Dir - Data Science, FIN - Edward D. Jones

At Edward Jones, we help clients achieve their serious, long-term financial goals by understanding their needs and implementing tailored solutions. To ensure a personal client experience, we have located our 14,000+ branch offices where our more than 7 million clients live and work.

A typical branch office has one financial advisor who meets with clients face-to-face and one branch office administrator who enhances the team's ability to build deep relationships with clients. Headquarters associates in St. Louis and Tempe provide support and expertise to help U.S. and Canada branch teams deliver an ideal client experience. Edward Jones currently has more branch offices than any other financial services firm, and we continue to grow to meet the needs of long-term individual investors. Join the Firm Analytics team and help us unlock the power of data science to solve a wide range of business challenges and improve the people-experience through data-driven capabilities and insights. As the Director of Data Science, you'll work closely with senior business partners to lead innovative machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI) projects which enhance our ability to serve our clients effectively. If you thrive in a collaborative environment, have a learning mindset, and can communicate complex ideas in a straightforward way, this could be the role for you to make a real impact. 
 
What you’ll do: 

• • Provide enterprise level AI and analytic vision and leadership by leveraging big data, machine learning and other advanced analytic techniques to enhance decision making to the firm. 
  • Execute the firm's AI and advanced analytic strategy by determining which Advanced Analytic efforts the team should focus on, gaining buy-in from business partners. 
  • Consult with Executive Committee, Management Committee, and other senior leadership throughout the firm to help them define their analytic needs and prioritize those efforts. 
  • Communicate the results and method of data science projects to senior business leaders in a way that fosters adoption of findings, confidence in the area and a demand for further analytic projects. 
  • Work collaboratively with the other functions in firm strategy and across the data and analytics community (business intelligence, data governance, business development, enterprise strategy, Analytics Product Portfolio), and other insights groups (i.e., market research). 
  • Support AI, advanced analytics, and statistical analytic needs across the firm including but not limited to: 
    • Extracting insights from large unstructured databases 
    • Develop/maintain insight/recommendation engines 
    • Generative AI projects Statistical and behavioral segmentation efforts 
    • Predictive modeling for acquisition and retention of clients/assets 
    • Effectiveness/ROI analysis of major firm initiatives 
    • Geo-spatial analysis 
  • Establish the Vision and Annual Objectives of the team, identifying key roles and responsibilities and goals and the completion of major department initiatives. 
  • Provide leadership, development, and mentoring to leaders and associates through examples and timely feedback. 
  • Complete understanding of internal systems and consultation with technology leaders to improve the communication and deployment of effective and efficient solutions.  
  • Consistent and continuous evaluation of the department's activities and controls to ensure we are meeting the Vision and the Goals. 
  • Supervision and establishment of key measures for the area.  

What you’ll need: 

• 10+ years in advanced analytics consulting roles. 
• 5+ years in a leadership role, leading teams of data scientists or analytic associates. 
• Master's degree in operations research, applied mathematics, statistics, computer science or related field

• Experience identifying opportunities for the use of artificial intelligence, predictive modeling (regression/classification) and/or numerical optimization (linear/nonlinear) solutions to business relevant applications.  
• Previous experience implementing predictive modeling, or optimization to solve real world business problems. 
• Ability to translate data into meaningful value propositions for clients to facilitate understanding. 
• Ability to present findings to stakeholders at all levels of the organization. 
• Understanding and experience with the data science tool stack; hardware, software, and programming languages. 
• Ability to communicate the integration between business goal, analysis and the results 
• Ability to influence senior management with a high level of interpersonal skills.   
• High level consulting skills to uncover the key business questions and persuasively articulate recommended next steps/actions. 
• High level people and project leadership ability. 
• Communicate complicated techniques in simple English to non-technical partners. 
• Ability/familiarity with data science scripting  languages, Python, R, SAS, Spark, Scala, SQL, etc. 
• Solid understanding of machine learning techniques, regression modeling (including logistic, survival, and GLIM family), deep learning, LLMs, generative AI. 
• Experience with Snowflake and Hadoop tools like Hive, Impala, Python. 

 
What will set you apart: 
 

• PhD in operations research, applied mathematics, statistics, computer science or related field.