Head of Data, sennder
Digital freight-forwarder platform
Posted today
Digital freight-forwarder platform
1001+ employees
Posted today
1001+ employees
Company mission
To leverage data to create an efficient road freight network by connecting the best shipper experience with a carrier platform that enables trucking companies to run their businesses more profitably with lower emissions.
Role
Who you are
- 10+ years in data, analytics, or ML leadership, including 5+ years leading multi-team organizations at meaningful complexity and scale. Comfortable in high-ambiguity, fast-changing environments, with a bias for pragmatic, visible progress
- A track record of turning a data organization from a reporting/service function into a trusted, product- or platform-grade capability, including stabilizing and building leadership benches through hiring, promotion, and, where needed, replacing team leads
- Strong architectural understanding of modern data platforms and semantic layers, coupled with deep, proven expertise in Data Product Management and business alignment
- Working fluency in applied ML/AI sufficient to sponsor, prioritize, and commercialize initiatives,
- Experience with data governance and quality frameworks suited to an AI-native business (not purely compliance-driven contexts). You do not need to build the models yourself
- An exceptional ability to make complex technical and data topics simple for non-technical executive and operational audiences
- A track record of driving real change with stakeholders used to a different way of working: holding firm on what’s technically right while staying genuinely collaborative on how and when change lands, without absorbing blame that belongs to the business
- We celebrate diversity and value your character just as much as your skills. If you don’t meet every requirement, don’t worry, we still encourage you to take a chance and apply. Bring your authentic self and help us shape the future of logistics in Europe
What the job involves
- You’ll own one of sennder’s core unfair advantages: our data
- As Head of Data, you lead the full Data & ML organization (Analytics Engineering, Data Insights, Data & AI Platform, and Machine Learning & Data Science), reporting to the CPTO and operating as a strategic partner to the incoming SVP of Engineering to define and enforce the data standards that all domain engineering teams must adhere to
- This is a builder’s role: hands-on, high-ownership, and focused on turning sennder’s data and AI capability into a competitive engine, proven through delivered impact, not strategy decks
- You own what’s right (definitions, models, sources of truth) and the mandate to retire what isn’t working, with the CPTO’s backing on pace and stakeholder pushback
- With four teams and real scale comes your first priority: building the leadership bench that runs it
- You multiply through strong managers, not by doing the work yourself
- Own the Data & ML Agenda:
- Lead the Data & ML organization end-to-end. While you will own the overarching data strategy, business alignment and governance, you will manage a Director of Engineering who drives the day-to-day technical execution of our infrastructure, platform, and ML models
- Stabilize and build the leadership benches beneath you through active coaching, strategic hiring, and organizational design
- Align technical standards and compliance practices with the SVP of Engineering’s organization, without folding into it
- Establish One Source of Truth:
- Own the definitions, models, and platform that make “one number, one meaning” real, and retire legacy dashboards and duplicate reporting that undermine it, with a clear migration path rather than an overnight switch-off
- Treat data outputs as products with users and a quality bar, not artifacts nobody owns; hold the line on what’s technically right while managing the pace of change deliberately with the stakeholders who depend on it
- Make Data Quality a Business Issue:
- Break data-quality problems into concrete use cases that demonstrate value fast, not abstract governance initiatives
- Diagnose where incentives, not tooling, are the root cause of poor data, and build the business case for the leaders who own those incentives to fix them
- Commercialize ML and AI:
- Translate technical ML/data science work into sennder’s core value drivers: margin expansion, cost reduction, and service differentiation, prioritizing ruthlessly by business value
- Bridge the ML literacy gap with business leadership, and own the data governance foundation that lets sennder scale AI safely and commercially
- Change How the Business Sees Data:
- Shift Data’s reputation from reporting support to strategic enabler through delivered impact, not a rebrand
- Build direct, trusted relationships with business leaders in their language, and partner with the CPTO and SVP of Engineering to keep data and AI ambitions grounded in real business need
Our take
The global freight industry is massive, with estimates of its size ranging from $8T to $12T annually. Freight forwarding, the process of organising how and where items will be shipped around the world, and specifically the technology that underpins that work, continues to be a huge area of the logistics market.
Sennder, a digital freight forwarder focused on transporting cargo around Europe, is working towards becoming one of the biggest players in the European market. Sennder's current strategy, following major funding, is to expand rapidly, building upon existing expansions including Cars&Cargo, Uber Freight Europe and Everoad.
Although it's one of the most well-funded of the freight forwarders, Sennder will face direct competition in Europe from the likes of Zencargo, as well as international pressure from international giants such as the US's Flexport. To keep ahead in the market, Sennder has focused on scaling its operations through strategic acquisitions like C.H. Robinson's European unit, expanding its digital capabilities through its proprietary sennOS platform, and strengthening its network density to deliver faster, more sustainable, and cost-efficient logistics across the continent.
Freddie
Company Specialist at Welcome to the Jungle
Insights
-4% employee growth in 12 months
Company
Funding (last 2 of 6 rounds)
Dec 2022
$63.5m
LATE VC
May 2021
$80m
SERIES D
Total funding: $386.1m
Company HQ
Tiergarten, Berlin, Germany
Leadership
Julius Koehler
(Co-Founder & Managing Director)Julius began their career in logistics, working for the likes of Daimler, Roland Berger and McKinsey. They were also Senior Director of Business Development at WatchMaster.
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