Senior Director, AI/ML

Position Overview We are seeking a Senior Director of AI/ML to champion the enterprise AI vision and drive the strategic scaling of our intelligence capabilities across a $30B supply chain and retail footprint. In this high-impact executive role, you will own the strategic roadmap, governance, and business-value realization of our next-generation AI portfolio, spanning wholesale distribution, retail merchandising, supply chain operations, and digital commerce. You will serve as the chief bridge between enterprise business strategy and advanced engineering, transforming a multi-hundred-million-dollar AI value portfolio into sustainable, competitive advantages.

As a visionary leader, you will oversee the strategic evolution of our cutting-edge Agentic AI platform and Google Cloud (BigQuery/Vertex AI) Medallion data foundation. You will partner dynamically with executive stakeholders across merchandising, logistics, store operations, and finance to embed AI natively into business workflows. Leading through influence and direct mentorship, you will inspire and cultivate high-performing, cross-functional delivery teams across our onshore organization, Global Capability Centers (GCC), and strategic external AI partners

Job Description Strategic Context

• Enterprise scale: Wholesale grocery distribution, ~400 owned retail stores, ~190 corporate stores in a recently integrated subsidiary, plus thousands of independent retail customers and a military commissary channel.
• Stack reality: Two-plane architecture (Microsoft and Google Cloud) with BigQuery + Vertex AI as the AI/ML core, LangGraph orchestration for agent workflows, MCP / A2A / ACP / ANP agent protocols in active use, and a Medallion data model under unified governance.
• Portfolio: Run / Grow / Monetize operating model with ~100 prioritized AI use cases, a domain-pod delivery model (Supply Chain, Merchandising, Store Ops, Digital Commerce, Finance), and an 18-month independence target from external delivery partners.

Key Responsibilities

Strategy & Architectural Governance

• Enterprise AI Strategy & Architecture: Define, govern, and own the end-to-end enterprise AI/ML reference architecture, ensuring seamless interoperability across Google Cloud (Vertex AI/BigQuery), Microsoft, and legacy ecosystems to power a $30B multi-banner operation.
• Next-Gen Agentic Frameworks: Orchestrate the strategic roadmap for agentic AI and multi-protocol interoperability, enabling secure, autonomous decision-making paradigms across core retail execution, supply chain, and warehouse systems.
• Core Systems Integration Strategy: Establish enterprise-level integration patterns to natively embed AI services into foundational business platforms, including ERP (Oracle Fusion), merchandising (SymphonyAI, Revionics, DemandTec), WMS, TMS, and PIM systems.
• Model Lifecycle & Optimization Standards: Set corporate standards for LLM selection, RAG vs. fine-tuning frameworks, and knowledge graph patterns to optimize model efficacy while controlling compute overhead.
• Capital Allocation & Gatekeeping: Chair the AI Architecture Review Board and Pre-Evaluation Gates for all new AI initiatives, translating complex technical trade-offs into business-risk records and production-readiness benchmarks for executive alignment.

Platform Strategy, MLOps & AI FinOps

• Scalable MLOps/LLMOps Governance: Oversee the evolution of enterprise MLOps and LLMOps capabilities, ensuring robust guardrails, automated CI/CD for prompts/models, and real-time drift and quality monitoring are standardized across all delivery tracks.
• AI-Accelerated Engineering Strategy: Define the AI-centric Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC) strategy, driving the secure, compliant adoption of autonomous developer tools and next-gen coding environments to boost enterprise engineering velocity.
• AI FinOps & Economic Modeling: Partner with platform engineering and corporate finance to architect enterprise AI cost models—optimizing token consumption, inference routing, and reserved capacity to ensure clear ROI and sustainable FinOps at scale.

Enterprise Governance, Risk & Compliance

• Cross-Functional AI Governance: Co-lead the Enterprise AI Governance Committee alongside Legal, Privacy, and Information Security to manage model risk classification, bias mitigation, IP protection, and data leakage controls.
• **Algorithmic Compliance & Risk Mitigation…