Director, Innovation

OuterBox•Akron, OH

About The Position

The Director of Innovation owns OuterBox’s AI strategy across internal marketing-service delivery and client-facing services. The role identifies market gaps, determines what the company should build, buy, or skip, and connects emerging technology to practical service delivery. It leads the AI engineering team and reports to the EVP of Innovation, while partnering with Technology on infrastructure, DevOps, security, cloud governance, and reliability. The Director turns internal AI projects into adopted ways of working and packages successful approaches into sellable client services and consulting offers, including AI Development Services and GEO and LLM Optimization. The role sets service scope, pricing, delivery ownership, and sales messaging; owns production deployments that support client accounts and partner standing; and leads OuterBox’s Anthropic program. It also drives AI adoption, presents to executives, clients, and the board, develops the technical team, and measures initiatives through business-focused KPIs.

Requirements

At least 5 years of experience in AI, machine learning, or applied AI and automation.
At least 3 years of experience leading technical teams.
A history of identifying market gaps and turning them into services, products, or platforms for which customers paid.
Experience running internal AI projects and client-facing AI services or consulting, including converting an internal playbook into a sellable offer with scope, pricing, and delivery.
Hands-on experience with frontier AI models, including at least 1 year with Anthropic Claude.
Knowledge of agents, tool use and MCP, retrieval, prompt and context design, and evaluation.
Working proficiency in Python or JavaScript/TypeScript and SQL, with the ability to read code and review architecture with engineers.
Experience with cloud platforms, Git, and CI/CD.
Experience proposing AI initiatives and measuring results against cost, with defensible ROI.
Working knowledge of digital marketing agency service delivery, ideally paid media, SEO, and analytics.
Comfort with outcome-based and unit pricing and transitioning teams away from hours-based work.
Strong presentation skills and comfort presenting to executives, clients, and engineers.
Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Data Science, Artificial Intelligence, or a related field; equivalent work experience may be considered instead of a formal degree.

Nice To Haves

Google Cloud experience is preferred.
Partner program experience with Anthropic, Google, or Microsoft is a plus.

Responsibilities

Shape the AI vision and strategy with the EVP of Innovation, determining where OuterBox should apply AI and what it should build, buy, or skip.
Identify market gaps and translate them into deliverable services and engineering requirements.
Manage internal AI projects from intake and development through pilot, rollout, and adoption, ensuring shipped solutions are used.
Package successful approaches into client services and consulting offers, including AI Development Services and GEO and LLM Optimization; define scope, pricing, delivery owners, and sales messaging.
Focus AI service offerings on mid-market clients and existing relationships.
Move AI services toward outcome-based and unit pricing as task costs decrease.
Own production deployments that support client accounts and contribute to partner standing.
Run the Anthropic program, including certified practitioners, production deployments, public customer stories, and quarterly scorecards.
Support the EVP of Innovation on the AI aspects of Google and Microsoft programs; the EVP owns executive relationships and partnership strategy.
Turn effective practices into reusable agent skills and workflows.
Present to group directors, clients, leadership, and the board alongside or on behalf of the EVP, explaining trade-offs in plain language.
Drive AI adoption through AI liaisons, training, and certification paths, and participate in sales calls where AI is the pitch.
Lead, coach, and develop the technical team; conduct 1:1s and annual reviews, set priorities, and focus the team on AI services and adoption.
Work with Technology on security, cloud governance, and reliability.
Set KPIs and report initiative costs, adoption, delivery improvements, and AI services revenue in business terms.
Test new models and tools and recommend whether to adopt or discontinue them, explaining the rationale.
Perform additional duties as assigned.
Provide reasonable accommodations to enable individuals with disabilities to perform essential functions.