The Role

We are seeking an AI Operations Director, to serve as a strategic operator for the AI Office, helping translate Lumen's AI ambition into clear priorities, operating mechanisms, executive alignment, and measurable enterprise impact. Reporting to the Chief AI Officer, this role will run the AI Office operating system - connecting strategy, portfolio discipline, governance forums, executive communications, stakeholder alignment, and follow-through across the enterprise AI ecosystem. This person will help ensure the organization is focused on the right priorities, decisions are made with clarity and speed, and leaders have the visibility needed to accelerate value realization.

Working closely with AI strategy, technology, and business stakeholders, this person will bring structure to complexity, improve transparency across the portfolio, and accelerate value realization across the portfolio. They will also ensure the execution model is clear and effective so the organization can move with speed, focus, and alignment.

This is a high-impact role connecting strategy to results through structure, governance, and operating cadence. We need a strategic thinker and versatile operator who can move fluidly between executive narrative, decision framing, portfolio orchestration and insight, operating cadence, stakeholder alignment, and execution discipline.

The Main Responsibilities

• Partner closely with the Chief AI Officer to translate strategy into clear priorities, operating mechanisms, action plans, and executive narratives
• Serve as a strategic thought partner on where to invest, scale, pause, or stop across the AI portfolio
• Identify emerging gaps, risks, and opportunities across the AI ecosystem, and proactively drive the work needed to maintain clarity, momentum, and impact
• Support the AI Office as an enterprise leadership function, ensuring strategy, portfolio, governance, communications and execution stay connected
• Maintain a clear enterprise view of AI initiatives, including ownership, maturity, dependencies, sequencing considerations, execution risk, and value potential
• Ensure consistency in how initiatives are defined, tracked, and reported to enable clear, comparable visibility across the portfolio
• Identify and surface early indicators of fragmentation, duplication, or misalignment across initiatives
• Support prioritization decisions by synthesizing business, product, technical, and organizational signals into clear executive recommendations
• Design and manage the AI Office operating cadence, including portfolio reviews, executive updates, status reporting, and decision forums
• Stand up and manage portfolio governance, success metrics, and executive reporting to track performance, inform stage-gate decisions, and measure business impact and AI value realization
• Enable faster, higher-quality decisions by framing tradeoffs, clarifying implications, and driving alignment across stakeholders
• Act as a central connector across AI, Product, Engineering, HR, Legal, and business teams to ensure alignment and accountability
• Clarify ownership, sequencing, and interdependencies to improve execution
• Remove structural barriers that slow progress by identifying cross-portfolio dependencies, decision bottlenecks, and areas of role confusion
• Build strong stakeholder relationships to drive accountability, adoption, and follow-through
• Help define and track success metrics tied to business outcomes, adoption, portfolio health, and AI value realization
• Deliver clear, executive-ready insights on progress, risks, themes, and impact
• Continuously improve and strengthen the AI Office operating model, including governance, planning, communication, and portfolio visibility
• Introduce scalable ways of working that improve focus, decision quality, and execution effectiveness

What We Look For in a Candidate

• 8 years of experience in strategy & operations, chief of staff, business ops, transformation, product/program management, or large-scale transformation execution
• Strong strategic thinking and business judgment, with the ability to connect enterprise AI priorities to operating mechanisms, executive decisions, and measurable outcomes.
• Ability to move fluidly between strategic framing and hands-on execution - from shaping executive narratives to driving follow-through on complex cross-functional work.
• Strong program management discipline, with experience creating structure, cadence, visibility, and accountability across complex initiatives.
• Proven experience managing complex, cross-functional initiatives with multiple stakeholders
• Strong ability to translate strategy into executable plans and drive delivery at scale
• Experience working in or alongside data, AI, or technology organizations
• Exceptional stakeholder management, communication, and influence skills
• Demonstrated ability to operate in ambiguous, fast-paced environments and drive outcomes

Compensation

This information reflects the anticipated base salary range for this position based on current national data. Minimums and maximums may vary based on location. Individual pay is based on skills, experience and other relevant factors.

Location Based Pay Ranges

$152,066 - $253,444 in these states: AL AR AZ FL GA IA ID IN KS KY LA ME MO MS MT ND NE NM OH OK PA SC SD TN UT VT WI WV WY
$159,670 - $266,166 in these states: CO HI MI MN NC NH NV OR RI
$167,273 - $278,789 in these states: AK CA CT DC DE IL MA MD NJ NY TX VA WA

Lumen offers a comprehensive package featuring a broad range of Health, Life, Voluntary Lifestyle benefits and other perks that enhance your physical, mental, emotional and financial wellbeing. We're able to answer any additional questions you may have about our bonus structure (short-term incentives, long-term incentives and/or sales compensation) as you move through the selection process.

Learn more about Lumen's:

• Benefits

• Bonus Structure

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Requisition #: 342408