VP, AI Transformation and Operational Excellence

Avalara•UNAVAILABLE, UNAVAILABLE

17h

About The Position

People & Culture is changing how we operate, who does what, and how we use AI and automation. We recently brought TA Operations and HR Operations under one roof, launched an AI transformation practice, and began rebuilding our processes from the outcome backward. We’re now looking for the VP who will own this work. The VP of AI Transformation & Operational Excellence owns P&C’s transformation agenda in full: strategy, team, execution, and accountability for outcomes. You report directly to the Chief People Officer. Your scope has three parts: AI Transformation. You own the AI and automation roadmap across People & Culture. You and your team determine where work should be fully automated by AI agents, where AI should augment human work, and where human judgment must be preserved. You build this capability centrally so it doesn't fragment across the function. Process Architecture. You own P&C’s process architecture and delivery at every stage of the employee lifecycle, starting from the outcome and experience you want to create for employees and managers and working backward to what systems and agents are required to deliver it. Operations Delivery. You own the unified TA Operations and HR Operations function, the operational backbone of the employee lifecycle from candidacy to beyond an employee’s last day. You replace the historical split between Talent Acquisition and HR operations with a single operating model.

Requirements

A track record of leading large-scale organizational transformation in a People & Culture or Human Resources context
Deep, hands-on AI experience building or deploying AI agents and automation
Significant HR and/or TA operations leadership experience
Executive presence and stakeholder management at the C-suite level
Experience building and leading high-performing teams
Working knowledge of the P&C technology landscape: HR systems, ATS platforms, ticketing platforms, automation tools, agentic capabilities, and the integration dependencies between them
Experience defining and operating governance for major AI initiatives, owning an AI roadmap for a function or business area, and tying a portfolio of AI efforts to business outcomes

Nice To Haves

Experience at the intersection of People & Culture and AI: building AI-driven HR products, consulting on large-scale AI adoption, or leading the change management that follows an AI platform rollout.
Experience defining org structure or governance models for AI agents and automated systems, including which team is accountable for an agent’s use, oversight, and outcomes.

Responsibilities

Set and Execute the Transformation Strategy
Own P&C’s AI and automation transformation roadmap: what gets redesigned, in what order, and what outcomes will prove it worked.
For every key P&C process, decide: fully automate, enhance with AI, or keep human. Set that architecture independent of what today's tools can do. Ensure each process has a closed feedback loop.
Establish current-state metrics for every key P&C process so before-and-after impact is measurable.
Influence talent solutions including redefining the new expectations of people leaders in managing agents and humans, and the impact of agents on job architecture, etc.
Partner with the Chief People Officer to rethink Avalara’s enterprise-wide operating models for AI.
Lead the Unified Operations Function
Combine HR Operations and Talent Acquisition Operations into a single operating model with shared processes, tooling, and service standards wherever convergence makes sense.
Own service-level performance for the combined operation, including volume, response and resolution time, escalation handling, throughput, and employee and candidate satisfaction.
Use ticket and case data as a primary management input: find friction, trace it to root causes, and expand self-service where it will cut volume.
Hold a consistent bar for how the operation runs: standardized processes, clear metrics and dashboards, and continuous improvement.
Build AI Capability Centrally
Own P&C’s central AI and automation capability so agents that touch multiple parts of the lifecycle are built once and reused across P&C.
Partner closely with People Technology and Avalara’s broader AI Center of Excellence so P&C requirements shape what gets built and P&C can operate what ships.
Build your own agentic solutions and automations within your team’s processes.
Maintain org charts and workflows showing which work is done by AI agents and which by humans across P&C, and update them as the operating model evolves.
Own P&C’s Technology Roadmap
With People Technology, shape the end-to-end tooling strategy for P&C: TA tech stack, HR systems, automation platforms, and the integrations between them.
Lead the current ATS implementation through go-live and into steady-state operations, working across TA, People Technology, and external vendors to deliver on time and on quality.