Director, Data Products

About Us

Since 1906, New Balance has empowered people through sport and craftsmanship to create positive change in communities around the world. We innovate fearlessly, guided by our core values and driven by the belief that conventions were meant to be challenged. We foster a culture in which every associate feels welcomed and respected, where leaders and creatives are inspired to shape the world of tomorrow by taking bold action today.

About the Role

The Director, Data Products is responsible for building and leading New Balance’s enterprise data product capabilities – ensuring that every digital product is underpinned by accurate, well-governed, and business-ready data. Reporting to the VP, Data & AI, this leader owns the strategy, team, and operating model that delivers data as a managed product with clear ownership, measurable quality, and defined consumers.

The Director will lead a team of Data Product Owners, aligned to New Balance’s key data domains, and Data Leads aligned to our Digital Product teams. They will set a vision for the data product, set OKRs, develop roadmaps, and ensure stakeholder alignment for each enterprise data domain. The Data Leads will be embedded with digital product teams where they partner directly with the Digital Product Managers to ensure product-level data accuracy, quality, and business readiness.

Responsibilities

• Define and drive the data products strategy and operating model, establishing the vision, principles, and framework for managing data as a product across New Balance.
• Define the portfolio of enterprise data products, ensuring each has clear ownership, quality standards, service level expectations, and engaged consumers and stakeholders.
• Partner with consumers, digital product teams, and engineering to continuously evolve and embed the operating model.
• Develop and maintain a clear data product vision and corresponding OKRs that align desired outcomes across stakeholder groups.
• Partner with business owners and Digital Product Managers to understand priorities and uncover opportunities to build capabilities that increase adoption and deliver value.
• Build, prioritize, communicate, and champion data product roadmaps across Business Transformation, Engineering, and business stakeholder groups.
• Manage the team of Data Leads supporting each Digital Product to embed data quality standards based on the framework established by the Enterprise Data Governance team.
• Build and embed the operating model for Data Leads to work with Digital Product Teams, Engineering, Data Product teams, Enterprise Data Governance, and Business Transformation programs.
• Champion data standards in agile quarterly planning, sprint planning, and retrospectives.
• Partner with Enterprise Data Governance, Platform, and Architecture teams to operationalize monitoring, alerting, and remediation workflows for data quality.
• Champion the use of AI to ensure data quality standards are met for Data & Digital Products.
• Measure and communicate data quality improvements to business stakeholders and executives to build trust in data.

Requirements

• Bachelor’s degree in Business, Information Systems, Computer Science, Data/Analytics, Engineering, or a related field required; Master’s degree (MBA, MS) preferred.
• Strategic leadership: Demonstrated ability to translate enterprise strategy into an executable roadmap, define success measures, and drive sustained outcomes in a complex, cross-functional environment.
• Retail and/or e-commerce domain fluency: Experience delivering data capabilities that support consumer journeys and merchandising/commercial processes (e.g., product, customer, inventory, pricing, promotions, fulfillment) and partnering with digital product teams.
• AI enablement mindset: Working knowledge of AI/ML and GenAI concepts, including what is required to scale AI responsibly (data readiness, evaluation/measurement, risk controls, human-in-the-loop, monitoring).
• Data integrity and governance capability: Experience partnering with governance, architecture, and engineering teams on data quality management, master/reference data concepts, metadata/catalog, lineage, privacy, and controls.
• Strong decision-making and execution: Ability to synthesize complex and sometimes contradictory information, make timely recommendations, and drive execution through others.
• Exceptional communication and influence: Executive-ready storytelling and facilitation skills; able to run business and technical briefings, align diverse stakeholders, and create a transparent flow of information.
• Collaboration and inclusion: Track record of building partnerships across organizational boundaries, creating an environment where diverse perspectives are sought and valued.
• Talent and capability development: People leadership experience and/or demonstrated ability to lead through influence—coaching teams, enabling adoption, and building a culture of continuous learning and data literacy.

Preferred Skills

• Familiarity with modern data platforms (cloud data warehouse/lakehouse), data modeling, data integration patterns, BI/semantic layers, experimentation/measurement, and governance tooling (catalog/lineage).
• Comfort working with Agile/iterative delivery approaches.

Pay

Annual pay range: $198,900 - $258,300 - $317,750 (actual base pay varying based upon, but not limited to, relevant experience, time in role, internal equity, and geographic location).

Benefits

• Comprehensive medical, dental, vision, and life insurance options.
• 401K retirement plan.
• Online learning and development courses, tuition reimbursement, and $100 monthly student loan support.
• Mentorship programs.
• $1,000 yearly lifestyle reimbursement.
• 4 weeks of vacation, 12 holidays, and generous parental leave.

Schedule

• Hybrid work model: In-office three days per week (Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday).
• “Work from Anywhere” (WFA) for four weeks per calendar year.