Description
Salary Range:
Salary commensurate with experience and qualifications
About SMU
SMU’s more than 12,000 diverse, high-achieving students come from all 50 states and over 80 countries to take advantage of the University’s small classes, meaningful research opportunities, leadership development, community service, international study and innovative programs.
SMU serves approximately 7,000 undergraduates and 5,000 graduate students through eight degree-granting schools: Dedman College of Humanities and Sciences, Cox School of Business, Lyle School of Engineering, Meadows School of the Arts, Simmons School of Education and Human Development, Dedman School of Law, Perkins School of Theology and Moody School of Graduate and Advanced Studies.
SMU is data driven, and its powerful supercomputing ecosystem – paired with entrepreneurial drive – creates an unrivaled environment for the University to deliver research excellence.
Now in its second century of achievement, SMU is recognized for the ways it supports students, faculty and alumni as they become ethical, enterprising leaders in their professions and communities. SMU’s relationship with Dallas – the dynamic center of one of the nation’s fastest-growing regions – offers unique learning, research, social and career opportunities that provide a launch pad for global impact.
SMU is nonsectarian in its teaching and committed to academic freedom and open inquiry.
About the Department:
Development and External Affairs (DEA) supports SMU by securing funding for University priorities; by promoting meaningful involvement in the life and work of the University; by heightening international, national, state and local awareness of SMU; and by supporting the enrollment of a diverse and able student body.
DEA comprises the offices of Office of the Vice President, Annual Giving and Alumni Relations, Development Services, Program Services and Donor Relations, Marketing and Communications, Principal and Major Gifts, and School and Project Development.
SMU continues to leverage the benefits from the largest fund-raising campaign in its history to achieve dramatic increases in academic quality and impact.
About the Position:
This role is an on-campus, in-person position.
The Director of Reporting and Analytics leads the strategic vision and execution of the reporting and analytics functions in concert with the Vice President of Development Services, directly supporting the objectives of the Development and External Affairs (DEA) division. The Director manages a team of professionals to develop, convert, and maintain the essential reporting suite while ensuring data integrity, consistency, and optimal architecture. By serving as a thought partner for stakeholders, the Director is critical in translating business goals into actionable insights and robust data services, ultimately maximizing the return on investment in data tools and empowering data-driven decision-making across DEA and SMU.
Essential Functions:
Leads, mentors, and develops the team of three analytics professionals. This involves setting clear performance expectations, prioritizing and assigning workloads, and fostering a collaborative environment. This leader's guidance is key to guiding the team through the CRM conversion and empowering them to become experts in the new toolset.
Owns the technical vision and strategic roadmap for the reporting team. This includes evaluating and guiding the use of the entire reporting suite (Salesforce, CRMA, Tableau, and Apsona) to ensure SMU is maximizing its investment. Creates and enforces standards, processes, and structured governance for query tools like Workbench to ensure consistency and accuracy.
Serves as the primary analytics partner and consultant for key stakeholders for Development and External Affairs (DEA) and campus partners. Proactively meets with partners to understand their business goals, translating those goals into technical specifications, and managing the intake process for all new data, report and dashboard requests.
Leads the creation of SMU's essential reports during and following the Salesforce conversion. Manages the entire development lifecycle from scoping and design to build, testing, and deployment ensuring that new data requests and reports are accurate, efficient, and provide enhanced insights. Ensures colleagues understand business decisions and logic behind reporting models.
Oversees the team's operational output, ensuring the timely and accurate fulfillment of ad-hoc data requests, such as mailing lists and metrics. A critical component of this function is designing, implementing, and enforcing a robust quality assurance (QA) process for all data outputs to guarantee data integrity and build stakeholder trust.
Partners closely with the Advancement Applications and Technology Services team to inform and advise on the advancement data architecture, especially within Salesforce. This includes providing an analytics perspective on data flows, object relationships, and the impact of integrations with other third-party solutions to ensure data is structured for optimal reporting and analysis. Other duties as assigned.
Occasional travel for professional conferences, speaking engagements, and/or site visits is required.
Requirements
Education and Experience:
Bachelor’s degree is required. A Master's degree is preferred. Process improvement and project management certifications are preferred.
A minimum of seven years of work experience is required. Experience managing multiple direct reports in a fast-paced, deadline oriented environment is also required. Experience in nonprofit development is desired. Higher education development experience is strongly preferred.
Knowledge, Skills and Abilities:
Candidate must demonstrate strong interpersonal and verbal communication skills, with the ability to communicate broadly across the University and develop and maintain effective relationships with a wide range of constituencies. Must also demonstrate strong written communication skills.
Candidate must possess strong problem-solving skills with the ability to identify and analyze problems, as well as devise solutions. Must also have strong organizational, planning, and time management skills.
Candidate must have strong public speaking and presentation skills necessary to drive adoption of data-driven practices and deliver actionable insights from analytics projects.
Candidate must demonstrate knowledge of data governance standards and relevant regulation, particularly in regard to personally identifiable information (PII).
Candidate must have substantial experience in the management of large scale non-profit CRM software, data analysis tools, and automated business intelligence tools.
Physical and Environmental Demands:
Sit for long periods of time
Deadline to Apply:
The position is open until filled.
Priority consideration may be given to submissions received by January 9, 2026
EEO Statement
SMU is an equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, national origin, sex, age, disability, genetic information, veteran status, sexual orientation, or gender identity and expression.
Benefits:
SMU offers staff a broad, competitive array of health and related benefits. In addition to traditional benefits such as health, dental, and vision plans, SMU offers a wide range of wellness programs to help attract, support, and retain our employees whose work continues to make SMU an outstanding education and research institution.
SMU is committed to providing an array of retirement programs that benefit and protect you and your family throughout your working years at SMU and, if you meet SMU's retirement eligibility criteria, during your retirement years after you leave SMU.
The value of learning at SMU isn't just about preparing our students for the future. Employees have access to a wide variety of professional and personal development opportunities, including tuition benefits.
