Innovation Manager

Innovation Manager

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This position is hybrid working three days a week in the Support Center located in the Legacy West/Plano area.

About Sally Beauty Holdings, Inc. At SBH, our purpose is to inspire a more colorful, confident, and welcoming world. We are the leader in professional hair color, selling and distributing professional beauty supplies across 11 countries through our Sally Beauty and Beauty Systems Group businesses. Sally Beauty offers products for hair color, hair care, nails, and skin care to retail customers looking for salon‑quality products at a value price.

Beauty Systems Group, branded as Cosmo Prof or Armstrong McCall stores, along with its direct sales consultants, sell professionally branded products intended for use and resale by salons to retail consumers.

The Enterprise Innovation Manager – Data & Business Intelligence is instrumental in taking new ideas in the data and artificial intelligence (AI) landscape and cultivating them into positive business outcomes. This role helps create a culture of innovation by shaping the processes needed for forward movement across the enterprise. The ideal candidate should have strong business knowledge in a retail environment working across multiple business models (B2B, B2C, e‑commerce, and brick & mortar).

The candidate should have a solid background in the Data and Business Intelligence space – data engineering, data reporting, analytics, and data governance. Experience in project delivery, from idea formulation through final project delivery, is also desired. The Innovation Manager will work across IT and business units to formulate ideas and deliver impactful Data & AI projects.

• 50%:
  Project Discovery – shepherd leadership, SMEs, and business stakeholders in identifying business needs and developing problem statements, business rules, and metrics for strategic Data & AI initiatives.
• Define and manage the overall scope of an initiative and gain appropriate sign‑off from affected stakeholders.
• Lead the definition of high‑level requirements and work across IT and vendor partners to develop timelines and cost estimates for projects.
• Assist leadership with building business cases and preparing for funding approvals and various stage‑gating processes.
• Ensure all aspects of delivery and solutioning are accounted for prior to project execution by ensuring requirements are met throughout the project lifecycle and keeping stakeholders apprised of changes to scope.
• 40%:
  Project Delivery – play an active role during the project delivery cycle, which may involve direct project/program management or oversight.
• Manage budget‑versus‑actuals, timelines, and resource planning for assigned projects.
• Oversee the development of AI/ML models, data pipelines, and scalable data architectures, collaborating with data scientists, engineers, and product managers.
• 10%:
  Create partnerships with key leaders and stakeholders throughout the enterprise to identify SMEs and customers.

• Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in Data Science, Computer Science, or a related field, or an equivalent combination of experience, education, and training.
• Experience with a modern data stack including Databricks, Power BI, Azure Data Factory, and data governance frameworks.
• 8+ years of experience in a combination of data engineering, data reporting, advanced analytics, and project management.
• A proven track record of managing complex data and AI programs across multiple business units.
• Skilled at creating executive‑level presentations and summaries based on complex data insights.
• Experience with development and execution of use cases, business benefit capture, and realization.
• Demonstrated experience with data projects life cycle processes and delivery.
• Experience in gaining group consensus and prioritization.
• Demonstrated knowledge and experience in applying data and AI to business areas within a retail environment.

• Aptitude for innovation:
  Keeps up with industry trends and knowledge in the Data &…