We are hiring an Assistant Vice President, Strategic Analytics

The Opportunity 

The Assistant Vice President of Strategic Analytics will be responsible for building and running First National’s strategic analytics practice to drive strategic and operational decision-making across the business.

This role will lead the development of analytics capabilities, reporting frameworks, and advanced analytical solutions that support performance improvement, automation initiatives, portfolio insights, customer experience, and business growth. The Assistant Vice President of Strategic Analytics will partner closely with senior leaders across the residential, commercial, servicing, finance, risk, and technology teams to identify opportunities, prioritize initiatives, and deliver measurable business value. 

How you will contribute:  

Build First National’s Strategic Analytics Practice

• Build and run First National’s high-performing strategic analytics practice
• Develop and own First National’s “Data Strategy” by building a holistic view of data and analytics across the business, bridging the gap between technical experts and business stakeholders
• Establish best practices for modern data modelling, ELT logic, and dashboard design
• Implement modern analytics practices and tooling that enhance decision-making capabilities and strengthen competitive advantages
• Partner with technical and business teams to improve data quality, governance, accessibility, and the scalability of analytics assets
• Run a cross-functional analytics steering committee of technical stakeholders, business leaders, and the transformation office that is responsible for aligning on data definitions, prioritizing project backlog, and launching data products across the organization

Build Outstanding Analytical Products That Enable Data-Driven Decision Making

• Oversee the development of data models, dashboards, scorecards, and management reporting used by stakeholders across the organization to make better data-driven decisions
• Lead your team to build First National’s core data models and maintain the central data warehouse
• Build a single source of truth / self-serve data platform for power users across the business to use and pull data from
• Enable your team to translate complex business logic and data into clear, actionable insights for senior executives and non-technical stakeholders
• Utilize data capabilities to partner with business stakeholders and drive high-impact strategic projects
• Help train and empower power users across the business on how to successfully use data to answer questions
• Build a data catalogue, allowing users to understand data sources and KPI definitions
• Understand the data regulatory environment and make appropriate trade-offs to comply with regulations and industry guidelines
• Prioritize and pursue additional analytics use cases based on feasibility, impact, and alignment with strategic goals

The experience you need:

• 8+ years of progressive experience in analytics, business intelligence, strategy, data science, or a related field, with meaningful people leadership experience
• Proven success leading analytics teams and delivering business impact in complex, data-rich environments
• Strong experience partnering with senior business stakeholders and influencing decisions through data and structured problem-solving
• Exceptional analytical and strategic thinking skills, with the ability to solve broad, ambiguous business problems
• Strong communication and storytelling skills, including the ability to explain complex analysis clearly to executive and non-technical audiences
• Advanced knowledge of and experience with cloud data warehouses (Databricks, Google BigQuery, Snowflake, AWS Redshift, Clickhouse), ELT pipelines, data modelling tools (dbt), and business intelligence platforms (Power BI, Looker, Tableau)
• Proficiency in data manipulation languages like SQL, Python, or R
• Strong understanding of data governance, data quality, and the importance of scalable, reliable analytics infrastructure

Relationships:

External Customers: Customers (e.g., 3^rd parties), IT, Data & Analytics, Privacy, Compliance departments (from Sr Manager to C-level and frequency as needed)

Internal Customers: Partner closely with senior leaders across the residential, commercial, servicing, finance, risk, and technology teams (up to C-level, and CEO and frequency as needed)

Working Environment and Physical Demands Analysis:

• Office environment
• Periods of high volume with tight timelines
• Long periods of stationary position/sitting
• Prolonged periods of repetitive movement (i.e. using a keyboard and mouse)
• Long periods of time in viewing a computer screen
• Multi-tasking may include speaking to customers on a telephone call while looking up information on a computer program.

Why join First National?

• Competitive Compensation
• Comprehensive benefits program (i.e., Health Spending Account, Maternity and Parental Leave Top Up)
• Extensive training programs to set our employees up for success
• Modern office environment conducive to collaboration
• Supportive teamwork culture
• Opportunities to give back to the communities and work through events focused on a variety of charities
• Ongoing social events throughout the year

The team you’ll join:

Founded in 1988, First National is one of Canada’s largest non-bank lenders. We provide residential mortgages exclusively through the mortgage broker channel and we are Canada’s largest commercial mortgage lender.

First National has been consistently recognized as a great place to work and we are proud that our employee engagement feedback is higher than our industry partners.

We would like to thank all applications for their interest in this existing vacancy but only candidates selected for an interview will be contacted. 

First National is proud to be an equal opportunity employer and is committed to diversity and inclusion regardless of race, color, religion, national origin, age, gender identity, physical or mental disability, sexual orientation and any other category protected by law.

Artificial Intelligence is not used in our recruitment or hiring process for this role.

First National supports requests for accommodation from applicants with disabilities; please contact Human Resources at [email protected] should you need an accommodation at any point in the recruitment process.

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