Key Responsibilities and Required Skills for Reporting Manager

🎯 Role Definition

The Reporting Manager is the linchpin between raw data and strategic decision-making. This individual leads a team of analysts to design, develop, and maintain a suite of reports and dashboards that provide clear, timely, and actionable insights to stakeholders across the organization. More than just a technical leader, the Reporting Manager is a strategic partner to the business, ensuring that our data narrative accurately reflects performance, highlights opportunities, and drives growth. This role requires a blend of technical expertise, business acumen, and exceptional leadership to build and champion a data-informed culture.

📈 Career Progression

Typical Career Path

Entry Point From:

Senior Business Intelligence Analyst
Lead Data Analyst
Business Intelligence Developer

Advancement To:

Director of Business Intelligence
Senior Manager of Analytics
Head of Data & Analytics

Lateral Moves:

Data Science Manager
Analytics Engineering Manager

Core Responsibilities

Primary Functions

Lead, mentor, and develop a high-performing team of reporting analysts and BI developers, fostering a culture of continuous improvement, data curiosity, and technical excellence.
Oversee the entire reporting lifecycle, from initial stakeholder consultation and requirements gathering to data modeling, dashboard development, UAT, and final deployment.
Partner with executive leadership and department heads to define key performance indicators (KPIs) and metrics that align with strategic business objectives and operational needs.
Architect and implement scalable and efficient reporting solutions using BI platforms like Power BI, Tableau, or Looker, ensuring optimal performance and user experience.
Govern the organization's portfolio of standard reports and dashboards, ensuring data accuracy, consistency, and reliability through robust data validation processes.
Drive the strategy for self-service analytics, empowering business users with the tools and training needed to explore data and answer their own questions independently.
Translate complex business questions into technical requirements and analytical frameworks for the reporting team to execute against.
Champion data literacy across the organization by presenting findings, leading training sessions, and promoting the value of data-driven decision-making.
Manage the reporting team's project pipeline, prioritizing requests based on business impact and resource availability, and communicating timelines effectively to stakeholders.
Establish and enforce best practices for report design, data visualization, and dashboard interactivity to ensure clarity and ease of use.
Collaborate closely with Data Engineering and IT teams to ensure the data warehouse and underlying data models support the needs of enterprise reporting.
Conduct deep-dive analyses to uncover trends, patterns, and insights that can inform business strategy, operational improvements, and new growth opportunities.
Prepare and present regular performance summaries and insight-driven narratives to senior leadership and executive committees.
Proactively monitor key business metrics and performance trends, identifying anomalies and initiating investigations to understand the root cause.
Stay current with industry trends and advancements in business intelligence, analytics, and data visualization technologies to drive innovation within the team.
Standardize data definitions and metric calculations across the enterprise to create a "single source of truth" for all business reporting.
Develop and maintain comprehensive documentation for all reporting assets, including data sources, logic, and metric definitions.
Manage relationships with software vendors and consultants to optimize the use of our BI tools and platforms.

Secondary Functions

Support ad-hoc data requests and exploratory data analysis from various business units.
Contribute to the organization's broader data strategy and long-term analytics roadmap.
Collaborate with business units to translate their evolving data needs into engineering and development requirements.
Participate in sprint planning, retrospectives, and other agile ceremonies within the larger data and analytics team.

Required Skills & Competencies

Hard Skills (Technical)

Advanced proficiency in SQL for complex data querying, data manipulation, and performance tuning across various database systems.
Expert-level knowledge of at least one major BI visualization platform (e.g., Power BI, Tableau, Looker), including advanced data modeling (DAX, dataflows) and visualization techniques.
Strong understanding of data warehousing concepts, dimensional modeling (star schema), and ETL/ELT processes.
Experience with cloud data warehouse technologies such as Snowflake, Google BigQuery, or Amazon Redshift.
Familiarity with data governance principles and tools for maintaining data quality, security, and lineage.
Foundational knowledge of a programming language for data analysis, such as Python (with Pandas, Matplotlib) or R, is highly advantageous.

Soft Skills

Exceptional stakeholder management and communication skills, with a proven ability to translate complex technical concepts into clear business terms for non-technical audiences.
Proven leadership and team management abilities, with direct experience in mentoring, coaching, and developing the careers of data professionals.
Strong business acumen and a strategic mindset, capable of connecting data insights to tangible business outcomes and company objectives.
Excellent problem-solving and critical-thinking skills, with a keen eye for detail and an unwavering commitment to data accuracy.
Robust project management skills, demonstrating the ability to manage multiple concurrent projects, prioritize tasks effectively, and deliver on deadlines in a fast-paced environment.
A highly collaborative and influential personality, able to build strong cross-functional relationships and drive consensus among diverse groups.

Education & Experience

Educational Background

Minimum Education:

Bachelor's Degree

Preferred Education:

Master's Degree

Relevant Fields of Study:

Computer Science, Information Systems
Business Analytics, Statistics, Economics

Experience Requirements

Typical Experience Range: 7-10+ years of progressive experience in business intelligence, data analysis, or a related field, with at least 3-4 years in a people management or team leadership capacity.

Preferred: Experience in a fast-growing tech, SaaS, or e-commerce environment is a significant plus, as is a proven track record of building a reporting function or leading a major transformation of an existing one.