Job ID: r20682
What You'll Do:
Criteo is consolidating its corporate data capabilities into a single Data Foundations organization within the Technology Group, reporting directly to the CTO.
Today, data platforms, governance and reporting are fragmented across Internal IT, Finance Transformation, CCO Business Operations, Global Operations and R&D, with no single owner for Criteo’s end-to-end corporate data foundation for AI. This creates duplicated tooling, multiple stakeholder entry points, and limited career paths for data/AI talent.
The mission of the Data Foundations organization is to provide trusted, scalable, and accessible data foundations that enable decision making and AI at scale across Criteo. The team ensures that:
Criteo operates on one trusted corporate data foundation
Business, Product and Finance teams can access reliable insights quickly
AI initiatives are supported by governed, high quality data
Data governance, reporting, and platforms operate under one unified strategy
The organization brings together data platform engineering, offline data pipelines, data governance, data enablement, and global reporting to support both operational excellence and AI transformation across the company.
Role summary
We are hiring a Head of Corporate Data Foundations to build and lead this unified organization as a CTO direct leader. You will own Criteo’s corporate data strategy and platforms end-to-end, partnering with Technology, Finance, Product, Operations and AI teams to:
Define and execute a unified data strategy across technology stacks (DaaP/Azure, Hadoop/Vertica/GCP)
Establish a single enterprise data governance framework and certified reporting layer
Act as the single accountable owner and senior entry point for corporate data, reporting and governance
Provide AI ready data foundations for agentic products and internal AI enablement
This is a senior, high impact leadership role with a team of 50+ people across multiple locations.
Key responsibilities
Strategy & architecture
Own the multi-year roadmap for Criteo’s corporate data platform, governance, and insights, aligned with Technology and company goals.
Harmonize data architecture across Internal IT and R&D (DaaP/Azure, Hadoop/Vertica/GCP) into a unified, AI-ready corporate data platform.
Run cross-functional prioritization and steering forums and report progress and decisions to the CTO, LT and relevant governance bodies
Enterprise data governance
Define and enforce a single enterprise data governance framework across Finance, Sales, People, Product, Operations, etc.
Own the data catalog, ownership model, KPI standards and quality controls to ensure one trusted source of truth and regulatory compliance.
Certified reporting
Build certified reporting and dashboards under clear SLAs for all key stakeholders.
Clarify ownership between Finance, local AX and the central data organization for data models and certified datasets, and scale AI-assisted analytics generation.
Partnership on AI enablement
Co-own with AI Enablement (IIT / R&D) the governance, backlog and architecture decisions for AI-related data structures, access and tooling.
Define decision rights, SLAs and escalation paths to avoid slow-downs on AI use cases.
Organization design, change & talent
Complete the development of the Data Foundations operating model and organizational design, and oversee the transition to a unified CTO-directed entity.
Partner with People team to build and develop a high-performing leadership bench and IC community across data engineering, architecture, governance, enablement and reporting.
Who You Are:
15+ years in data platforms / analytics / enterprise data strategy roles, including 7+ years leading multi‑disciplinary data or engineering organizations (50+ people) in complex, matrixed environments.
Demonstrated track record building or scaling an enterprise grade data platform (data lake / warehouse / lakehouse) and associated governance frameworks in a global company.
Strong background partnering with Finance, Product and Operations on data, reporting and control topics (e.g., corporate reporting, FP&A, RevOps, operational KPIs).
Experience operating at executive level, including strategy definition, investment cases, and steering of cross functional programs.
Exposure to AI / MLOps and AI driven transformation, ideally including partnership with central AI teams and product teams.
Skills & mindset
Ability to define and communicate a clear data & AI narrative, connecting platform and governance investments to business outcomes (growth, efficiency, risk, customer experience).
Strong architectural literacy across modern data stacks (cloud data platforms, streaming/batch pipelines, catalogs, BI, observability), and how they integrate with AI/ML platforms.
Proven strength in organizational design and change management: integrating teams from different reporting lines, clarifying roles, building a cohesive culture and identity.
Excellent stakeholder management and communication skills; able to work through ambiguity, mediate tradeoffs, and secure alignment across Technology, Finance, Product, Operations and regional teams.
Comfortable balancing strategic thinking and hands on execution; willing to dive into details of data models, SLAs or operating models when needed to unblock progress.
We acknowledge that many candidates may not meet every single requirement listed above. If your experience looks different but you believe you can bring strong value to this role, we still encourage you to apply.
We acknowledge that many candidates may not meet every single role requirement listed above. If your experience looks a little different from our requirements but you believe that you can still bring value to the role, we’d love to see your application!
Who We Are:
We’re Criteo, the Commerce Intelligence Platform. Criteo helps businesses turn shopper signals into commerce outcomes while delivering more relevant experiences for shoppers. We use proprietary commerce intelligence and AI decisioning to drive relevance for shoppers and performance for businesses.
At Criteo, our culture is as unique as it is diverse. From our offices across the globe or from the comfort of home, our 3,600 Criteos collaborate together to build an open, impactful, and forward-thinking environment.
We foster a workplace where everyone is valued, and employment decisions are based solely on skills, qualifications, and business needs—never on non-job-related factors or legally protected characteristics.
What We Offer:
🏢 Ways of working – Our hybrid model blends home with in-office experiences, making space for both.
📈 Grow with us – Learning, mentorship & career development programs.
💪 Your wellbeing matters – Health benefits, wellness perks & mental health support.
🤝 A team that cares – Diverse, inclusive, and globally connected.
💸 Fair pay & perks – Attractive salary, with performance-based rewards and family-friendly policies, plus the potential for equity depending on role and level.
Additional benefits may vary depending on the country where you work and the nature of your employment with Criteo.
