Senior Manager Data & AI Technical Strategy Lead
Avanade · Ottawa, 150 Elgin St., Corp, Canada
About the RoleWe are seeking a senior, credible, and pragmatic Data and AI leader to provide technical and delivery leadership for complex enterprise modernization programs.
This role provides strategic and technical leadership across data architecture, data engineering, analytics, data governance, master and reference data management, identity resolution, and artificial intelligence. The successful candidate can engage confidently with senior client and account stakeholders, navigate complex environments, establish a clear point of view grounded in industry practices, and translate strategy into measurable business outcomes.
The role builds strong relationships across client stakeholders, delivery teams, technology partners, and vendors to translate business priorities into scalable, secure, resilient, and supportable solutions. It establishes architectural direction, delivery standards, governance practices, and reusable solution patterns for modern data ecosystems, including environments subject to stringent security, privacy, accessibility, audit, and regulatory requirements.
In addition to leading successful delivery, the role supports business growth by shaping opportunities, engaging senior business and technology executives, partnering with sales teams, developing market offerings, and growing high-performing teams. The individual serves as a trusted Data and AI advisor to clients, technology partners, sales, solutioning, architecture, and delivery teams.
What You'll DoEnterprise Data Architecture· Lead the definition and evolution of current-state, transition-state, and target-state data architectures across cloud, hybrid, operational, analytical, and real-time environments.
· Provide architectural guidance for Microsoft Azure, Microsoft Fabric, OneLake, Power BI, Microsoft Purview, Azure integration services, databases, Databricks, and related technologies.
· Define patterns for batch ingestion, streaming, event-driven integration, data replication, virtualization, mirroring, APIs, data sharing, and interoperability.
· Guide the implementation of data lakes, lakehouses, warehouses, operational data stores, medallion architectures, domain and enterprise data models, semantic models, and data products.
· Ensure solutions address scalability, performance, availability, recoverability, security, privacy, interoperability, maintainability, observability, and cost management.
· Evaluate solution options and recommend technologies and patterns based on business value, functional and non-functional requirements, delivery risk, security considerations, and total cost of ownership.
Delivery Leadership and Assurance· Provide architecture and delivery oversight across multiple projects, workstreams, and multidisciplinary teams.
· Review solution designs, technical specifications, estimates, implementation plans, non-functional requirements, testing strategies, and operational readiness.
· Facilitate discovery sessions, architecture workshops, design reviews, technical decision forums, and stakeholder presentations.
· Identify architectural risks, delivery dependencies, integration constraints, capability gaps, and practical mitigation options.
· Ensure proposed solutions are implementable, testable, secure, supportable, and aligned with approved architecture and delivery commitments.
· Support Agile delivery through backlog refinement, requirements definition, acceptance criteria, definitions of ready and done, architecture governance, and release planning.
· Provide escalation support for complex architecture, integration, data quality, security, privacy, performance, and reliability issues.
Stakeholder and Partner Management· Build effective relationships with business leaders, enterprise architects, security and privacy teams, data stewards, product owners, application teams, vendors, and program leadership.
· Coordinate client, partner, vendor, and internal teams to maintain architectural alignment and resolve cross-functional issues.
· Translate complex concepts into clear business language for executive and non-technical audiences.
· Present recommendations, trade-offs, risks, costs, assumptions, and implementation options to governance bodies and senior stakeholders.
· Promote collaboration across business, architecture, engineering, analytics, governance, operations, security, and change-management teams.
Data Governance and Information Management· Lead or support enterprise data governance, metadata management, data cataloguing, lineage, data quality, stewardship, classification, retention, and access-control capabilities.
· Provide guidance on Microsoft Purview, OneLake Catalog, and the operating processes required to make governance effective.
· Define data ownership, stewardship responsibilities, business glossaries, classifications, quality rules, controls, and data-product accountability.
· Ensure architecture and delivery practices support privacy, records and information management, security, auditability, accessibility, and applicable regulatory obligations.
· Promote data discoverability, trusted reuse, consistent definitions, responsible access, and evidence-based governance across programs and delivery teams.
Master Data, Reference Data, and Identity Resolution· Provide leadership for master data management, reference data management, customer or client identity resolution, entity matching, and 360-degree data capabilities.
· Guide scalable approaches for matching, survivorship, deduplication, data quality, hierarchy management, and golden-record creation.
· Support decisions involving deterministic and probabilistic matching, fuzzy matching, identity services, biometric or photo-match integrations, and high-volume or high-velocity client information.
· Ensure identity-related solutions include appropriate privacy controls, security safeguards, explainability, audit trails, exception handling, and human-review processes.
· Balance match accuracy, latency, throughput, operational resilience, scalability, maintainability, and cost.
Analytics and Business Intelligence· Guide the design of enterprise reporting, Power BI semantic models, reusable datasets, dashboards, operational reports, and advanced analytical products.
· Promote clear separation among source-system data, ingestion and transformation layers, curated data products, enterprise semantic models, and presentation-layer reporting.
· Establish patterns that improve reporting consistency, data quality, performance, row- and object-level security, certification, and reuse.
· Translate reporting and analytics needs into measurable requirements, conceptual and logical models, acceptance criteria, and delivery backlogs.
· Support the modernization of legacy reporting and analytics platforms using cloud-based, governed, and reusable capabilities.
Team and Capability Development· Coach and provide technical direction to architects, data engineers, analysts, data scientists, developers, consultants, and delivery leads.
· Support resource planning, role definition, onboarding, performance development, succession planning, and team capability assessments.
· Develop internal knowledge through reference architectures, playbooks, demonstrations, reusable assets, and communities of practice.
· Promote consistent engineering standards, documentation, peer review, automation, testing, DevSecOps, and continuous improvement.
· Lead and grow internal people while supporting career development and a strong technical culture.
Functional Leadership and Requirements· Develop a strong understanding of the client’s business, processes, data, policies, controls, and operating context.
· Work with business stakeholders and