Executive Director, Senior Semantic and AI Lead

Morgan Stanley•Montreal, QC

About The Position

We're seeking someone to join our team as Executive Director, Semantic AI in NFR Data & Analytics to drive the design and delivery of next-generation Data and AI solutions. You will shape our data-centric and semantic architecture, champion applied AI, and partner closely with SMEs, Ontologists, Data Scientists, and Technology teams to deliver high-impact capabilities. In the Legal & Compliance division, we assist the Firm in achieving its business objectives by facilitating and overseeing the Firm's management of legal, regulatory and franchise risk. This is an Executive Director level position within NFR Data & Analytics, a function in the Legal and Compliance Division responsible for designing and optimizing surveillance models, approaches and tools using advanced analytical techniques like supervised and unsupervised machine learning, Natural Language Processing (NLP) and evolving techniques like graph analytics. Surveillance solutions and other tools help identify suspicious and/or illegal behaviors like money laundering, market manipulation, insider trading, unfair sales or trading practices and other financial crimes.

Requirements

Masters' degree
10+ years of experience in data, AI, semantic technologies, or related fields.
Ability to think critically about appropriate solutions to business problems
Hands-on experience with NLP/ML, LLMs, RAG, vector stores, agentic workflows, semantic data modeling, taxonomies/ontologies, RDF/OWL, SPARQL, and graph databases.
Ability to apply data-centric design methodologies.
Skilled in product ownership, cross-functional leadership, and delivering enterprise-scale semantic/AI capabilities.
Comfortable working across multiple domains including Risk, Compliance, Financial Crimes, and Operational Risk.
Passionate about cultivating high-performing teams, shaping strategy, and delivering meaningful impact through Data & AI.

Responsibilities

Lead the Montreal Data & Analytics team, fostering excellence, collaboration, and high-impact delivery.
Own semantic and AI components, translating business needs into scalable, data-centric and AI-centric solutions.
Integrate Knowledge Graph models with LLM powered and agentic AI systems.
Lead development of high-performance NLP/ML systems including LLMs, RAG workflows, agentic architectures, and knowledge graph based designs.
Oversee semantic design activities, including ontology/taxonomy evolution, RDF/OWL modeling, linked-data applications, and core categorical/functional data models.
Design and implement semantic capabilities such as search, knowledge panels, entity resolution, automated reasoning, and recommendation engines.
Drive adoption of semantic and AI technologies across Compliance, Legal, and Financial Crimes functions.
Strengthen measurement and benchmarking of AI effectiveness, including use of LLM-as-a-Judge techniques.
Support remediation, monitoring, and BAU AI initiatives.