35 Head of data analytics Jobs and Work in Johannesburg, Gp

Executive Head: VSA Big Data, AI & IA
Vodafone —Johannesburg, Gauteng
- Full-time
4h
Specialist: Commerical Insights
Vodafone —Johannesburg, Gauteng
- Full-time
4h
Senior Manager: Credit Data and Regulatory Control - VP
Absa Bank Limited —Sandton, Gauteng
- Full-time
6h
Head: Fraud Prevention and Detection
Nedbank —Johannesburg, Gauteng
1d
Executive Head: Commercial Performance
Vodafone —Johannesburg, Gauteng
- Full-time
2d
Senior Manager: Learning & Development
Absa Bank Limited —Johannesburg, Gauteng
- Full-time
3d
Executive Head: Brand and Marketing
Sanlam —Sandton, Gauteng
3d
Financial Planning & Analysis (FP&A) Analyst
Studio-88 Group of Companies —Johannesburg South, Gauteng
- Full-time
- SQL
Quick Apply
4d
Project Engineer
KOMATSU SOUTHERN AFRICA —Germiston, Gauteng 1404
- Full-time
Quick Apply
4d
Quality Assurance & Insights Supervisor
Tracker South Africa —Randburg, Gauteng
5d
Account Manager
Trade Shield —Johannesburg, Gauteng 2191
- R100 000 a year
Quick Apply
6d
Head of Digital & Performance Marketing
Lesaka Technologies —Johannesburg, Gauteng
9d
Head of Customer Experience and Insights Enablement
Discovery Ltd. —Sandton, Gauteng
12d
Senior Actuarial Risk and Analytics Manager
Absa Bank Limited —Johannesburg, Gauteng
- Full-time
12d
GRC Implementation Consultant
Surtech —Johannesburg, Gauteng
Quick Apply
13d
Head: CRES Data and Technology Services
Absa Bank Limited —Johannesburg, Gauteng
- Full-time
13d
Revenue Control Team Lead
Alistair James Company Ltd —Johannesburg, Gauteng
- Full-time
Quick Apply
Performance Media Specialist
WPP Media —Johannesburg, Gauteng
Head of Technology & Innovation
Enable Benefits —Melrose Arch, Gauteng
- Full-time
Quick Apply
BI & Process Analyst
Persistency SA —Hyde Park, Gauteng
- Full-time
Quick Apply

I want to receive the latest job alert for head of data analytics in johannesburg, gp

By signing in to your account, you agree to SimplyHired's Terms of Service and consent to our Cookie and Privacy Policy.

Explore jobs in more locations

head of data analytics jobs near johannesburg, gp

Head Of Digital jobs in Johannesburg, Gauteng

Senior Learning Development Manager jobs in Johannesburg, Gauteng

Head Of Marketing jobs in Sandton, Gauteng

Senior Risk Manager jobs in Johannesburg, Gauteng

Implementation Consultant jobs in Johannesburg, Gauteng

Head Of Data jobs in Johannesburg, Gauteng

Account Manager jobs in Johannesburg, Gauteng 2191

Quality Assurance Manager jobs in Randburg, Gauteng

Credit Controller jobs in Sandton, Gauteng

Project Engineer jobs in Cape Town, Western Cape

Junior Industrial Engineer jobs in Kempton Park, Gauteng

Project Engineer jobs in Johannesburg, Gauteng 2001

Plant Engineer jobs in Gauteng

Project Engineer jobs in Mount Road, Eastern Cape

Project Engineer jobs in Gauteng

Project Manager jobs in Gauteng

Head Of Digital jobs in Sandton, Gauteng

Digital Marketing No Experience jobs in Johannesburg, Gauteng

Head Of Digital jobs in Cape Town, Western Cape

The Digital Marketing jobs in Randburg, Gauteng

Executive Head: VSA Big Data, AI & IA

Vodafone -
Johannesburg, Gauteng

Apply Now

Job Details

Full-time
4 hours ago

Full Job Description

When it comes to putting people first, we're number 1.

The number 1 Top Employer in South Africa.
Certified by the Top Employer Institute 2026.

Role Purpose/Business Unit:

The Executive Head VSA Big Data, AI & IA: Lead Data Scientist is the principal technical authority for data science and AI within Vodacom South Africa. The role steers the design, build and scaled deployment of high-impact AI services across the VSA business, aligned to Vodacom’s three strategic AI impact pillars of Customer Experience (CX), Monetization and Productivity, and to our ambition of becoming an AI-native organisation by 2030.
Operating solely within the Vodacom South Africa Big Data team, the incumbent acts as the lead technical expert and hands-on architect: identifying opportunities to make a commercial difference, leading the development of machine learning and AI initiatives end-to-end, and mentoring a high-performing team of data scientists and AI engineers. The ideal candidate is deeply versed in Customer Value Management (CVM) principles, real-time recommender systems, Generative and Agentic AI, and modern MLOps / LLMOps practice.
Success in this role requires the ability to build trusted relationships with business stakeholders, translate complex datasets into strategic insight, and deliver business value in close partnership with technology, commercial and analytics teams across VSA.

Your responsibilities will include:

Technical Leadership

Principal technical expert: act as the lead data scientist for Vodacom South Africa, identifying opportunities to make a commercial difference and leading the development of machine learning and AI initiatives to meet business requirements.
AI vision and roadmap: set the technical vision, roadmap and delivery priorities for centrally built AI services across the VSA business, aligned to the Group AI strategy, the Vodafone Group GenAI framework and the Tech enablement strategy for AI.
Insight translation: translate complex datasets into strategic insights, communicating simply to non-technical audiences and visualising results to create understanding and solution buy-in.
Innovation agenda: identify new analytics and AI trends, evaluating and integrating emerging technologies, including agentic AI, multimodal models and real-time decisioning, to maintain Vodacom’s competitive advantage.
Thought leadership: serve as a recognised expert in the community, mentoring and advising colleagues on statistical techniques, algorithms, data and responsible AI practice.

AI Services Design, Build & Reusability

Reusable AI services: architect and deliver scalable, reusable AI services across CX, Monetization and Productivity that can be rapidly adopted and adapted across VSA business domains, reducing time-to-value and maximising impact.
Real-world ML products: develop machine learning and recommender products that solve real business problems, taking account of user needs, the technology landscape and operational constraints.
Governance and lifecycle: establish and maintain a unified AI services repository with robust governance, operational frameworks and lifecycle management to ensure compliance, consistency and efficiency.
Efficiency at scale: drive tangible efficiency gains through scaled deployment of classical ML, GenAI and agentic AI solutions, in line with Vodacom’s Technology framework.
Domain coverage: champion AI best practice across key VSA domains including CVM, Customer Experience, Network, Channels, Enterprise and Supply Chain, ensuring alignment with strategic AI business cases.

Value Delivery & Commercial Impact

Commercial targets: work closely with the VSA CVM and commercial teams to deliver against revenue, retention and cost-efficiency targets through data science and AI.
Delivery cadence: drive delivery through the quarterly PI (Programme Increment) planning cycle, prioritising value-producing projects across the VSA portfolio.
Data asset prioritisation: support the prioritisation of internal and external data assets and work with technology partners to set key requirements for data sourcing.
KPIs and measurement: define and track KPIs for AI output such as adoption rates, time-to-value and model efficacy across use-case categories, providing evidence-based insight that drives strategic decisions.

Partnerships, Ecosystem & Innovation

Hyperscaler partnerships: build and manage strategic relationships with hyperscalers (AWS, Google Cloud, Microsoft Azure, Huawei) to strengthen delivery capability, accelerate prototyping and leverage cloud-native AI tooling.
Vodafone ecosystem: contribute to and leverage the Vodafone Group AI ecosystem, driving re-use of standardised frameworks and global best-practice sharing.
Representation: represent Vodacom South Africa in AI forums, industry bodies and partner engagements to build thought leadership and strategic relationships.

People, Culture & Capability Building

Team leadership: lead, inspire and develop a high-performing team of data scientists, AI engineers, MLOps practitioners and solution architects within the VSA Big Data function.
Culture of innovation: foster a culture of experimentation and continuous learning, with a focus on responsible and ethical AI development.
AI literacy: drive AI literacy and capability uplift across the VSA business, enabling broader adoption and embedment of AI in day-to-day operations.
Mentorship: mentor and develop senior and emerging data scientists, establishing Big Data and ML standards for the VSA team.

The ideal candidate for this role will have:

Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Artificial Intelligence, Data Science, Engineering, Mathematics, Statistics, Economics or a related quantitative field (essential).
Master’s degree in a quantitative field will be advantageous.
A relevant executive leadership or management certification (e.g. MBA or equivalent) is advantageous.
A minimum of 10 to 15 years of progressive experience in AI, Data Science or related fields, with at least 5 years in a senior technical leadership role.
Proven track record of designing and delivering large-scale AI products, platforms or services in a complex, commercial / consumer environment.
Deep hands-on experience in GenAI, Large Language Models (LLMs), agentic AI and real-time AI decisioning systems.
Well versed in Customer Value Management principles, real-time recommender systems and MLOps practice.
Extensive experience building, managing and scaling AI / ML teams across diverse, cross-functional environments.
Demonstrated success in driving adoption and commercialisation of AI use cases with measurable business impact (revenue uplift, cost savings, CX improvements).
Experience working with or within hyperscaler ecosystems (AWS, Google Cloud, Microsoft Azure) at an enterprise or strategic-partnership level.
Familiarity with AI governance, ethics and regulatory compliance frameworks (including POPIA) at scale.

Technical Expertise

Expert-level proficiency in Python and relevant AI / ML languages; familiarity with R, Scala or Java is advantageous.
Deep knowledge of machine learning and deep learning frameworks including PyTorch, TensorFlow, scikit-learn, H2O and XGBoost.
Expertise in LLM architecture, fine-tuning, prompt engineering and Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) patterns.
Hands-on MLOps and LLMOps experience covering CI/CD pipelines, model versioning, monitoring and drift detection, using tools such as MLflow, Kubeflow or SageMaker.
Strong cloud-native AI deployment experience across AWS (SageMaker, Glue, Athena, Lambda, OpenSearch), GCP and/or Azure ML.
Proficiency in containerisation and orchestration technologies including Docker and Kubernetes.
Experience with real-time and batch inference architectures, recommendation systems, NLP and computer vision at scale.
Working knowledge of data engineering platforms and structured (SQL) and unstructured data tools (PySpark, NoSQL, streaming frameworks such as Kafka or Flink).
Familiarity with advanced analytics and visualisation tools such as Tableau, Power BI, Qlik Sense, Apache Superset, Grafana or Plotly.

Leadership & Behavioural Competencies

Exceptional technical leadership presence with the ability to influence and engage C-suite stakeholders and partners.
Design and systems thinking in relation to AI and machine learning ecosystems at enterprise scale.
Entrepreneurial mindset with a bias for action, pace and delivery in ambiguous, fast-changing environments.
Outstanding communication and storytelling skills, able to present complex technical content to technical and non-technical audiences with impact.
Ability to test hypotheses from raw datasets, draw meaningful conclusions and communicate results verbally, in writing and through effective visualisation.
Demonstrated ability to build, motivate and retain high-performing, diverse technical teams.
Customer-obsessed approach: passionate about leveraging AI to exceed customer expectations and create genuine user value.
High ethical standards with a commitment to responsible AI development, fairness and transparency.

Closing date for Applications: 13 July 2026

The base location for this role is Midrand, Vodacom Campus.

The company's approved Employment Equity Plan and Targets will be considered as part of the recruitment process. As an Equal Opportunities employer, we actively encourage and welcome people with various disabilities to apply.
Vodacom is committed to an organisational culture that recognises, appreciates, and values diversity & inclusion.

Apply Now

Refine Your Search

head of data analytics jobs in johannesburg, gp

Executive Head: VSA Big Data, AI & IA

Specialist: Commerical Insights

Senior Manager: Credit Data and Regulatory Control - VP

Head: Fraud Prevention and Detection

Executive Head: Commercial Performance

Senior Manager: Learning & Development

Executive Head: Brand and Marketing

Financial Planning & Analysis (FP&A) Analyst

Project Engineer

Quality Assurance & Insights Supervisor

Account Manager

Head of Digital & Performance Marketing

Head of Customer Experience and Insights Enablement

Senior Actuarial Risk and Analytics Manager

GRC Implementation Consultant

Head: CRES Data and Technology Services

Revenue Control Team Lead

Performance Media Specialist

Head of Technology & Innovation

BI & Process Analyst

I want to receive the latest job alert for head of data analytics in johannesburg, gp

Explore jobs in more locations

Role Purpose/Business Unit:

Your responsibilities will include:

The ideal candidate for this role will have:

Job Seeker Tools

Employer Tools

Browse

Stay Connected