Director, Data Science

About the Role

In this role, you lead a cross-functional Data Science team responsible for building and deploying AI and ML solutions that drive measurable business impact across Gap Inc. brands. You combine strong domain expertise with a people-first leadership approach — setting a high bar for analytical rigor, model quality, and stakeholder partnership, while creating an environment where Data Scientists can do their best work. A particular focus of this role is Optimization: you will lead efforts to apply optimization techniques across assortment, inventory, allocation, pricing, and supply chain problems, ensuring that DS solutions move the business from insight to action at scale. You are a trusted strategic partner to senior business and technology leaders, and you hold your team accountable for delivering with urgency, precision, and commercial impact.

What You'll Do

Business Leadership & Strategic Alignment

• Lead the team with strong domain knowledge — understanding business goals, challenges, and key metrics — and align DS projects with organizational strategies to meet stakeholder needs and deliver impactful solutions

• Establish a culture of rigorous measurement, leading the team to consistently provide data-driven insights through impactful, scalable, and maintainable solutions

• Align team deliverables and workstreams to the most pressing business needs in line with broader Data Science initiatives and Gap Inc. Strategic Priorities

• Foster a learning atmosphere where team members actively research retail industry, macro-economic, and consumer trends that impact Gap Inc.'s position in the marketplace

• Proactively identify business opportunities and risks based on data and industry trends, surfacing call-outs to brand and GTS leaders with recommended courses of action

Optimization Capability Leadership

• Lead the design, development, and deployment of optimization models across core retail functions — including assortment planning, inventory allocation, replenishment, pricing, and supply chain — translating complex operational constraints into tractable, production-ready solutions

• Guide the team in selecting and applying appropriate optimization approaches (linear programming, mixed-integer programming, heuristic and metaheuristic methods, stochastic optimization) based on problem structure, data availability, and business constraints

• Establish best practices for optimization model evaluation, scenario analysis, and sensitivity testing to ensure solutions are robust, interpretable, and actionable by business decision-makers

• Partner with Merchandising, Inventory Planning, Sourcing, and Pricing teams to translate business objectives and operational trade-offs into well-defined optimization problem statements

• Drive adoption of optimization outputs by designing clear interfaces between model recommendations and human decision workflows, ensuring that business users can interrogate, override, and trust the solutions

People Leadership & Team Development

• Provide coaching and guidance on both technical and communication skills, helping direct reports effectively influence stakeholders including peers, business partners, and cross-functional leaders

• Communicate effectively across technical and non-technical teams, presenting complex DS insights in a clear and concise manner appropriate to the audience

• Anticipate potential obstacles or stakeholder resistance and adjust team approach accordingly to ensure deliverables are met on time and to standard

• Hold the team accountable for hitting deliverables with a sense of urgency and efficiency, while maintaining a culture of psychological safety and continuous learning

• Role model strategic partnership within GTS and across the brands, creating strong cross-functional relationships and promoting a one-team approach to problem solving

Analytical Rigor & Technical Standards

• Guide the team in developing data-driven solutions for complex business problems, proactively removing obstacles for the team to achieve milestone deadlines

• Ensure the team administers rigorous testing methodologies — including A/B tests, holdout groups, and causal measurement approaches — to produce accurate, unbiased, and business-aligned insights

• Guide the team through large-scale data projects using the right technical tools and languages, ensuring outputs align with business goals and engineering standards

• Effectively prioritize multiple concurrent projects to align with business priorities, timelines, and budgetary constraints

• Cultivate a learning environment where team members share and adapt research, modeling techniques, and analytical methods to drive measurable improvements

• Act as a role model for trusted, strategic partnership — guiding the team to establish credibility across the company as go-to experts in DS and optimization

Who You Are

• 7+ years of experience in Data Science, Analytics, or a closely related quantitative field, with at least 2 years in a people leadership role managing a team of Data Scientists or Analysts

• Demonstrated expertise in optimization methods and their applied use in retail or consumer goods contexts — including experience with operations research techniques, constraint-based modeling, and decision-support systems

• Strong proficiency in Python and SQL; hands-on experience with optimization libraries (e.g., PuLP, OR-Tools, Gurobi, CPLEX, SciPy) and ML frameworks; familiarity with cloud-based data and compute platforms (e.g., GCP, Databricks, Snowflake)

• Proven track record of delivering production-grade DS or optimization solutions in a retail, e-commerce, or supply chain environment — from problem framing through deployment and adoption

• Strong ability to communicate complex quantitative findings to non-technical business audiences; demonstrated skill in structuring executive-ready presentations and influencing senior stakeholders

• Experience managing multiple workstreams simultaneously with clear prioritization, milestone tracking, and stakeholder communication

• Fluency in causal inference and experimentation (A/B testing, DiD, Synthetic Control) with the ability to design measurement frameworks that isolate the impact of DS model recommendations

• Familiarity with retail business processes — particularly Merchandising, Inventory Planning, Allocation, Pricing, or Sourcing — and an understanding of how DS and optimization capabilities create commercial value in each domain

• Embodies Gap Inc. Values-Based Leadership Behaviors: Centers on the Customer, Creates with Curiosity, Collaborates with Candor, and Champions Excellence

• Strong people manager: demonstrated ability to coach, develop, and retain top DS talent; comfortable giving direct feedback and navigating performance conversations with care and clarity