Executive Director of Applied AI

Band

Level 7

Job Description Summary

Location: Cambridge or East Hanover
#LI-Hybrid 3 days/week in office
Internal Job Title: The Executive Director, Applied AI Lead

Novartis is making a significant long-term investment in becoming an AI-first organization, with sponsorship at the highest levels of the company. This is a rare opportunity to shape how generative AI and agentic systems are engineered, deployed and adopted across a global enterprise whose work ultimately supports patients and healthcare systems worldwide. As Executive Director of Applied AI, you will combine technical depth, product thinking and enterprise influence to turn high-value business challenges into secure, scalable AI products and intelligent workflows. You will lead a small, globally distributed team of applied AI engineers and work directly with senior business and technology leaders to deliver measurable value at scale.

Job Description

Key Responsibilities

• Define and lead the applied AI deployment strategy, execution roadmap and business integration model across enterprise business units.

• Act as a forward-deployed AI engineering leader, partnering directly with business teams to translate strategic priorities into deployable products, intelligent workflows and redesigned processes.

• Lead technical solution architecture for specific complex AI deployments, partnering with IT to make hands-on decisions on application architecture, system integration patterns, model orchestration, APIs, security controls and production infrastructure.

• Lead end-to-end implementation, customization, integration and scaling of generative AI, agentic systems and workflow automation solutions in production environments.

• Build, lead and coach a small, globally distributed team of forward deployed AI engineers, establishing engineering excellence.

• Establish delivery frameworks and engineering standards that support scalability, reliability, security, maintainability and sustained operational adoption in partnership with IT.

• Create reusable AI services, accelerators, evaluation frameworks, blueprints and integration patterns that reduce time to value across business domains.

• Partner with data, infrastructure, information security, architecture, compliance and business teams to align solutions with enterprise priorities and regulated-environment requirements.

• Track solution performance, adoption and business value through monitoring, feedback loops, user analysis and continuous service optimization.

• Guide modernization of existing systems and processes so they can integrate with agentic AI products, applied AI models and enterprise technology platforms.

• Communicate business impact, technical transformation vision, delivery progress, risks and investment needs to senior executives and key stakeholders.

Essential Requirements

• Bachelor’s degree in computer science, engineering, data science or a related field.

• At least 15 years of progressive experience in technology leadership, enterprise AI transformation or complex solution delivery, including leadership of senior technical and cross-functional teams.

• Deep, hands-on expertise in applied AI delivery, including taking machine learning, generative AI and agentic solutions from concept through production and enterprise-scale adoption.

• Strong software and product engineering grounding, with experience integrating AI into complex enterprise platforms, data environments and operational workflows.

• Hands-on proficiency with modern AI engineering stacks, including Python, cloud platforms (e.g., AWS), LLM orchestration frameworks, vector databases, MLOps/LLMOps and software delivery practices.

• Demonstrated success defining and scaling enterprise-level AI initiatives, with measurable business value, automation or performance outcomes.

• Experience leading forward deployed, solutions engineering or technical consulting teams, translating ambiguous business problems into production-grade software systems in enterprise environments.

• Consulting or professional-services experience partnering with senior technology and business leaders on enterprise transformation, operating models or technology strategy.

• Proven people leadership and organizational development capability, including building high-performing teams, developing leaders and establishing effective governance.

• Strong executive communication and cross-functional influence skills, …