Data & AI Manager

Manager Data and AI

Location: Frankfurt

Company Overview

Our client is a pan-European real estate asset management company founded by one of the world's leading investment firms. Designed for scalability and operational excellence, Our client leverages cutting-edge technology and data-driven processes to manage a rapidly expanding portfolio of real estate assets across Europe.

Technology plays a central role in enabling integration, automation, and analytics across finance, asset management and operations.

Position Summary

The Data and AI manager is a senior IT leadership role reporting to the CTO. This role oversees the delivery and support of data and analytics platforms, with a primary focus on leveraging Microsoft Fabric - including Synapse, Data Lake, Power BI, and Purview - for enterprise-scale data management, governance, and analytics. The successful candidate will drive the implementation of a unified data and analytics platform across Our client, ensuring solutions are not only cost-effective and scalable but also designed to unlock innovation through AI-driven insights and automation, in alignment with best practices.

Key Responsibilities

• Enterprise Data Stewardship: Structure, integrate, govern, store, describe, model, and maintain enterprise data to ensure optimal accuracy, accessibility, and usability.
• AI-Driven Platform Leadership: Champion the deployment of a unified data and analytics
• platform that consolidates diverse data sources, leveraging Microsoft Fabric to enable seamless integration and deliver measurable business value through AI.
• Project Oversight & Governance: Provide leadership and strategic direction for the
• development and deployment of data and analytics initiatives within the Microsoft ecosystem, ensuring alignment with organisational governance, compliance, and security standards.
• Data Modelling & Transformation: Design and maintain robust data models and associated
• components to support data transformation, quality assurance, metadata management, reporting, and advanced analytics.
• Architectural Compliance: Ensure that data, integration, and analytics architectures adhere to portfolio-wide standards and are built for extensibility, security, and high performance.
• Governance Expertise: Act as a subject matter expert for data governance initiatives, including the definition and enforcement of policies using Microsoft Purview.
• Data Quality Improvement: Drive continuous improvement in enterprise data quality using Microsoft Purview for data cataloguing, lineage tracking, and policy enforcement.
• Master Data Management: Lead the implementation of master data management strategies using Microsoft Fabric and Purview to ensure consistency and integrity across systems.
• Compliance & Risk Management: Review and advise on data security, retention, and archival strategies, leveraging Microsoft Purview's compliance and risk management capabilities.
• Cross-Function Collaboration: Collaborate with stakeholders across all business functions to share best practices, lessons learned and continuously evolve the data architecture in response to emerging technologies and business needs.
• Strategic Infrastructure Planning: Understand and articulate data requirements for future
• infrastructure, working closely with internal architects, partners, and vendors to design scalable and forward-looking solutions.

Candidate Profile

Qualifications & Experience

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Information Systems, or related field (or equivalent work experience).
• 7+ years of experience in senior IT leadership overseeing data and analytics platforms, including recent hands-on experience with Microsoft Fabric and Purview.
• Strong experience in data architecture, integration technologies, and Azure-based cloud
• environments.
• Proven experience with relational and dimensional database modelling.
• Experience with full lifecycle software development projects, including requirements, design, deployment, and operational management in the Microsoft ecosystem.
• Strong background in managing global IT delivery centres supporting Microsoft technologies.
• Advanced skills in Power BI and data visualisation within Microsoft Fabric.
• Experience with real-time and batch data integration, including familiarity with event driven patterns.
• Demonstrated vendor management and commercial acumen, including platform cost
• optimisation and capacity planning.
• Proven track record in delivering application deployment projects in complex, multi-entity, international environments.
• Experience integrating AI-driven analytics and automation into business processes to deliver measurable outcomes.
• Familiarity with responsible AI principles, including ethical AI governance.

Skills & Competencies

• Able to ramp up quickly; takes initiative and is a self-starter
• Ability to zoom from big picture to detail.
• Proven hands-on experience in designing and implementing complex data models to support scalable analytics, data integration, and business intelligence solutions
• Deep understanding of data architecture, including application, data, and integration layers.
• Excellent analytical and problem-solving skills with a focus on scalability and process
• improvement.
• Effective communication and stakeholder management abilities.
• Fluent in English; additional German language skills are an advantage.