Lead AI and Automation

This position is listed on behalf of a partner company, who manages all applications and next steps. Our partner is looking for a Lead AI and Automation based in Canada. This leadership role will establish and drive an enterprise-wide capability for artificial intelligence, intelligent automation, and digitally enabled process improvement. You’ll work closely with senior leadership and teams across operations, maintenance, engineering, supply chain, finance, safety, quality, HR, cybersecurity, and corporate services. The role combines strategy, governance, architecture, hands-on delivery, adoption, and measurable value realization. You’ll identify high-value opportunities and turn them into secure, scalable production solutions that improve efficiency, decision-making, compliance, and operational performance. Because the environment includes aviation and defense-related operations, you’ll balance innovation with rigorous requirements around safety, security, privacy, data integrity, and regulatory compliance. You’ll also build reusable platforms, governance practices, and AI literacy programs that enable responsible innovation across the organization. This is an opportunity to shape a growing AI and automation function while delivering tangible impact across a complex, highly regulated business. Accountabilities - Partner with the CIO and executive leadership to develop and execute a multi-year AI and intelligent automation strategy aligned with business priorities, enterprise architecture, cybersecurity, and investment plans. - Establish and manage an enterprise portfolio covering generative AI, machine learning, AI agents, robotic process automation, workflow automation, process mining, intelligent document processing, and related opportunities. - Create consistent frameworks for evaluating and prioritizing initiatives based on business value, risk, feasibility, data readiness, security, scalability, adoption requirements, and total cost of ownership. - Identify manual, repetitive, error-prone, and information-intensive processes and redesign them before determining the appropriate automation approach.

- Establish transparent processes covering opportunity intake, assessment, prioritization, proof of concept, production deployment, support, continuous improvement, and retirement. - Define business ownership, performance baselines, target outcomes, controls, adoption plans, and benefits measurement for approved initiatives. - Lead the design, development, testing, deployment, monitoring, support, and ongoing optimization of production AI and automation solutions. - Determine when solutions should be built internally, configured on strategic platforms, or sourced from specialized technology and consulting partners. - Establish standards for APIs, integrations, reusable components, prompt and model management, testing, observability, exception handling, documentation, change control, recovery, and service ownership. - Manage delivery roadmaps, budgets, vendors, licenses, service levels, risks, dependencies, and benefits realization. - Develop responsible AI governance, including risk classifications, approval authorities, AI-system inventories, human oversight, transparency, traceability, data provenance, auditability, access controls, and testing requirements. - Partner with cybersecurity, legal, privacy, export compliance, quality, safety, and program-security teams to manage AI and automation risks involving sensitive, proprietary, personal, customer, technical, or regulated information. - Define appropriate controls for applicable Canadian and U. S. defense, privacy, cybersecurity, export-control, and controlled-goods requirements. - Establish architecture patterns for generative AI, machine learning, RPA, workflow automation, process mining, conversational assistants, and AI agents.