AI Product Readiness Program Manager - VP

AI Product Readiness Program Manager

Role Purpose

Lead cross-functional product readiness and delivery activities for strategic AI initiatives across CRD. Partner with Product, Engineering, Architecture, Release Management, Operations, and Business stakeholders to ensure AI capabilities are planned, delivered, deployed, and adopted successfully. Drive alignment across programs, manage dependencies, and establish operational readiness for production deployment and client consumption.

Key Responsibilities

• Own end-to-end readiness and delivery coordination for AI-related initiatives from planning through production deployment.
• Partner with Product Managers, Engineering teams, and Architects to manage the delivery of AI-powered capabilities, including GenAI, Copilot, agentic workflow, and intelligent automation solutions.
• Coordinate release planning, deployment activities, and go-live readiness across multiple products and platforms.
• Drive cross-program dependency management and roadmap alignment across CRIMS, NextGen (NG), ADP, and related strategic initiatives.
• Establish and maintain AI program governance, including status reporting, executive communications, risk tracking, and issue escalation.
• Lead capacity planning, release planning, and prioritization activities to support AI strategic objectives.
• Ensure readiness activities are fully integrated into the Product Development Lifecycle (PDLC) and Software Development Lifecycle (SDLC).
• Coordinate solution scoping, execution planning, testing readiness, deployment readiness, and post-launch support activities.
• Partner with Release Management and Operations teams to ensure operational, support, training, compliance, and deployment readiness requirements are met.
• Drive Jira adoption, dependency tracking, milestone management, and execution transparency across teams.
• Facilitate governance meetings, program reviews, and cross-functional working sessions.
• Build and maintain program dashboards, reporting, Confluence documentation, and executive-level status communications.
• Identify, assess, and proactively manage delivery risks, resource constraints, and cross-team dependencies.
• Work directly with Agile and Scrum teams to align delivery schedules, release commitments, and business priorities.

Required Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree or equivalent experience.
• 10+ years of experience in Product Management, Program Management, Product Readiness, Delivery Management, or related leadership roles.
• Strong experience leading complex, cross-functional technology initiatives in enterprise software or financial services environments.
• Demonstrated ability to drive execution across matrixed organizations and multiple stakeholder groups.
• Expertise in program governance, risk management, dependency management, and executive communications.
• Strong knowledge of Agile development methodologies, Jira, Confluence, and software delivery practices.
• Excellent communication, facilitation, and stakeholder management skills.

Preferred Qualifications

• 3+ years of experience working with AI/ML, GenAI, Copilot, intelligent automation, or data-driven product capabilities from concept through production deployment.
• Strong understanding of modern AI technologies, including Large Language Models (LLMs), Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG), prompt engineering, model evaluation, AI governance, and Responsible AI principles.
• Experience partnering with Engineering, Architecture, UX, Data Science, Compliance, Security, and Go-to-Market teams to deliver enterprise AI solutions.
• Financial services and investment management domain expertise, including areas such as portfolio management, trading, investment operations, reconciliations, corporate actions, performance measurement and attribution, derivatives, bank loans, or collateral management.
• Experience leading large-scale platform, transformation, or modernization initiatives.
• Lean Six Sigma, PMP, Agile, or related program management certifications preferred.

Salary Range $110,000 - $188,750 Annual

The range quoted above applies to the role in the primary location specified. If the candidate would ultimately work outside of the primary location above, the applicable range could differ.

*Employees are eligible to participate in State Street’s comprehensive benefits program, which includes: our retirement savings plan (401K) with company match; insurance …