking, inclusive environment that values equal employment opportunity regardless of age, color, origin, disability, race, religion, gender, marital status, or any other protected characteristic.

National Foods Limited fosters a culture of innovation and excellence, offering a platform to contribute to impactful data and AI initiatives that drive business success and sustainability.