Transformation Director (Data Science)
Are you passionate about transforming data science strategy into meaningful business impact?
Do you thrive on leading complex transformation, aligning senior stakeholders, and turning ambitious plans into measurable outcomes?
About the team:
A global leader in information and analytics, we help researchers and healthcare professionals advance science and improve health outcomes for the benefit of society. Building on our publishing heritage, we combine quality information and vast data sets with analytics to support visionary science and research, health education, and interactive learning, as well as exceptional healthcare and clinical practice. At Elsevier, your work contributes to the world’s grand challenges and a more sustainable future. We harness innovative technologies to support science and healthcare to partner for a better world.
About the role:
The Data Science function is delivering a significant, multi-workstream transformation. This role manages that portfolio and provides the governance backbone for that change: ensuring programme hygiene is fit for purpose, so delivery is timely and effective, keeping the change portfolio coherent, and giving senior leaders a clear, trusted view of progress, risk and value. The role also helps shape and sharpen new business cases so that the next wave of investment is well founded.
Key responsibilities:
Programme hygiene and delivery assurance
- Define, maintain, and continuously improve the standards for programme and project management across the transformation: planning, RAID, dependency management, change control, benefits tracking etc.
- Assess hygiene across workstreams, challenge where it is not fit for purpose, and coach programme and project lead to close gaps early.
- Provide independent assurance on delivery confidence, flagging slippage and emerging risk before it becomes an escalation.
- Apply sufficient technical understanding of data science, ML and AI engineering (e.g. model development and deployment, model registries, LLM optimisation, production-grade code) to challenge plans, estimates, dependencies, and risk assessments, and to spot when reported progress does not reflect technical reality.
Governance and reporting
- Run the governance cadence end to end, including operating committee and steering committee forums: agendas, papers, decisions, actions, and follow-through.
- Own all reporting materials up to senior leadership level, producing concise, accurate and decision-oriented packs, dashboards, and narratives.
- Establish a single source of truth for status, milestones, risks, and benefits, and ensure data quality behind it.
Portfolio coherence
- Maintain a coherent view of the whole change portfolio, identifying overlaps, conflicts, dependencies and gaps between workstreams.
- Support prioritisation and sequencing decisions, balancing capacity, risk and strategic value.
- Align portfolio governance with wider Data Science OKRs and planning cycles.
Business cases and investment
- Support leads in building robust business cases: clear problem statements, options, costs, benefits and risks.
- Work with Finance to validate assumptions and track realised benefits against the original case.
- Help shape the pipeline of future initiatives so new proposals fit the portfolio and strategy
Skills & experience:
Essential
· A data science, ML or AI engineering background, gained through hands-on practitioner experience or through leading or governing data science delivery, sufficient to understand the technical content of the change workstreams and to translate it accurately for senior, non-technical audiences.
· Substantial experience running portfolio, programme, or transformation governance in a complex, technical organisation, with a track record of improving delivery discipline.
· Demonstrated experience producing and presenting reporting to senior and executive audiences, with the credibility to hold the room.
· Strong grounding in programme management methods (e.g. MSP, PRINCE2, P3O, Agile/SAFe or equivalent), applied pragmatically rather than dogmatically.
· Experience building or contributing to business cases, including benefits and financial modelling.
· Sharp analytical and written communication skills; able to turn complexity into a clear message.
· Confident challenger who can influence without relying on formal authority.
Desirable
- Exposure to AI governance and regulatory context (e.g. EU AI Act).
- Professional accreditation (e.g. MSP, PfMP, P3O, PMP).
- Experience in publishing, information services or a comparable data-rich business.
Why join us?
At Elsevier, you will be part of a diverse global product team that sits at the frontline of delivering value to customers. You will play a key role in enabling secure access to our products, shaping how customers experience and adopt our identity platform. We are committed to your success and wellbeing, offering flexible working, family leave, long-service recognition, and a supportive, collaborative environment where everyone has a part to play.
Work in a way that works for you
We promote a healthy work/life balance across the organization. We offer an appealing working prospect for our people. With numerous wellbeing initiatives, shared parental leave, study assistance and sabbaticals, we will help you meet your immediate responsibilities and your long-term goals.
· Working flexible hours - flexing the times when you work in the day to help you fit everything in and work when you are the most productive.
Working for you
We know that your well-being and happiness are key to a long and successful career. These are some of the benefits we are delighted to offer:
- Generous holiday allowance with the option to buy additional days.
- Health screening, eye care vouchers, and private medical benefits
- Wellbeing programs
- Life assurance
- Access to a competitive contributory pension scheme
- Save As You Earn share option scheme.
- Travel Season ticket loan.
- Electric Vehicle Scheme
- Optional Dental Insurance
- Maternity, paternity, and shared parental leave
- Employee Assistance Programme
- Access to emergency care for both the elderly and children
- RECARES days, giving you time to support the charities and causes that matter to you.
- Access to employee resource groups with dedicated time to volunteer.
- Access to extensive learning and development resources
- Access to employee discounts scheme via Perks at Work
About the business -
A global leader in information and analytics, we help researchers and healthcare professionals advance science and improve health outcomes for the benefit of society. Building on our publishing heritage, we combine quality information and vast data sets with analytics to support visionary science and research, health education, and interactive learning, as well as exceptional healthcare and clinical practice. At Elsevier, your work contributes to the world’s grand challenges and a more sustainable future. We harness innovative technologies to support science and healthcare to partner for a better world.
We know your well-being and happiness are key to a long and successful career. We are delighted to offer country specific benefits. Click here to access benefits specific to your location.
We are committed to providing a fair and accessible hiring process. If you have a disability or other need that requires accommodation or adjustment, please let us know by completing our Applicant Request Support Form or please contact 1-855-833-5120.
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We are an equal opportunity employer: qualified applicants are considered for and treated during employment without regard to race, color, creed, religion, sex, national origin, citizenship status, disability status, protected veteran status, age, marital status, sexual orientation, gender identity, genetic information, or any other characteristic protected by law.
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Skills Required
- Background in data science, machine learning, or AI engineering through hands-on practice or leadership/governance of data science delivery
- Substantial experience running portfolio, programme, or transformation governance in a complex technical organization
- Track record of improving delivery discipline
- Experience producing and presenting reporting to senior and executive audiences
- Strong grounding in programme management methods such as MSP, PRINCE2, P3O, Agile, SAFe, or equivalent
- Experience building or contributing to business cases, including benefits and financial modeling
- Strong analytical and written communication skills
- Ability to influence and challenge stakeholders without formal authority
- Exposure to AI governance and regulatory context, such as the EU AI Act
- Professional accreditation such as MSP, PfMP, P3O, or PMP
- Experience in publishing, information services, or a comparable data-rich business
RELX Compensation & Benefits Highlights
The following summarizes recurring compensation and benefits themes identified from responses generated by popular LLMs to common candidate questions about RELX and has not been reviewed or approved by RELX.
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Retirement Support — Retirement support is positioned as a meaningful part of total rewards through a 401(k) plan with matching contributions, alongside other financial protections such as life and disability coverage. Tuition reimbursement and share purchase access further broaden the financial value of the package beyond base salary.
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Leave & Time Off Breadth — Leave and time off breadth appears strong, with generous vacation allowances, mental health days, and options like sabbaticals and tiered PTO by tenure. Parental and caregiving leaves are described in detail, reinforcing time-away benefits as a standout component of the overall package.
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Wellbeing & Lifestyle Benefits — Wellbeing and lifestyle benefits are supported by offerings such as mental health support (e.g., app access), EAP resources, gym-related perks, and wellness incentives. Flexible working hours and related work-life supports add to the perceived day-to-day value of benefits.
RELX Insights
What We Do
RELX is a global provider of information-based analytics for professional and business customers across industries. We help scientists make new discoveries, doctors and nurses improve the lives of patients and lawyers win cases. We prevent online fraud and money laundering, and help insurance companies evaluate and predict risk. Our events enable customers to learn about markets, source products and complete transactions. In short, we enable our customers to make better decisions, get better results and be more productive. We do this by leveraging a deep understanding of our customers to create innovative solutions which combine content and data with analytics and technology in global platforms. RELX serves customers in more than 180 countries and has offices in about 40 countries. It employs approximately 30,000 people of whom almost half are in North America. We operate in four major market segments: Scientific, Technical & Medical; Risk & Business Analytics; Legal; and Exhibitions.
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