Job Description:

Position: Senior Director, Customer Analytics, Data & AI

Type: Full-Time | Hybrid

Location: Markham, ON

Reports to: VP, Loyalty & Customer Analytics

About Us

Pet Valu is Canada’s leading pet specialty retailer, dedicated to strengthening the bond between dedicated pet lovers and their pets. With 50 years of animal care expertise, we operate over 800 stores across Canada under several banners, including Pet Valu, Bosley’s, Total Pet, Paulmac's Pet, Tisol & Chico. Guided by our mission to deliver products, care, expertise, and memorable moments, Pet Valu is a place where people build meaningful careers while making a positive impact on pets and communities.

What will you do?

The Senior Director, Customer Intelligence, Data & AI is responsible for defining and executing Pet Valu's enterprise Customer Intelligence strategy, enabling the organization to maximize customer acquisition, engagement, retention, and lifetime value through data-driven decision making.

This role provides strategic leadership across Customer Analytics, Business Intelligence, Customer Data Strategy, Data Science, Artificial Intelligence, and Customer Measurement. The Senior Director serves as the organization's authority on customer behavior, customer value, and customer growth opportunities, translating complex data into actionable business strategies that support enterprise objectives.

Working closely with Marketing, Digital, Merchandising, Operations, Finance, Technology, and Executive Leadership, this role develops the analytical frameworks, predictive capabilities, AI roadmap, and customer intelligence infrastructure necessary to drive long-term growth and competitive differentiation.

The Senior Director also leads the development of an enterprise Customer Intelligence Centre of Excellence, ensuring insights, measurement, experimentation, and advanced analytics capabilities are embedded throughout the organization and consistently influence strategic and investment decisions.

This position manages a portfolio of customer data, analytics, AI, and technology investments intended to improve customer experience, strengthen loyalty, and generate measurable commercial value.

Responsibilities:

Enterprise Customer Intelligence Strategy

Owns:

• Enterprise Customer Intelligence Strategy
• Customer Growth Insights Strategy
• Customer Value Management Framework
• Customer KPI Governance
• Executive Customer Performance Reporting
• Loyalty Analytics Centre of Excellence

Responsibilities:

• Define and execute a multi-year Customer Intelligence strategy aligned to corporate growth objectives.
• Act as the leader responsible for developing the organization's understanding of customer behavior, value, retention, and growth opportunities.
• Establish enterprise customer measurement frameworks and key performance indicators used across business units.
• Identify strategic opportunities to improve customer acquisition, engagement, loyalty, retention, and profitability.
• Partner with executive stakeholders to embed customer intelligence into strategic planning, resource allocation, and business decision-making processes.
• Lead the development of an enterprise Customer Intelligence Centre of Excellence, driving best practices across analytics, measurement, experimentation, and insight generation.
• Provide strategic recommendations and executive-level guidance regarding customer investment priorities and growth opportunities.

Customer Analytics & Advanced Insights

Owns:

• Customer Analytics Strategy
• Customer Segmentation Framework
• Customer Lifetime Value (CLV) Methodology
• Retention & Churn Analytics
• Customer Health Measurement

Responsibilities:

• Lead the development of advanced customer analytics capabilities that identify opportunities to improve customer value and business performance.
• Oversee customer segmentation, lifetime value modeling, retention analysis, cohort analysis, and behavioral analytics.
• Establish customer health and retention frameworks that proactively identify risks and opportunities across customer segments.
• Partner with Loyalty, CRM, Digital, and Merchandising teams to improve customer engagement through actionable analytics and insight generation.
• Translate customer data into executive recommendations that influence merchandising, promotional, loyalty, and customer experience strategies.

Data Science, AI & Predictive Intelligence

Owns:

• Enterprise Loyalty AI Roadmap
• Predictive Analytics Strategy
• Advanced Personalization Analytics
• Next-Generation Customer Intelligence Capabilities

Responsibilities:

• Define and lead the organization's customer-focused AI and advanced analytics strategy.
• Establish predictive modeling capabilities including churn prediction, customer lifetime value forecasting, propensity scoring, next-best-offer models, recommendation engines, and customer growth forecasting.
• Evaluate emerging AI technologies and identify practical applications that deliver measurable business value.
• Partner with CRM, Loyalty, and Digital teams to operationalize predictive intelligence and support increasingly personalized customer experiences.
• Develop governance frameworks that ensure AI initiatives are aligned with business objectives and executed responsibly.
• Foster innovation through experimentation with emerging analytical techniques, machine learning solutions, and decision intelligence capabilities.

Customer Data Strategy & Governance

Owns:

• Customer Data Strategy
• Customer 360 Roadmap
• Customer Data Governance
• Identity Resolution Strategy
• Customer Information Architecture

Responsibilities:

• Define and oversee the customer data ecosystem required to support enterprise customer intelligence objectives.
• Ensure customer data assets are accurate, accessible, scalable, secure, and actionable.
• Oversee integration of customer, loyalty, retail, digital, eCommerce, app, and marketing datasets into a unified customer intelligence environment.
• Partner with Technology, Digital, and external vendors to establish scalable customer data foundations and future-state capabilities.
• Lead governance frameworks that support data quality, compliance, consistency, and effective enterprise data utilization.

Enterprise Measurement & Experimentation

Owns:

• Measurement Strategy
• Attribution Framework
• Incrementality Measurement
• Test-and-Learn Program
• Customer Investment Evaluation Framework

Responsibilities:

• Develop enterprise measurement frameworks that assess the commercial effectiveness of customer, marketing, loyalty, CRM, personalization, and digital initiatives.
• Establish rigorous test-and-learn methodologies and experimentation standards.
• Quantify the incremental impact of major customer investments, including loyalty programs, customer apps, personalization initiatives, and customer engagement platforms.
• Lead the development of ROI frameworks used to assess customer and technology investments.
• Ensure business decisions are supported by credible, transparent, and actionable evidence.

Strategic Investment & Business Performance Leadership

Owns:

• Analytics Portfolio Management
• Customer Growth Recommendations
• Executive Decision Support

Responsibilities:

• Develop business cases supporting customer, loyalty, digital, AI, and technology investments.
• Provide executive leadership with actionable recommendations regarding customer growth opportunities, investment prioritization, and strategic trade-offs.
• Influence enterprise planning through data-driven insights and predictive forecasts.
• Partner with Finance and business leaders to ensure customer investments deliver measurable commercial outcomes.
• Manage a portfolio of customer intelligence, analytics, and technology investments intended to drive long-term value creation.

Leadership & Organizational Capability Development

Owns:

• Customer Intelligence Organization
• Talent Strategy
• Analytics Centre of Excellence
• Capability Development Roadmap

Responsibilities:

• Build and lead a high-performing multidisciplinary team spanning customer analytics, business intelligence, data engineering, data science, and artificial intelligence.
• Develop future capability plans supporting organizational growth and evolving customer intelligence requirements.
• Coach, mentor, and develop analytical and technical talent.
• Foster a culture of curiosity, innovation, experimentation, accountability, and continuous improvement.
• Build strong partnerships across Marketing, Finance, Merchandising, Technology, Operations, and Digital teams.
• Serve as a visible thought leader and advocate for customer-centric decision-making throughout the organization.

Loyalty & MarTech Platform Strategy

• Own the vision, roadmap, and governance of the loyalty and MarTech ecosystem, including CRM, Customer Data Platforms (CDP), loyalty platforms, marketing automation, and customer engagement technologies.
• Align platform capabilities with customer, loyalty, and business objectives.
• Develop and execute the long-term Loyalty and MarTech strategy, ensuring alignment with enterprise customer, digital, and marketing objectives.
• Evaluate emerging technologies and recommend platform enhancements to improve customer engagement and marketing effectiveness.

Product Ownership & Delivery

• Serve as Business Product Owner for key loyalty and MarTech platforms.
• Define product requirements, prioritize enhancements, and manage platform roadmaps.
• Collaborate with IT, Product, and external vendors to ensure successful implementation and ongoing optimization of capabilities.

Vendor & Stakeholder Management

• Manage strategic relationships with MarTech vendors and service partners.
• Negotiate contracts, oversee platform performance, and ensure service level expectations are met.
• Act as the primary liaison between business stakeholders and technical teams.
• Lead strategic partnerships with key vendors and external partners to ensure technology investments deliver expected business outcomes and return on investment.

Qualifications:

• Bachelor's degree in Engineering, Business, Computer Science, Information Systems, Data Analytics, or a related discipline.
• Master's degree or MBA is considered an asset.
• 10+ years in Data Science, Data Engineering, Business Intelligence, CRM Analytics, Loyalty Analytics, or Customer Insights.
• 7+ years leading analytics, BI, data science, or customer intelligence teams.
• Demonstrated experience developing and executing enterprise customer intelligence, analytics, or data strategies that influence corporate growth objectives.
• Proven success leading large-scale business transformation initiatives involving data platforms, cloud migrations, CDP, digital engagement, CRM, personalization, loyalty, or AI capabilities.
• Experience serving as a strategic advisor to executive leadership teams, translating customer insights into business, marketing, digital, and commercial strategies.
• Experience establishing and scaling customer analytics, data science, or AI capabilities within a complex retail, eCommerce, loyalty, or consumer-focused environment.
• Extensive experience leading complex cross-functional initiatives across Marketing operations, Digital, Merchandising, Finance, IT, Operations, and Executive Leadership teams.
• Proven ability to influence executive stakeholders and drive organizational alignment without direct authority.
• Experience managing competing priorities across multiple business units while balancing commercial, customer, operational, and technical requirements.
• Track record of influencing enterprise investment decisions through analytics, business cases, and ROI measurement frameworks.
• Demonstrated accountability for delivering measurable commercial outcomes, including customer retention, customer lifetime value growth, revenue growth, and return on investment.
• Expert level knowledge of data integrations, data engineering, governance, API ecosystems, and data architecture.

Preferred:

• Experience in retail, eCommerce, loyalty, or customer-centric industries is strongly preferred.

Compensation:

The Base Salary Range for this position is $165,000.00 - $200,000.00 annually. The final offer will be based on factors such as market location, relevant skills, experience and internal equity.

Ready to join the team?

We’re looking for passionate people who bring strong skills and live our core values of safety, compassion, expertise, and efficiency every day. If you’re energized by doing meaningful work, taking pride in what you deliver, and making a real impact for pets, people, and communities, you’ll feel right at home here. Join us and build a career where purpose, care, and excellence come together - because love lives here™.

Why work for us?

 At Pet Valu, our people are at the heart of everything we do. We’re passionate about creating an environment where you feel supported, included, and empowered to grow - both personally and professionally. Some of the perks of working with us include:

• Hybrid, Flexible Work Options
• Comprehensive health and dental benefits
• Employee Share Purchase Plan with company matching
• Learning and Development support tailored to you
• An inclusive, collaborative culture where your voice matters
• Fun company events that keep us connected
• Preferred rates for car rentals, hotels, phone plans and gym discounts
• Generous employee discounts on our products

Pet Valu is an equal opportunity employer committed to inclusion and accessibility. Accommodations are available upon request for candidates taking part in all aspects of the recruitment and selection process, in accordance with the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act (AODA).

At Pet Valu, we are committed to transparency and fairness in our hiring practices. This posting is for an existing vacancy. Pet Valu may use AI enabled technology to assist in the recruitment process for positions. The use of AI helps us ensure we are providing an equitable and streamlined recruitment experience for all applicants. While AI tools support our recruitment process, all decisions throughout the process are made exclusively by Pet Valu’s hiring team. At no stage does AI determine recruitment outcomes.