Director, Data Science

About Gap Inc. At Gap Inc., we create culture as much as we create clothes. Our ambition is to become a high-performing house of iconic American brands that shape culture. Our portfolio—Old Navy, Gap, Banana Republic, and Athleta—each brings a distinct point of view to how we show up in the world and serve our customers. Old Navy democratizes style with quality and value for all. Gap champions originality through essential pieces that celebrate individuality. Banana Republic is rooted in a spirit of discovery, creating modern pieces inspired by craftsmanship and travel. Athleta champions the Power of She through confidence, strength, and movement. We’re driven by a shared purpose: to bridge gaps—between people, perspectives, and possibilities—to create a better world. We’re building a team that performs at a high level—people who think boldly, take ownership, and turn ideas into impact. If you’re ready to learn fast and help shape what’s next, you’ll fit right in. 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…

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