Director of Data Analytics & AI

Location: Redwood City, CA

Department: IT/Business Systems

Summary of Job (brief description)

The Director of Data Analytics & AI will be a senior leader responsible for building and scaling Soleno’s data and AI capabilities across the enterprise. This role will ensure that the right information reaches the right stakeholders at the right time, with data that is curated, harmonized, trusted, and decision-ready.

This leader will act as a strategic business partner across Research, Development, CMC, TechOps, Commercial, Medical Affairs, Finance, People, Legal, Compliance, and Security functions—integrating data across these domains to generate actionable, outcome-driven insights.

The role combines strategic vision, deep technical expertise, strong governance discipline, and hands-on execution, enabling Soleno to responsibly leverage advanced analytics and AI in a highly regulated environment.

Responsibilities

Enterprise Data & Analytics Strategy

• Define and execute Soleno’s enterprise data, analytics, and AI strategy aligned with corporate objectives for commercial growth, pipeline expansion, and operational excellence.
• Drive the implementation of a single source of truth for critical enterprise data spanning R&D, CMC, TechOps, Commercial, Medical Affairs, and G&A functions (HR, Finance, Legal).
• Partner with business leaders to identify, scope, prioritize, and deliver high-impact, outcome-driven analytics and AI use cases.

Business Partnership & Insight Generation

• Serve as a trusted advisor to functional leaders, translating business questions into data and analytics solutions.
• Design and deliver executive-ready dashboards, reports, and self-service analytics for operational, clinical, commercial, and financial reporting.
• Enable timely, data-driven decision-making through harmonized metrics, KPIs, and insight frameworks.

AI & Advanced Analytics Leadership

• Lead the responsible adoption of AI and advanced analytics across Soleno, including predictive analytics, machine learning, and generative AI use cases.
• Demonstrate strong understanding of AI/ML models, model performance, efficiency, and algorithm explainability.
• Establish best practices for prompt engineering, AI usage training, and model governance to ensure safe, effective adoption.
• Partner with Legal, Compliance, and Security teams to ensure AI solutions meet regulatory and ethical standards.

Data Architecture & Engineering

• Oversee the design, implementation, and evolution of modern data architectures, including data warehouses, data lakes, and data pipelines.
• Ensure scalable, reliable, and high-performance data platforms in collaboration with Infrastructure and IT teams.
• Evaluate, select, and optimize data management, analytics, and AI technologies and tools.

Governance, Compliance & Trust

• Establish and enforce enterprise data governance policies, standards, and best practices.
• Ensure strict compliance with applicable healthcare and life sciences regulations, including FDA regulations, GxP, HIPAA, and global privacy standards such as GDPR and CCPA.
• Partner with Security and Compliance teams to embed data protection, access controls, lineage, and auditability into all data and AI solutions.
• Build organizational trust in data through quality, transparency, and accountability.

Cloud, Security & Cost Optimization

• Demonstrate strong understanding of cloud architecture, security best practices, and cost optimization strategies.
• Lead data platform implementations across Azure and AWS environments.
• Ensure efficient use of cloud resources while maintaining performance, reliability, and regulatory compliance.

Leadership & Team Development

• Build, mentor, and lead a high-performing data, analytics, and AI team.
• Foster a culture of collaboration, innovation, accountability, and continuous improvement.
• Promote data literacy and analytics adoption across the organization.

Qualifications

Education

• Bachelor’s degree in computer science, Data Science, Information Systems, or a related field.
• Master’s degree or PhD preferred.

Experience

• 10+ years of progressive experience in data strategy, data architecture, analytics, or related fields.
• At least 5 years of leadership experience managing teams and enterprise-scale initiatives.
• Prior experience in biotech, pharmaceutical, healthcare, or life sciences environments strongly preferred.
• Demonstrated experience working with regulated data, including clinical, patient, and commercial healthcare data.

Technical Expertise

• Proven expertise in designing and managing modern data platforms and architectures.
• Hands-on experience with cloud-based data ecosystems such as AWS, Azure, Databricks, and Snowflake.
• Strong knowledge of data warehousing, data lakes, data integration/ETL tools, and big data processing frameworks.
• Experience with analytics, BI, and visualization tools such as Tableau, Power BI, and programmatic analytics using Python and/or R.
• Working knowledge of AI/ML frameworks and applied analytics techniques.

Leadership & Personal Attributes

• Exceptional ability to understand complex business domains and integrate cross-functional data into meaningful insights.
• Strong business partnership mindset with the ability to influence, prioritize, and deliver results.
• Clear communicator capable of engaging executive, technical, and non-technical stakeholders.
• High integrity, strong judgment, and comfort operating in a regulated environment.
• Passion for using data and AI to improve patient outcomes and business performance.

Salary Range: $220,000-$250,000

(Actual salary at the time of hire may vary and may be above or below the range based on various factors, including, but not limited to, the candidate’s relevant qualifications, skills, and experience, as well as the location where this position may be filled.)

About the Company

About Soleno Therapeutics Inc

Soleno is a biopharmaceutical company focused on the development and commercialization of novel therapeutics for the treatment of rare diseases based in Redwood City, CA.

At Soleno, we are driven by the unique and multi-faceted needs of the PWS community. Like these individuals, resilience is part of who we are – it is in our chromosomes – and our team is made up of exceptional colleagues whose collective efforts are woven together to deliver meaningful outcomes, both professionally and for those living with PWS. 

We value collaboration, integrity, and respect. These characteristics have allowed us to forge strong, authentic bonds with the caregivers, patients, health care professionals (HCPs) and community members we serve. We are proud to work alongside them every step of the way. 

Our employees are our greatest asset, and we're expanding across functions during this pivotal time. We invite you to join us in making an impact—and making history.We all share the most important goal of bringing solutions to the PWS community.