Head of AI CoE Operations

Agilent Technologies•Santa Clara, CA

1d•$201,792 - $315,300•Onsite

About The Position

The Head of AI CoE Operations serves as the CAIO’s strategic chief of staff and operating leader for the AI Center of Excellence. This role owns the operating system that turns CAIO priorities into action: executive cadence, decision forums, resource tradeoffs, SteerCo and Board materials, partner follow-through, cross-functional alignment, and the management routines that keep the CoE focused on shipped value. This is a senior business operations role inside an AI transformation, not an HR role. The role partners closely with HR on workforce planning, capability development, and role demand, but HR owns job architecture, compensation, career paths, learning programs, and formal talent processes. The role is also distinct from the AI Product leader. AI Product owns the portfolio, use-case strategy, business cases, KPI definition, Product Lead standards, and value realization. AI CoE Operations owns how the CoE runs: the CAIO agenda, leadership rhythm, governance, resourcing, partner tracking, executive materials, dependency management, and operating metrics that allow the portfolio to move.

Requirements

Curiosity about AI, its potential and its pitfalls. The field moves monthly, and the people who thrive here are genuinely curious about both sides of it: what these systems can newly do, and where they fail, mislead, or quietly degrade. We want people who read the failure analyses as eagerly as the launch posts, who experiment on their own initiative, and who hold excitement and skepticism at the same time without letting either one win permanently.
Lifelong learners. Whatever expertise a candidate arrives with will be partially obsolete within a year, and that is not a defect of the candidate; it is the condition of the field. We hire people who have reinvented their toolkit before and expect to do it again, who learn in public, and who treat being wrong as information rather than injury. A history of deliberate self-reinvention counts for more than any single credential.
Excellent communication and the ability to influence. Nothing in this organization ships by authority alone. Every role here persuades: domain experts to engage, stewards to share what they know, sponsors to stay honest about value, and functions like Legal, Quality, and Security to move from gatekeeping to partnership. We look for people who write and speak clearly, who adapt their register from bench scientist to Board, and who change minds through credibility and clarity rather than escalation.
Senior chief of staff, business operations, transformation, or strategy operations experience in a complex enterprise.
Strong executive communication skills, including SteerCo, C-suite, and Board-level materials.
Ability to run an operating cadence that improves decisions rather than adding process.
Experience coordinating across product, technology, finance, HR, legal, quality, security, and business teams.
Strong judgment on prioritization, resource tradeoffs, stakeholder alignment, and escalation.
Comfort working in AI, data, digital, or technology-led transformation environments.
Enough AI fluency to pressure-test status, understand delivery risks, and translate technical work into business and executive language.
Bachelor’s or Master’s Degree or equivalent.
Broad knowledge of functional area(s) of responsibility.
Minimum of 10 years' experience formally or informally leading people, projects and/or programs.

Responsibilities

Serve as strategic chief of staff to the CAIO, translating priorities into operating agenda, leadership routines, decision forums, executive briefings, and follow-through.
Own the CoE operating cadence, including leadership team rhythm, SteerCo preparation, Board input, portfolio operating reviews, pod health reviews, and decision tracking.
Drive executive materials and communications for the CAIO organization, ensuring clear narratives, crisp decisions, and alignment across senior stakeholders.
Manage resource and capacity planning across CoE workstreams, including headcount planning, pod staffing logistics, SME rotation needs, budget inputs, and tradeoff visibility.
Track delivery health across active pods and priority initiatives, including milestones, blockers, dependency aging, launch readiness, adoption signals, and reusable Fabric asset commitments.
Coordinate cross-functional dependencies with IT, Security, Legal, Quality, Finance, HR, Product, and business sponsors, ensuring blockers are named, owned, dated, and escalated when needed.
Manage external partner operating discipline, including milestone tracking, deliverable quality, capability transfer, acceptance criteria, and partner sunset/readiness planning.
Provide the operating fact base for CAIO, SteerCo, and executive decisions: what is on track, what is blocked, what needs resourcing, what should be escalated, and what should stop.
Partner with HR on workforce planning and AI capability development by providing role demand, skills gaps, rotation needs, and internal Builder pipeline signals.
Acts as a strategic partner to executive leadership, guiding and coordinating enterprise‑wide strategic and operational initiatives.
Directs the planning and execution of administrative, financial, and operational activities; ensures the team delivers high‑quality insights and analysis to support executive decision‑making; and oversees monitoring of progress, risks, and outcomes across key programs.
Strengthens cross‑functional alignment, supports effective communications and executive engagements, and drives disciplined, timely execution of strategic priorities.