General Manager, Data Science

Location: AU: Melbourne: (260 Burwood Rd) Workplace: Hybrid At Xero, we’re here to supercharge small businesses. By making small business more efficient every day, connecting them with big business technology and empowering a community behind them, their potential is limitless. When that happens, we’re not only helping small business, we’ll be building a stronger economy that can change the world.At Xero, we’re here to supercharge small businesses. By making small business more efficient every day, connecting them with big business technology and empowering a community behind them, their potential is limitless. When that happens, we’re not only helping small business, we’ll be building a stronger economy that can change the world. THE ROLE & TEAM Product Data Science & Engineering is a portfolio team within Product & Technology. Partnering across Product, Engineering, Design, Marketing, and Commercial leadership, we set Xero’s data science strategy across broad product areas and operate in an AI-native way—using AI to transform how we work, not just what we ship. The team co-own Xero's metrics stack, experimentation strategy, and enterprise data architecture and builds AI-powered customer experiences including the Jax chatbot and agentic workflows—in partnership with Anthropic, OpenAI, and Google. They also lead AI measurement and productionisation. We work in an AI-native way. That means AI changes how data science itself gets done here, not just what we ship. This is a new strategic leadership role created to scale Xero's data science and AI capabilities. You will take full ownership of the data science, analytics, ML, and AI strategy and execution across Accounting & Bookkeeping, Small Business, and AI products. This role combines strategic product vision (including Jax, agentic workflows, and AI-powered features) with platform thinking across the metrics stack, experimentation, data quality, and governance, driving enterprise-level impact across every product team. WHAT YOU’LL DO - You will translate company-level objectives into strategic sub-objectives across analytics, ML, AI products, and experimentation, elevating both the quality of decisions and the leverage Xero gains from its data and AI investments. - Lead, mentor, and grow a team of data scientists, analytics engineers, ML engineers, and managers, scaling the function from ~12 to ~30. - Design team structures and operating models that preserve high throughput across multiple locations and time zones. - Operate as an AI-native leader, driving how AI changes how data science operates and ships value across Xero. - Act as the primary data partner to Product & Technology, advising C-suite and SLT on data utilization, retention strategy, new data domains, and AI investment decisions. - Represent data science in executive forums and partner with Product, Engineering, Design, Marketing, Commercial, Legal, Privacy and Risk on strategy, prioritisation and governance. - Own AI governance, model risk, data quality, privacy posture, and experimentation integrity across the portfolio, ensuring company-wide compliance and integrity. - Drive behavioral, technical, and cultural standards across the vertical. Own and improve global hiring practices, build talent maps, and coach senior leaders and individual contributors to raise the bar across Xero. - Proactively identify delivery and strategic risks, designing robust organizational processes that yield consistent, high-quality outcomes for Xero. WHAT YOU’LL BRING WITH YOU We welcome candidates from analyst, scientist, engineer, or AI/ML-focused backgrounds—a linear data science career is not required. What matters most is that you have operated, shipped, and led at scale within a fast-paced technology environment. As a self-starter and executive partner, you will shape and lead strategic agendas alongside C-suite and senior leadership, driving throughput across multi-location, global teams. You excel at bringing structure to complex cross-functional challenges, managing ambiguity, and maintaining a strong "Xero-first" mindset focused on delivering strategic value and accountable execution. - Ability to act as a proactive self-starter and executive partner, shaping strategic agendas with C-suite and SLT, presenting to board-level leadership, and influencing key investment decisions. - Proven ability to manage ambiguity, bring structure to complex cross-functional challenges, sustain throughput across multi-timezone teams, and hold stakeholders accountable to a "Xero-first" standard. - Skilled in leading managers, coaching leaders into senior roles, developing high-performing teams, and constructively escalating strategic risks when necessary. - Experienced in navigating teams through significant scale-ups, operating model transformations, and continuous evolution in fast-paced environments. - Practical experience leveraging frontier-model platforms (e.g., Anthropic, OpenAI, Google) to build agentic workflows, chatbots, and AI-powered products, as well as transforming team operating models using AI workflows. - Substantial experience leading data science, ML, or analytics functions, with a proven track record of managing other people leaders across multi-team structures. - Extensive experience building and running enterprise-scale data science functions, AI/ML productionisation, AI governance, model risk frameworks, and experimentation integrity. - Deep technical fluency across applied ML, analytics engineering, instrumentation, eventing, and schema governance, with a strong engineering mindset focused on building scalable platforms and reusable architectures. - Prior exposure to SaaS or small business segments, with a track record of driving scale, data quality, and privacy compliance. - Technical bachelor's or master's degree (PhDs welcome for applied, high-impact organizational challenges), supported by public thought leadership or open-source contributions in data or AI. WHERE AND HOW YOU CAN WORK This role is based in Sydney or Melbourne with a flexible hybrid working setup, spending 1 to 2 days per week in the local office to connect and collaborate. Apply even if your experience isn't a perfect match! At Xero, we hire based on your skills, passion, and the unique perspective you can bring to enhance our culture and team.