Head of AI Adoption & Governance

Applecart•New York, NY

14h•$200,000 - $250,000•Hybrid

About The Position

Applecart is hiring a Head of AI Adoption & Governance to lead its internal AI rollout. The role will determine which tools are used, how access to data is managed, and which use cases offer the greatest business impact. It combines strategic decision-making with hands-on implementation, including provisioning, integrations, and day-to-day access in coordination with junior systems support. Working with Engineering, IT, Security, Legal, platform leadership, and business leaders, the Head will establish the strategic direction and guardrails for internal AI use while protecting company and client data. The role reports to the Office of co-CEO Matt Kalmans. It is hybrid, with work from home on Mondays and Fridays and work in Applecart’s New York City office Tuesday through Thursday.

Requirements

At least 8 years of experience across some combination of security, privacy, technology risk, IT strategy, or technical program management, including work in a regulated or high-confidentiality environment.
Practical experience deploying software within an organization and driving adoption, beyond evaluating or governing it.
Working fluency with privacy and data protection frameworks such as GDPR, CCPA, and SOC 2, sufficient to make decisions and know when to involve counsel.
Technical depth to engage vendors on topics including data retention, model training, and access controls and secure satisfactory responses.
Comfort owning ambiguous decisions and defending them to executives and clients.
Strong written and verbal communication skills.
Impeccable attention to detail and superior organizational skills.

Nice To Haves

Experience in professional services, consulting, or another business built on client confidentiality.
Prior experience launching governance from scratch.

Responsibilities

Build the business case for AI by helping leaders identify where AI can materially improve work and where it is a distraction.
Own the roadmap for internal AI adoption, including which tools are used by which teams, in what order, and why.
Work with Legal to translate the company’s risk posture into AI guardrails and organization-wide guidance that users can apply with limited oversight.
Report to leadership on adoption, value delivered, and potential risks.
Build and maintain a data classification scheme specifying what data may be entered into which tools and what must remain within the company environment.
Operationalize individual client contractual obligations in AI usage processes.
Protect client confidentiality by ensuring AI use respects internal confidential data separation.
Define the incident response path for AI-specific failures, including data exposure through prompts, unreviewed outputs sent to clients, and vendor breaches.
Run pilots for defined AI use cases with clear success criteria, and stop usage that does not work or scale.
Build AI enablement through training, prompt and use-case libraries, and identification of internal champions.
Partner closely with Security, Legal, IT, and Engineering leadership.
Handle provisioning, integrations, and day-to-day access in collaboration with more junior systems support.