Senior Level AI Transformation Lead Jobs
Senior level ai transformation lead jobs place experienced professionals at the center of enterprise-wide AI strategy, where they own program outcomes, set technical direction, and lead the cross-functional teams executing change. Roles concentrate across Technology & Software, Marketing & Advertising, and Food & Beverage, with 50% remote or hybrid availability, and employers like Code and Theory, Lyft, and Mars hiring at this level now.
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Showing 5 of 14+ Senior Level AI Transformation Lead jobs
INTRODUCTION
Sr Manager Growth AI Transformation
Location: Chicago, IL (must be based in, or relocate to, Chicago)
About the Role: This is a newly created senior role at the heart of a large-scale AI transformation agenda within our client's snacking product line. The Sr Manager, Growth AI Transformation will work directly with the Global Head AI Transformation to identify, develop, and scale AI-powered initiatives across the Global Growth function and across regional and local markets worldwide. This is a business role, not a technology role. The ideal candidate is a commercially grounded CPG professional who understands how brands grow through marketing, sales, and consumer insights, and who has used data and AI to accelerate that growth. You will bring enough technical fluency to work credibly alongside engineers, data architects, and platform partners, but you will not build models, write code, or design technical architecture; our technical teams and partners do that. You will be the connective tissue between business ambition and technical execution, orchestrating a broad portfolio of initiatives, managing external partners, and ensuring that what gets built actually lands and creates impact.
KEY RESPONSIBILITIES
1. AI Opportunity Scanning & Industry Intelligence
- Continuously monitor the external AI landscape: tools, platforms, competitor moves, and partner capabilities, to identify where AI can create the most value for our brands and for our Marketing, Sales, and Human Insights teams.
- Translate external signals into opportunity briefs that shape the portfolio roadmap and inform leadership decisions.
- Maintain a point of view on where the industry is heading, ensuring the team's pipeline stays ahead of the curve rather than catching up to it.
2. Portfolio Orchestration & Prioritization
- Grow and manage a mixed portfolio of AI initiatives, including flagship engines and smaller rapid experiments, ensuring appropriate rigor at each stage of development.
- Inform strategic direction of initiatives to support AI transformation and building of new capabilities; identify and manage interdependencies with enterprise-wide AI plays (e.g. Gemini Enterprise, ODAI, Tech-fueled sales); identify AI risks and implement guardrails; orchestrate across workstreams to drive efficiencies; and ensure a seamless end-to-end user experience across initiatives.
- Identify and facilitate escalations and decision-points to and from cross-functional implementation teams and leadership to ensure that timely, informed, evidence-based prioritization decisions are made across competing demands and transformed into tangible next steps.
3. Business Case Development & Stakeholder Alignment
- Lead the structuring and articulation of business cases for new AI initiatives, working in close partnership with Digital, ODDA, Finance & Analytics, and other functions to source funding, to model and measure ROI.
- Own the narrative, translating technical possibilities and data inputs into compelling proposals that secure senior approval and budget.
- Build and maintain strong relationships with stakeholders across the Global Growth function and in regional markets, and lead discussions in key leadership forums.
4. Agile Delivery Oversight & External Partner Management
- Act as the strategic manager across rapid/agile delivery teams and external partners (e.g. Writer, Google, Fractal, Publicis).
- Define ways of working, set clear deliverables and accountability structures, and ensure development stays aligned to intended business outcomes.
- Apply sufficient technical fluency to challenge, unblock, and redirect technical and partner teams where needed, without replacing the engineers and data scientists.
5. Scaling, Governance & Change Enablement
- Own the path from pilot to scale for validated initiatives, navigating the varying governance and compliance processes across regions.
- Coordinate deployment prioritization across initiatives and inform the development of training and communication materials in partnership with Capability Building teams.
- Drive adoption by ensuring that what gets built is understood, embraced, and actually used by the teams it's designed for by aligning to growth objectives and through continuous user feedback loops.
BASIC QUALIFICATIONS
- CPG / FMCG background required, ideally in snacking, confectionery, or food & beverage, with hands-on experience in a commercial function (Marketing, Brand, Sales, Revenue Growth Management, or Consumer Insights) or in strategy consulting to those functions.
- 8+ years of experience in commercial strategy, product strategy, or digital/AI transformation roles within complex organizations, including leading data or AI-enabled products that serve commercial teams.
- Demonstrated experience growing a portfolio of advanced analytical products from ideation through to scaling, demonstrating strong ROI delivery.
- Strong business case authorship, the ability to build the 'why this, why now, why us' narrative for senior audiences.
- Demonstrated experience writing contracts, managing and holding accountable external agencies or technology partners.
- Demonstrated experience building cutting-edge advanced analytical capabilities and managing cross-functional teams through a complex organization.
- Technical fluency sufficient to engage credibly with data scientists, architects, engineers, responsible AI board and AI platform teams. This is not a hands-on engineering, AI architecture, or software development role.
- Comfort operating in a broad, fast-moving portfolio, able to switch between strategic thinking and hands-on delivery.
- Outstanding communication and stakeholder management skills across cultures and seniority levels.
KEY ASSUMPTIONS
- Assumes dedicated support from Finance and Data & Analytics for quantitative modelling within business cases.
- Assumes dedicated support from the Data Office for data governance (this role bridges data stewardship within the business; it does not lead).
- Assumes access to project management resource (internal or partner) for delivery coordination on larger initiatives.
- Assumes Digital Technologies and Data Architecture own technical design and infrastructure decisions; this role bridges, not replaces, that expertise.
- Assumes Brand, Human Insights, and Growth Capabilities associates are embedded into initiative teams as subject-matter contributors.
- Assumes external partners are already contracted or in a procurement pipeline; this role manages the work, not the commercial relationship.
INTRODUCTION
Sr Manager Growth AI Transformation
Location: Chicago, IL (must be based in, or relocate to, Chicago)
About the Role: This is a newly created senior role at the heart of a large-scale AI transformation agenda within our client's snacking product line. The Sr Manager, Growth AI Transformation will work directly with the Global Head AI Transformation to identify, develop, and scale AI-powered initiatives across the Global Growth function and across regional and local markets worldwide. This is a business role, not a technology role. The ideal candidate is a commercially grounded CPG professional who understands how brands grow through marketing, sales, and consumer insights, and who has used data and AI to accelerate that growth. You will bring enough technical fluency to work credibly alongside engineers, data architects, and platform partners, but you will not build models, write code, or design technical architecture; our technical teams and partners do that. You will be the connective tissue between business ambition and technical execution, orchestrating a broad portfolio of initiatives, managing external partners, and ensuring that what gets built actually lands and creates impact.
KEY RESPONSIBILITIES
1. AI Opportunity Scanning & Industry Intelligence
- Continuously monitor the external AI landscape: tools, platforms, competitor moves, and partner capabilities, to identify where AI can create the most value for our brands and for our Marketing, Sales, and Human Insights teams.
- Translate external signals into opportunity briefs that shape the portfolio roadmap and inform leadership decisions.
- Maintain a point of view on where the industry is heading, ensuring the team's pipeline stays ahead of the curve rather than catching up to it.
2. Portfolio Orchestration & Prioritization
- Grow and manage a mixed portfolio of AI initiatives, including flagship engines and smaller rapid experiments, ensuring appropriate rigor at each stage of development.
- Inform strategic direction of initiatives to support AI transformation and building of new capabilities; identify and manage interdependencies with enterprise-wide AI plays (e.g. Gemini Enterprise, ODAI, Tech-fueled sales); identify AI risks and implement guardrails; orchestrate across workstreams to drive efficiencies; and ensure a seamless end-to-end user experience across initiatives.
- Identify and facilitate escalations and decision-points to and from cross-functional implementation teams and leadership to ensure that timely, informed, evidence-based prioritization decisions are made across competing demands and transformed into tangible next steps.
3. Business Case Development & Stakeholder Alignment
- Lead the structuring and articulation of business cases for new AI initiatives, working in close partnership with Digital, ODDA, Finance & Analytics, and other functions to source funding, to model and measure ROI.
- Own the narrative, translating technical possibilities and data inputs into compelling proposals that secure senior approval and budget.
- Build and maintain strong relationships with stakeholders across the Global Growth function and in regional markets, and lead discussions in key leadership forums.
4. Agile Delivery Oversight & External Partner Management
- Act as the strategic manager across rapid/agile delivery teams and external partners (e.g. Writer, Google, Fractal, Publicis).
- Define ways of working, set clear deliverables and accountability structures, and ensure development stays aligned to intended business outcomes.
- Apply sufficient technical fluency to challenge, unblock, and redirect technical and partner teams where needed, without replacing the engineers and data scientists.
5. Scaling, Governance & Change Enablement
- Own the path from pilot to scale for validated initiatives, navigating the varying governance and compliance processes across regions.
- Coordinate deployment prioritization across initiatives and inform the development of training and communication materials in partnership with Capability Building teams.
- Drive adoption by ensuring that what gets built is understood, embraced, and actually used by the teams it's designed for by aligning to growth objectives and through continuous user feedback loops.
BASIC QUALIFICATIONS
- CPG / FMCG background required, ideally in snacking, confectionery, or food & beverage, with hands-on experience in a commercial function (Marketing, Brand, Sales, Revenue Growth Management, or Consumer Insights) or in strategy consulting to those functions.
- 8+ years of experience in commercial strategy, product strategy, or digital/AI transformation roles within complex organizations, including leading data or AI-enabled products that serve commercial teams.
- Demonstrated experience growing a portfolio of advanced analytical products from ideation through to scaling, demonstrating strong ROI delivery.
- Strong business case authorship, the ability to build the 'why this, why now, why us' narrative for senior audiences.
- Demonstrated experience writing contracts, managing and holding accountable external agencies or technology partners.
- Demonstrated experience building cutting-edge advanced analytical capabilities and managing cross-functional teams through a complex organization.
- Technical fluency sufficient to engage credibly with data scientists, architects, engineers, responsible AI board and AI platform teams. This is not a hands-on engineering, AI architecture, or software development role.
- Comfort operating in a broad, fast-moving portfolio, able to switch between strategic thinking and hands-on delivery.
- Outstanding communication and stakeholder management skills across cultures and seniority levels.
KEY ASSUMPTIONS
- Assumes dedicated support from Finance and Data & Analytics for quantitative modelling within business cases.
- Assumes dedicated support from the Data Office for data governance (this role bridges data stewardship within the business; it does not lead).
- Assumes access to project management resource (internal or partner) for delivery coordination on larger initiatives.
- Assumes Digital Technologies and Data Architecture own technical design and infrastructure decisions; this role bridges, not replaces, that expertise.
- Assumes Brand, Human Insights, and Growth Capabilities associates are embedded into initiative teams as subject-matter contributors.
- Assumes external partners are already contracted or in a procurement pipeline; this role manages the work, not the commercial relationship.
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Senior Level AI Transformation Lead Jobs: Frequently Asked Questions
How do I get a senior level ai transformation lead job?
Employers at this level look for candidates who have already owned end-to-end AI transformation initiatives, not just contributed to them. A strong portfolio demonstrates measurable business impact, such as productivity gains or cost reductions tied directly to your AI programs. Fluency in change management frameworks alongside technical AI literacy, and a history of aligning executive stakeholders, will give you a clear edge over candidates with only implementation experience.
Which companies hire senior level ai transformation leads?
Companies hiring senior level ai transformation leads right now include Code and Theory, Lyft, and Mars, based on current listings on Migrate Mate as of November 2026. Hiring at this level tends to concentrate in large enterprises and consulting firms that are actively scaling AI adoption across business units and need leaders who can drive that change organizationally, not just technically.
Are there remote senior level ai transformation lead jobs?
Yes, though remote availability at this level is often tied to the employer's overall AI maturity and organizational structure. About 50% of senior level ai transformation lead openings are remote or hybrid as of November 2026, reflecting strong demand from technology and consulting sectors that have embraced distributed leadership models for transformation roles.
What makes an ai transformation lead role senior level?
Senior level ai transformation lead roles are defined by program ownership, strategic scope, and leadership accountability. Where mid-level roles focus on executing defined initiatives, senior roles require setting the AI transformation roadmap, securing executive alignment, managing cross-functional teams or vendor relationships, and mentoring less experienced practitioners. The expectation is that you operate with minimal oversight and are accountable for measurable organizational outcomes.
Which industries hire the most senior level ai transformation leads?
Senior level ai transformation lead roles concentrate in Technology & Software, Marketing & Advertising, and Food & Beverage, based on current listings on Migrate Mate as of November 2026. These sectors drive hiring at this level because they are investing heavily in AI-enabled operating model changes and need experienced leaders who can translate AI capabilities into durable business value at scale.