Sr. Director, AI

Odyssey•Charlotte, NC

5d•Hybrid

About The Position

As the Sr. Director of AI, you will own the direction and day-to-day execution of Odyssey's enterprise AI program. Building on a company-wide AI Academy that has already put AI tools in the hands of nearly 140 people across every division, your mandate is to turn broad adoption into a focused set of proven platform wins and, ultimately, into workflows redesigned around AI. You will lead a cross-divisional network of AI leads, partner closely with business unit leaders and the technology organization to identify and prioritize high-value use cases and be accountable for governance and for measurable business value. Your technical depth in modern AI, your ability to translate between business and engineering, and your discipline in deciding what to scale will be instrumental to Odyssey's next chapter.

Requirements

10+ years of relevant professional experience, including a minimum of 5 years of experience in AI, machine learning, or related technologies.
Currently at Director level or above, with senior management experience
Hands-on experience architecting and scaling modern AI systems into production, ideally on a major cloud AI platform (e.g., AWS Bedrock, Azure AI Foundry, or Vertex AI)
A track record of turning pilots into production platforms with measurable business impact and outcomes
Proven collaboration across both business and IT functions - equally credible with business unit leaders and with engineering teams, and able to move fluidly between the two.
Program operating discipline - experience running a real pipeline: intake, prioritization, triage, discard weak ideations early on, and tracking value through production.
Strong communication skills - able to translate technical reality into plain business language
Demonstrated ability to lead through influence across a matrixed organization

Nice To Haves

Experience in logistics, transportation, freight, or another asset-heavy industry
Experience standing up a new function from scratch; or experience building an AI or data governance model in a complex organization.

Responsibilities

Lead and inspire a cross-divisional network of AI leads, fostering a culture of collaboration, experimentation, and disciplined execution.
Set the mandate, rhythm, and accountability for AI leads across operations, commercial, finance, and technology, helping them grow their AI fluency and impact.
Build the long-term internal AI capability program that currently relies on outside partners, by attracting and developing talent aligned with organization goals and values.
Set enterprise AI priorities across predictive, agentic, generative, and simulation use cases, aligning the roadmap with business objectives and saying no to the rest.
Collaborate closely across business and IT functions, partnering with business unit leaders to identify use cases and with the technology organization to build them, delivering high-quality solutions on time and within budget.
Own the enterprise AI governance model – establish processes, sanctioned tools, data handling rules, and use-case review - balancing risk against speed and ensuring humans stay accountable for every AI-assisted outcome.
Run a disciplined use-case pipeline with robust criteria, converting the strongest ideas into proven platform wins with measurable business impact - production, not pilots.
Stay hands-on with emerging AI models, tooling, and techniques, incorporating relevant innovations and pressure-testing what is realistically buildable versus hype.
Identify and start the highest-value transformation opportunities - workflows redesigned around AI, not just sped up by it - treating the killing of a weak idea early as a health signal, not a failure.
Collaborate closely with key stakeholders, including executives and business unit presidents, to gather requirements, prioritize initiatives, and communicate progress.
Report progress and value in the language of business outcomes - dollars and hours, not adoption percentages alone - fostering transparency and alignment across the organization.
Serve as a trusted advisor and subject matter expert on AI, translating technical reality into plain business language to inform decision-making at every level.