Technical Director-Data Enablement

We’re a diversified financial services leader with more than $1.5 trillion in assets under management, administration and advisement as of year-end 2024. Our team of 22,000 people across 19 countries, serves more than 3.5 million individual, small business and institutional clients. We are a longstanding leader in financial planning and advice, a global asset manager and an insurer. Our unwavering focus on our clients and strong financial foundation connects each of our unique businesses – Ameriprise Financial, Columbia Threadneedle Investments and RiverSource Insurance and Annuities. Here, we foster meaningful careers, invest in the future, and make a difference for clients, institutions and communities around the world.

Job Description

Ameriprise Financial is recruiting for a Data Enablement Lead to join the team! The Data Enablement Lead position is critical in shifting the organization from a platform-centric to a domain-oriented approach for delivering data products. It ensures that technology investments in Snowflake, AWS, and lakehouse architectures result in tangible business value, while building trust and promoting reuse of mission-critical data for investment processes, performance reporting, risk oversight, and client transparency. The role also lays the groundwork for scalable advanced analytics, AI, and regulator-ready data consumption.

Key Responsibilities

• Lead Enterprise Data Enablement Strategy

• Define and execute the enterprise vision for data enablement by establishing standards and scalable patterns for data products, including ownership models, data contracts, metadata, quality metrics, SLAs, lifecycle management, and stewardship.

• Drive a domain aligned approach across ABOR, IBOR, Performance & Attribution, Holdings, Transactions, Benchmarks, and Reference Data to ensure data is trusted, reusable, and decision ready across the firm.

• Enable Scalable Data Products on Modern Platforms

• Accelerate business value by enabling consistent delivery of data products on AWS  and Snowflake based lakehouse architectures.

• Partner closely with data platform engineering and architecture teams to ensure robust enablement for ingestion, transformation, analytics, and consumption, while promoting reusable patterns that support analytics, AI/ML, regulatory, and client facing use cases.

• Drive Adoption, Trust, and Self Service by Design

• Champion enterprise adoption of data through self service, discoverability, and usability enabled by data intelligence and governance platforms.

• Ensure data products are governed by design—balancing regulatory, risk, and compliance requirements with agility—so consumers can confidently discover, understand, and use data at scale.

• Shape the Enterprise Data Operating Model

• Define and institutionalize effective engagement and collaboration models across data domains, product owners, platform teams, architecture, and consumers.

• Link data enablement initiatives directly to strategic business outcomes, including faster decision making, operational efficiency, strengthened risk management, and enhanced client and distribution experiences.

• Provide Strategic Leadership to Data Enablement Teams

• Lead, develop, and mentor a high performing team of senior data enablement and data product leaders.

• Build organizational capability through effective hiring, coaching, and rigorous performance and talent management, while fostering a culture of accountability, reuse, and enterprise data stewardship.

• Enable Reliable Delivery and Data Operations Excellence

• Ensure data enablement solutions meet business expectations for quality, availability, scalability, and timeliness.

• Drive operational excellence through disciplined planning and delivery practices, release management, service level management, monitoring, issue resolution, and change management for business critical data assets.

• Establish and Evolve Enterprise Data Standards and Practices

• Champion adherence to enterprise data standards, architectural principles, SDLC practices, and quality frameworks.

• Continuously evolve data enablement capabilities by defining and implementing new methodologies, patterns, and standards that scale across domains, platforms, and use cases.

• Own Data Enablement Roadmaps, Investment, and Value Realization

• Develop and execute multi year data enablement roadmaps aligned to business strategy, customer needs, and market trends.

• Lead budget and investment planning for data products, platforms, and enablement initiatives, providing clear cost, feasibility, and value analytics to support prioritization, funding decisions, and measurable outcomes.

• Enable Effective Vendor and Partner Ecosystems

• Define resource strategies that balance internal teams and vendor partners to support data enablement goals.

• Collaborate with enterprise procurement to ensure effective sourcing models, well defined SLAs, and strong partner performance across on shore and off shore teams, ensuring consistent quality, scalability, and cost effectiveness.

Required Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in computer science, Engineering, MIS, or a related field, or equivalent practical experience

• 10+ years of progressive experience in technology and/or software development

• 5–7+ years of leadership experience managing highly technical teams and complex initiatives

• 2–3+ years of proven success in strategy planning and execution

• 3–5+ years of experience planning and managing departmental and/or project budgets

• 3–5+ years in a Data Enablement or Data Product leadership role within Asset Management or Financial Services

• 3–5+ years of hands on experience with cloud native data technologies, including AWS based data pipelines and analytics platforms such as Snowflake

Preferred Qualifications

• Data Product & Asset Management Expertise

• 15+ years of experience in data, analytics, or data product leadership, with deep expertise in asset management data domains including ABOR, IBOR, Performance & Attribution, Investments, Holdings, Transactions, and Benchmarks. Strong understanding of data flows and consumers across front, middle, and back office functions.

• Platform and Architecture Fluency

• Proven experience designing and enabling enterprise scale data ecosystems on AWS and Snowflake, with a strong understanding of lakehouse architectures, reusable data patterns, and data intelligence and governance platforms.

• Leadership and Ways of Working

• Demonstrated ability to translate complex business, investment, and operational requirements into well defined, consumable data products.

• Exceptional communication skills and credibility across engineering, product, investment, and operations teams, with a strong product oriented mindset focused on adoption, usability, and measurable outcomes.

• Demonstrated maturity and effectiveness in leading complex technical initiatives and teams

• Proven track record of delivering high impact solutions of increasing scope, complexity, and visibility on time and within budget using both internal teams and vendor partners

• Recognized thought leader and innovator in leveraging data and technology to advance business strategy

• Highly effective communicator, capable of conveying complex technical concepts to non technical audiences

In-Office Collaboration

We are a client-centric, relationship-based business. Working together, in-person, is foundational to how we achieve results. By fostering a culture of face-to-face collaboration, idea sharing, productivity and personal connection, we deliver for our stakeholders — clients, advisors, employees and shareholders. Our employees work in the office at least four (4) days per week, with flexibility to work from home one (1) day per week. Some roles may require additional in-office time or different in-office expectations, and specific requirements will be discussed during the hiring process.

Visa Sponsorship

Applicants must have a valid work authorization that does not now, or in the future, require visa sponsorship for employment in the United States (e.g., H-1B, F-1 CPT, F-1 OPT, TN).