SVP, Head of Studio Data & Insights

Role description

Role Overview

The SVP, Head of Studio Data & Insights leads Universal Entertainment's data strategy, analytics and AI insights functions in Los Angeles. Reporting to the EVP, the role owns the teams - their people, priorities, standards and delivery - and provides the sustained executive presence and stakeholder leadership that drives adoption of the function's agenda within the rhythms of the studio.

Mission

Over the past six years, the data function has built a substantial insights platform and analytical capability; this role will embed these capabilities in how the studio makes decisions throughout the content lifecycle, and will lead and develop the LA organization that delivers them.

Success in this role requires a leader who shapes strategy with a one-company mindset, inspires transformation and innovation, drives execution excellence, and builds inclusive, empowered teams that can adapt through change while modelling NBCUniversal’s values.

Core Responsibilities

Act as the EVP's senior partner in-region, operating with delegated authority within an agreed decision framework and serving as the function's voice in executive, fast-moving, and cross-functional forums where in-region presence and judgement are required.

Provide leadership and direction for the Los Angeles-based data strategy and analytics organization, including teams focused on insights, analytics, and AI-enabled decision support. Partner closely with the LA-based SVPs and their teams to align priorities, support delivery across the portfolio, shape the operating plan, and foster a high standard of work and impact across the region.

Identify, develop, and empower talent across the leadership bench. Raise the bar through hiring, coaching, and succession planning; build collaborative and inclusive teams; grow senior leaders who can own their areas independently; and establish clear rules on which decisions genuinely need escalation.

Lead and deepen the function's senior stakeholder relationships across UE's departments, owning the strategic agenda, the value narrative, and the forward asks for each. This includes establishing a consistent rhythm of engagement with department leadership — from quarterly strategic reviews to proactive intelligence — so that each senior partner has a clear, current view of the value being delivered and the opportunities ahead.

Represent the Los Angeles’ studio’s requirements into the global data & analytics platform roadmap. Work with the EVP and the UK-based data platform team to translate stakeholder needs into prioritised input on analytics platforms and the underlying data and AI capability — qualifying genuine capability gaps, making the case for what the studio needs, and setting clear expectations with stakeholders on what the platform delivers and when.

Partner closely with Strategy and Research teams as the function's nearest neighbours, ensuring data, analytics and AI insight is combined with strategic and audience research rather than delivered in parallel — presenting a single, coherent evidence base to decision-makers and jointly shaping the questions worth answering.

Drive adoption and embedding of central insights platforms and AI-enabled analyses across creative development, greenlight, marketing, and distribution for Universal Entertainment's Film and TV divisions. The emphasis is evangelism, mandate-building, and integration into existing decision processes and systems — and success is measured in how deeply the capability becomes part of how departments work.

Own the evidence of impact. Establish how the function's contribution is tracked and articulated — where insight changed a decision, and what it was worth — and carry that case to UE and NBCU leadership, so the mandate is renewed on demonstrated value rather than goodwill.

Orchestrate across the function's teams in and outside the region, convening workstreams into strategically aligned and coherent outputs, and ensuring stakeholders experience the function as a single, joined-up partner rather than a collection of individual projects.

Drive and maintain strategic partnerships across NBCU with a one-company mindset, identifying opportunities for data and insights sharing, supporting central initiatives focused on growth and innovation.

BA/BS required, MBA or JD preferred

Forward-thinking, strategic, tactical and detail-oriented; proven ability to work across an organization at all levels with technical, creative, and executive team members

Ability to work with confidential and sensitive information in a discrete manner

Superior analytical, presentation and communication skills – written and verbal

Ability to identify key priorities and execute on them

Desired Characteristics

A proven senior operator from a studio, streamer, network, or adjacent entertainment technology environment, with a demonstrated record of selling, embedding, and scaling data and analytics capabilities within creative, marketing, or distribution organizations — someone who has won adoption and mandate, not only delivered analysis.

A track record of leading multidisciplinary data and analytics teams at scale — hiring and raising the bar, developing senior leaders who operate independently, and running a delivery organization against competing priorities in a large, matrixed environment.

Established, trusting senior-level relationships with C-suite entertainment executives, with the presence and judgement to hold senior relationships independently and advance an agenda as their own, while operating as part of a tightly aligned leadership team.

Sufficient technical and analytical fluency to represent the capability with honesty and precision — able to engage substantively on what the data teams can and cannot do.

A robust understanding of how film and television studios operate across the content lifecycle — creative development, production, marketing, and distribution — and of where data and analytics genuinely change decisions within it.

A values-led culture carrier as m…