Director - Data Scientist

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Job Profile Summary

The Director - Data Scientist is part of Cencora's growing Supply Chain Modeling, Optimization and Emerging Technology team, and works closely with group peers, business stakeholders, Data Engineers, Data Analysts and other team members to turn data into critical information and knowledge that can be used to make sound organizational decisions. This position reports to the VP Supply Chain Modeling, Optimization and Emerging Technology and has Data Analysts as direct reports.
The successful candidate will be a creative thinker and able to propose innovative ways to look at problems by data mining a wide range and variety of data assets. They will need to validate their findings using an experimental and iterative approach. The Director - Data Scientist will also need to be able to present back their findings to the business by exposing their assumptions and validation work in a way that can be easily understood by their business counterparts.
The Director - Data Scientist will be responsible for using analytical techniques to model complex business problems, discovering insights and identifying opportunities using statistical, algorithmic, mining and visualization techniques. In addition to advanced analytics skills, the successful candidate will also be proficient at integrating and preparing large, varied datasets, implementing specialized database and computing environments, and communicating results. Individuals in this role need a combination of business focus, strong analytical and problem-solving skills and programming knowledge to be able to quickly cycle hypotheses through the discovery phase of the project.
Additionally, the Director - Data Scientist should be able to establish and maintain effective working relationships with team members, as well as an innate curiosity around wanting to understand business processes, business strategy and strategic business initiatives to help drive incremental business value from enterprise data assets.
 

Primary Duties and Responsibilities

• Working with business stakeholders identify business problems, opportunities and/or initiatives for which analytics models may provide insights that can contribute to or drive the development of an approach or solution.
• Conceptualize, design and develop analytics models in addressing complex business problems, discovering insights and identifying opportunities that are of value to internal and external business stakeholders, typically using a hypothesis-driven approach. Share results via dashboards and visualizations.
• Working with Data Engineers determine data governance, how to best source data, including identification of potential proxy data sources, and design business analytics solutions, considering current and future needs, infrastructure and security requirements, load frequencies, etc.
• Where appropriate help seed data science capabilities within business functions, essentially developing “citizen data scientists” within the business teams. Train team members.
• Show strong team building and creative thinking skills, and a desire to make a difference.
• Improve organizational performance though the application of original thinking to existing and emerging analytic methods, processes, products and services, and employ sound judgment in determining how innovations will be deployed to produce return on investment.
• Document and standardize ways of working. Define sustainable processes if run monthly/annual basis.
• Share initiative results by designing interactive business intelligence dashboards to support the business by highlighting risks and gaps.

Communications and Presentation

• Presents and depicts the rationale of findings in easy to understand terms for the business.
• Presents back results that contradict common belief, if needed.
• Communicates and works with business leadership.
• Collaborative and ability to work with remote team.

Change Advocacy, Coaching and Mentoring

• Leads the adoption of new approaches, such as testing hypotheses and statistical validation of results. Helps the organization understand the principles and the math behind the process to drive organizational buy-in.
• Provides technical leadership, coaching and mentoring to team members and “citizen” data scientists.
• Provides technical guidance or system process expertise.
• Develops reports and presentations for senior management, as needed.
• Agile ways of working and growth mindset

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Typical Education/ Experience

• Masters in data analytics, mathematics, statistics or computer science or related field.
• Typically requires 8 or more years of relevant quantitative and qualitative research and analytics experience.
• Solid knowledge of statistical techniques.
• The ability to come up with solutions to loosely defined business problems by leveraging pattern detection over potentially large datasets.
• Strong programming skills (such as Hadoop MapReduce, Spark or other big data frameworks, Java, Python) and statistical modeling (like SAS or R).
• Experience using Databricks would be beneficial.
• Experience using machine learning algorithms.
• High proficiency in the use of statistical packages.
• Proficiency in statistical analysis, quantitative analytics, forecasting/predictive analytics, multivariate testing, and optimization algorithms.
• Lean or Six Sigma experience improving processes by using data insights
• Strong communication and interpersonal skills.
• Experience leading teams.
• Supply Chain in-depth industry/business knowledge preferable.

Minimum Skills, Knowledge and Ability Requirements:

• Team oriented and collaborative working style.
• Growth mindset, positive attitude and strong interest in solving business challenges, adapting to a changing work environment.
• Ability to communicate effectively both orally and in writing; ability to communicate (and work) effectively with people from different technical and business backgrounds, acting as a liaison, understanding, and appreciating different perspectives and translating into terms necessary for any group or individual to understand.
• Building relationships: Establishes and maintains networks and alliances. Shares information and readily determines who to go to for relevant information. Seeks assistance and feedback in the problem-solving process. Partners with others to achieve expectations.
• Business function knowledge: Involves the key players in identifying operating needs, issues and solutions. Proposes technical plans that are aligned with business objectives and technical requirements. Takes and leads actions to enhance business function standards and performance with the participation of business and technical partners.
• Presentation skills: ability to present and discuss technical information in a manner that establishes rapport, persuades others, and establishes understanding for technical and non-technical audiences.
• Strong organizational skills; attention to detail.
• Strong interpersonal skills.
• Shows tactful discretion with difficult/sensitive information.

​Benefit offerings outside the US may vary by country and will be aligned to local market practice. The eligibility and effective date may differ for some benefits and for team members covered under collective bargaining agreements.

Cencora is committed to providing equal employment opportunity without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, genetic information, national origin, age, disability, veteran status or membership in any other class protected by federal, state or local law.

The company’s continued success depends on the full and effective utilization of qualified individuals. Therefore, harassment is prohibited and all matters related to recruiting, training, compensation, benefits, promotions and transfers comply with equal opportunity principles and are non-discriminatory.

Cencora is committed to providing reasonable accommodations to individuals with disabilities during the employment process which are consistent with legal requirements. If you wish to request an accommodation while seeking employment, please call 888.692.2272 or email hrsc@cencora.com. We will make accommodation determinations on a request-by-request basis. Messages and emails regarding anything other than accommodations requests will not be returned