Principal, Back-Office AI Transformation

Five9•Irving, TX

12d•$114,000 - $355,100•Hybrid

About The Position

Five9 is seeking a Principal, Back-Office AI Transformation to lead the company's internal back-office AI automation initiatives. This individual-contributor role involves hands-on delivery, from scoping and building automations to proving their value. The position is responsible for diagnosing opportunities, delivering pilot projects, and creating blueprints for scaling successful initiatives. The role requires a strong focus on measurable business impact, partnering with various back-office functions and Business Technology, and building durable internal capabilities. The ideal candidate has a proven track record in operations transformation and automation within back-office functions, with a strong analytical and hands-on approach.

Requirements

15+ years in operations transformation, shared services, business process automation, or an internal strategy/transformation office, with a track record of shipping the work.
Direct experience with one or more back-office functions (Finance/Accounting, HR, Legal, IT, or Procurement) from the inside.
Experience running or contributing to a structured organizational diagnostic and turning it into a ranked, fundable opportunity portfolio.
Hands-on experience delivering automation (RPA, workflow tooling, or AI-native applications) from scoping through a measured pilot.
Strong quantitative skills, including building and defending a value-measurement approach that separates real business impact from time-savings alone.
Proficiency with AI tools in daily work, with a clear point of view on how they apply to back-office process design and automation.
Strong written and verbal communication skills, including comfort presenting evidence-based findings to function leaders and senior stakeholders.
Bachelor's degree required.

Nice To Haves

Experience partnering with an internal technology or business-systems team to stand up new tooling.
Experience at a public company or in a SaaS/subscription business.
Comfort managing or partnering with outside consultants or delivery partners on a defined engagement, with a clear bias toward building internal capability.
MBA or other advanced degree highly recommended.
Experience deploying multi-player AI use cases beyond single-user copilots.
Comfort working without a large team or a fully settled scope on day one.

Responsibilities

Run the diagnostic as an ongoing discipline to continually baseline and reassess opportunities for AI and automation in back-office functions.
Deliver bounded, evidence-generating pilots in priority workflows through to measured results.
Build the blueprint and roadmap for Five9 to mobilize the next pilot and scale what works.
Separate real business impact (cost, capacity, quality, speed) from unsubstantiated time-savings claims.
Partner with Business Technology on tooling, and with leaders of Finance, HR, Legal, IT, and other back-office functions.
Build the opportunity inventory by combining existing initiatives, employee input, and process observation.
Assess readiness across process, data, technology, talent, and governance for AI and automation opportunities.
Surface change readiness alongside opportunities, treating early engagement as a key step in adoption.
Define the ontology and context graph for each function in scope, working with business and Business Technology teams.
Own end-to-end delivery of pilots, from process discovery and future-state design through user trials.
Distinguish demonstrated pilot results from projected benefits and report on testing, usage, and evidence limitations.
Translate pilot learnings into blueprints for future workflows, human-AI handoffs, and build tasks.
Turn diagnostic findings into a ranked, fundable portfolio evaluated against value, readiness, difficulty, risk, and time to value.
Build the sequenced roadmap, including ownership, dependencies, and resourcing for subsequent opportunities.
Keep the underlying model current by updating assumptions as functions validate or challenge data.
Define the right measures for each opportunity (e.g., cash savings, avoided cost, released capacity, quality/speed improvements).
Establish baselines before pilots begin, agreed upon with function owners, to ensure credible results.
Build evidence packages for leadership decision-making, clearly distinguishing proven results from projections.
Partner with Finance, HR, Legal, IT, and other back-office leaders, serving as a connective role.
Work alongside Business Technology on environment, access, and integration needs.
Manage outside delivery partners with a focus on building internal capability.
Run a lightweight, regular reporting cadence with the Transformation Office and executive stakeholders.

Benefits

Health, dental, and vision coverage, beginning on the first day of employment.
Five9 covers 100% of the employee portion of the health, dental and vision coverage and shares a high portion of the dependent cost.
Short & Long-Term Disability.
Basic Life Insurance.
401k saving plan with employer matching.
Access to an innovative mental health support platform that offers personalized care and resources.
Generous employee stock purchase plan.
Paid Time Off.
Company paid holidays.
Paid volunteer hours.
12 weeks paid parental leave.
Annual performance bonus.
Stock and/or other applicable incentive compensation plans.