Director of AI Analytics

Sur La Table is seeking a Director of AI Analytics to define how data, insight, and AI drive decision-making across the company.

Requirements

• Serve as the primary analytics leader across eCommerce, Marketing, Finance, Retail, Merchandising, Inventory Planning, and Operations.
• Own problem definition for analytics - determining which business questions matter and what decisions insights should inform.
• Move analysis beyond “what happened” to “why it happened,” “how it happened,” and “what we should do next.”
• Proactively mine data to identify risks, opportunities, inefficiencies, and performance drivers.
• Influence senior leaders through clear implications and actionable recommendations.
• Own the integrity, governance, and usability of core commerce, customer, and operational datasets across platforms (eCommerce, POS, CDP, email, data warehouse).
• Validate insights using business context and commercial logic — not just technical correctness.
• Define, document, and continuously evolve company-wide KPI frameworks in partnership with Finance and functional leaders.
• Identify and resolve cross-functional metric misalignment to ensure a single, trusted understanding of performance.
• Establish standards for data quality, documentation, and analytical transparency across the organization.
• Leverage AI as a core component of advanced analytical work, including hypothesis generation, exploratory analysis, pattern detection, insight synthesis, and narrative development.
• Design, operationalize, and scale repeatable AI-assisted workflows that support recurring company-level decisions (growth, margin optimization, inventory productivity, forecast alignment).
• Establish validation frameworks to pressure-test AI-generated outputs against source data, historical performance, customer behavior, and commercial logic.
• Embed AI-enabled insights into planning, forecasting, and executive performance reviews.
• Promote responsible, explainable, and outcome-driven AI usage across analytics workflows.
• Own web and digital analytics strategy using Heap, including funnel performance, customer journey analysis, and conversion optimization.
• Ensure tracking integrity and event schema accuracy, including review of structured data formats (e.g., JSON, data layers) in partnership with Product Engineering.
• Translate behavioral data into commercial implications that influence merchandising, marketing, inventory, and operational decisions.
• Ensure behavioral insights are aligned with downstream systems and financial realities.
• Reconcile demand, margin, inventory, and operational perspectives into cohesive performance narratives.
• Support planning, forecasting, and performance alignment across Finance, Retail, Merchandising, and Operations.
• Challenge assumptions and reframe business narratives using data-backed insight.
• Serve as a connector between commercial strategy and operational execution.
• Establish analytical standards that prioritize clarity, trust, commercial relevance, and decision impact.
• Reduce reactive ad hoc work by building scalable, decision-focused reporting and automation frameworks.
• Design the structure, workflows, and expectations for the analytics function.
• Hire, mentor, and develop junior analytics talent once foundational systems are established.
• Champion a modern, insight-driven analytics culture across the company.

Benefits

• Executive Access: Work directly with brand CEOs and senior leadership, solving real business problems and earning mentorship from top operators.
• AI-First Skill Building: Get hands-on with the most advanced AI tools in the market. From automation to prompt engineering, you’ll build a modern tech stack that sets you apart in any industry.
• Accelerated Career Path: High performers are quickly entrusted with greater responsibility, new challenges, and leadership opportunities across our portfolio of brands.
• Competitive benefits: Paid time off policies, 401(k)/RRSP match, medical/dental/vision and a variety of supplemental policies, and employee discounts at our portfolio companies.