Head of AI Academy

Janus Henderson Investors•Denver, CO

8d•$170,000 - $210,000•Hybrid

About The Position

Janus Henderson is seeking a Head of AI Academy to lead the next phase of its AI transformation program. This role is responsible for the strategy, curriculum, proficiency pathways, champion networks, platform, community, measurement, and governance of the AI Academy. The Head of AI Academy will lead a small central team and specialist contributors, focusing on moving the firm from broad AI enablement to role-based capability, advanced tool proficiency, and stronger guardrails. This leadership role requires a blend of capability building, stakeholder engagement, AI literacy, and change enablement expertise. The position reports to the Head of AI Enablement.

Requirements

Proven leadership experience — building, leading, and developing teams and/or distributed networks of champions across multiple business units, ideally in an enablement, capability, or change context.
Strong, practical understanding of AI and GenAI concepts, capabilities, and limitations, with the ability to translate them for non-technical audiences and set a credible direction for the program.
Hands-on familiarity with the firm’s core toolkit — Microsoft Copilot and the M365 ecosystem, Copilot Studio, and adjacent tooling — and a genuine appetite to evaluate, learn, and deploy new tools as they emerge.
Demonstrated experience designing and running training, curriculum, or capability-building programs at scale, and the judgment to tell apart a session people endure from one they apply the next morning.
Excellent stakeholder management and influencing skills, with credibility across business and senior audiences and the ability to lead through influence where contributors are embedded in departments.
Practical change-management and adoption experience — you understand that access and training are only half the job, and that surfacing and removing adoption blockers is the other half.
Strong measurement literacy — comfortable designing surveys, interpreting adoption data, and building scorecards, and disciplined about the difference between adoption (a prerequisite) and value (the goal).
Self-directed and comfortable operating with ambiguity — the Academy is being scaled and reshaped, and you will define how much of it runs, with sponsorship but without a detailed playbook.
Strong documentation instincts — you produce reusable curriculum, pathways, and playbooks that outlast your direct involvement and can be picked up by others.
Experience working in a regulated environment (financial services, asset management, or comparable) where governance, compliance, and data sensitivity shape how solutions are designed and deployed.

Nice To Haves

Direct experience in asset management or financial services — exposure to investment, distribution, operations, or client-service workflows.
Experience with AI governance, risk, and responsible-AI practices, and familiarity with the emerging regulatory landscape (e.g., EU AI Act).
Familiarity with Copilot Studio, the Power Platform, agentic tooling, and the ability to understand how these tools fit in with our evolving internal AI platforms.
Background in a community-of-practice, guild, or cohort-based enablement model, or in internal communications and community building.
Product-management sensibility — MVPs, iteration, user feedback, and prioritization — applied to curriculum and enablement rather than software features.
Experience managing vendor or staff-augmentation partnerships that flex delivery capacity.

Responsibilities

Own and evolve the AI Academy strategy and operating model, keeping it tool-agnostic and aligned to the firm’s ambition and horizons.
Evolve the operating model that combines decentralized business ownership, local capability, embedded delivery (AI Enablement Partners), and central pathways, standards, advanced training, and community.
Move the program from broad access to depth of use — role-based capability, repeatable workflows, and stronger guardrails — and set the roadmap for Tier 2 and Tier 3 advanced pathways.
Own and continuously improve the three-tier proficiency journey and the learning that underpins it.
Direct the core curriculum, including AI 101 (tool-agnostic foundations) and Copilot 101 (hands-on, department-specific delivery), and relaunch and run the advanced program for power users.
Build advanced, role-specific content that closes the training ceiling advanced users report — prompting craft, Copilot Studio and agent design, Excel and productivity depth, and hallucination and governance guardrails.
Lead and grow the ATC network (departmental AI leads) and the Fighter Pilot cohorts, running the train-the-trainer model that cascades capability into every team.
Set standards, protected-time expectations, and ways of working for the networks, and secure line-manager accountability for the agreed ATC time commitment.
Coach, develop, and recognize champions, and build the community and peer learning that keeps them engaged and effective.
Own the AI Academy homepage and its sections — Overview, Learning Pathways, Community & News, Department Guidance, and Responsible AI — as the single, trusted home for AI enablement.
Own the Use Case Library and Prompt Library, driving contribution, curation, and reuse of proven patterns across departments, and consolidate AI training material into one channel and one brand.
Run the communications cadence — including the AI newsletter and the innovation community feed — and improve its relevance, engagement, and discoverability.
Own the adoption dashboard and the Academy’s contribution to the ExCo scorecard, and evolve metrics from license assignment and active use toward proficiency and depth of engagement.
Run structured user research (for example the quarterly interview corpus) to map demand, pain points, and training needs, and prioritize the roadmap on the evidence.
Report progress, risks, and decisions into the firm’s AI transformation governance, distinguishing clearly between prerequisites (access) and outcomes (value).
Embed the firm’s Responsible AI principles — Own the Output, Review Before Sharing, No Sensitive Data, Judgement First, Approved Tools Only, Usage Monitored — across all Academy content and pathways.
Partner with AI Governance, Technology, Security, Risk, and Compliance so that tools taught and patterns shared stay within the firm’s data-privacy, security, and responsible-AI posture.
Position the Academy as the adoption layer for the firm’s next horizon — enabling the safe, effective take-up of enterprise tools and agents the firm builds and buys, and leading the change management that goes with them.
Lead the central Academy team and specialist contributors (delivery, content, and community), setting direction, standards, and a high bar for quality.
Chair the Academy governance forum and the monthly ATC catch-up, and represent the Academy in the firm’s AI transformation leadership forums.
Carry out other duties as assigned.

Benefits

Hybrid working and reasonable accommodations
Generous Holiday policies
Excellent Health and Wellbeing benefits including corporate membership to Wellhub
Paid volunteer time to step away from your desk and into the community
Support to grow through professional development courses, tuition/qualification reimbursement and more
Maternal/paternal leave benefits and family services
Unique employee events and programs including a 14er challenge
Complimentary beverages, snacks and all employee Happy Hours
Annual discretionary bonus award from the profit pool
Competitive compensation
Pension/retirement plans
Various health, wellbeing and lifestyle benefits