Data Martech Lead

Established in 1981 with a single store in the Northwest of England, the JD Group is a leading omni-channel retailer of Sports Fashion, Outdoors and Gyms with our colleagues working in stores across several retail fascias in many markets around the world. JD Sports Fashion Plc was listed on the London Stock Exchange in 1996 and has been a FTSE100 publicly quoted company since 2019 and continues to grow in the UK and internationally. We want to be the leading global omnichannel retailer in the sports and outdoor industry. To be a part of this successful company and help us to achieve this you will have the desire to ingrain our strategic goals of being a people-led, innovative and customer-focused organisation which provides operational excellence whilst identifying new areas of growth as part of our day to day objectives. Data MarTech (Marketing Technology) Lead Role Overview: We are seeking an experienced and delivery‑focused MarTech (Marketing Technology) Lead to shape and drive how customer, digital and marketing data is designed, integrated and activated across the JD Group. Reporting into the Head of Data Architecture, this role will work closely with Product, Digital, Customer and Marketing teams to ensure that data across core domains including Customer, Loyalty, Digital Behaviour and Marketing is built and governed in a way that enables compliant personalisation, orchestration, decisioning and measurable commercial impact, including appropriate management and enforcement of customer marketing consent. You will act as the technical and data authority across the MarTech and the customer data landscape and partner closely with Digital Product and wider business teams. The role will play a key part in defining how JD builds a single view of the customer, how we enable real‑time and batch decisioning, and where we leverage third‑party platforms versus building capabilities in‑house. While the role has a strong strategic and architectural remit, it is also hands‑on, particularly in shaping designs, influencing platform configuration, and ensuring solutions are implemented in line with JD’s data architecture standards. Responsibilities: MarTech & Customer Data Strategy Define and own JD’s MarTech and customer data approach in alignment with JD’s broader data strategy Establish a clear vision for how customer, loyalty, digital and marketing data is captured, integrated and activated across channels Shape the roadmap for building a scalable, future‑proof customer data and marketing technology ecosystem Define how customer consent and preferences are represented, governed and enforced across the MarTech and customer data landscape Ensure MarTech capabilities support personalisation, experimentation, orchestration and AI‑driven decisioning Customer Data & Single View of the Customer Lead the design of JD’s single customer view, working across Customer, Loyalty, Digital Behaviour and Marketing data domains Define identity resolution, data modelling and integration approaches to support consistent customer understanding across platforms Define how consent status and permissions flow consistently across customer, loyalty, digital and marketing systems and are captured and modelled within the single customer view Partner with the Data Engineering team to ensure customer data is well‑modelled, high‑quality and reusable Orchestration, Decisioning & Activation Define how customer data is used to power orchestration and decisioning across channels Work with Digital Product and CRM teams to ensure activation platforms are correctly setup and data flows are integrated with the data platform Ensure activation and orchestration platforms correctly consume and enforce customer consent and channel‑level permissions Enable consistent measurement and feedback loops between activation, analytics and optimisation Platform Design Act as the technical and architectural authority for MarTech and customer data platforms Assess and recommend build vs buy decisions across customer data, orchestration, decisioning and marketing technology capabilities Work with third‑party suppliers and internal teams to ensure solutions align with JD’s architecture, security and governance standards Ensure MarTech and customer platforms are configured to support compliant consent capture, synchronisation and enforcement across integrated systems Support supplier selection, solution design and integration approaches Collaboration with Digital & Marketing Teams Partner closely with Digital Product, Digital, CRM and Marketing teams to translate business requirements into scalable data and technology solutions Ensure data considerations are embedded early in product and platform design Provide expert guidance to ensure solutions are robust, future‑proof and aligned to best practice Leadership & Enablement Operate as a senior individual contributor, providing hands‑on expertise and leadership within the MarTech domain. Act as a subject‑matter expert and mentor for teams working with customer and marketing data. Contribute to the development of standards, patterns and playbooks for MarTech and customer data solutions. Support the Head of Data Architecture in shaping future capability and resourcing needs in this space. Role Objectives & KPIs A clear, adopted strategy and roadmap for MarTech and customer data aligned to wider data strategy A well‑defined and scalable single view of both known and non-known customer Effective orchestration and decisioning capabilities enabled across priority channels Clear build vs buy decisions that balance speed, cost and long‑term flexibility Strong alignment between MarTech platforms, the data platform and analytics capabilities Compliant activation through accurate consent management and end‑to‑end data flows Improved activation, personalisation and measurement outcomes for Digital and Marketing teams Skills and Experience: Significant experience leading or shaping MarTech and customer data capabilities in complex organisations Deep expertise across customer data, CRM, digital analytics and marketing technology ecosystems Strong understanding of identity resolution, customer data models and single customer view patterns Experience working with cloud‑based data platforms, ideally GCP Solid working knowledge of SQL and analytics data modelling concepts Experience designing orchestration and decisioning capabilities across digital and marketing channels Experience designing or supporting customer consent and preference management within MarTech, CRM or customer data platforms Proven experience making build vs buy decisions and working with third‑party MarTech suppliers Strong understanding of data architecture principles and integration patterns Ability to operate across strategy, architecture and hands‑on delivery Excellent stakeholder management skills, able to influence senior Digital and Marketing leaders We know our colleagues work tirelessly to make JD Sports the success it is today and in turn, we offer them some amazing benefits including staff Discount On JD Group and other brands within the organisation and personal development opportunities to learn and develop at work. Thank you for your time

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