Governed Innovation Leader

Description

About Alvarez & Marsal

Alvarez & Marsal (A&M) is a global consulting firm with entrepreneurial, action and results-oriented professionals. We take a hands‑on approach to solving our clients' problems and assisting them in reaching their potential. Our culture celebrates independent thinkers and doers who positively impact our clients and shape our industry. The collaborative environment and engaging work—guided by A&M's core values of Integrity, Quality, Objectivity, Fun, Personal Reward, and Inclusive Diversity—are why our people love working at A&M.

The Team

You will be joining a newly formed Global AI & Knowledge Innovation Office (GAIKO) led by a Chief AI & Knowledge Officer who is moving fast. The team is global, still being staffed, and operating with urgency. This role sits alongside pillars covering Responsible AI & Governance, AI Partnerships, and AI Portfolio Intelligence & Value, as well as a separate product and technology organization.

How you will contribute

Thousands of A&M practitioners want to build with AI — automations, analyses, internal apps, agents. Today there is no defined answer to the most basic questions: who is allowed to build what, with which tools, under what review, and with what visibility once it's running. A citizen-development pilot is underway; what the firm needs next is the operating model that turns that pilot into a standing, governed capability.

The Governed Innovation Leader designs and runs that capability. This role owns the rules of the road and the on-ramps: the operating model, the use‑case permission framework, the templates and training that let practitioners build safely, and the observability and visibility that ensure nothing is built in the dark. The role works hand in hand with the business, product, IT, risk, legal and security organizations to stand the model up. Those teams own the environments, infrastructure, and security reviews; this role designs the program that runs on top of them and operates the gate that determines when a business‑unit build moves toward a production path.

This role works directly with the Business Units to understand how they want to build and innovate and translates those requirements into a governed model that enables, setting the global minimum standard while accommodating genuinely different contexts.

Operating Model Design & Setup

• Design the governed-innovation operating model end to end: roles, review thresholds, build rules across low-code/no-code/full-code, promotion gate criteria, and intake and support flows
• Work with the Business, product, IT, risk, legal and security organizations to stand up the model's foundations so the model is jointly built rather than imposed after the fact
• Own the long‑term governed‑innovation vision and plan, incorporating input from business units and IT
• Run and evolve the model over time: operate the promotion gate, own the rules, and keep them current as tools and the firm's risk posture change

BU Requirements & Engagement

• Engage directly and continuously with BU leaders and practitioners to understand their innovation needs, current workarounds, and what's blocking them today
• Translate BU requirements into the design of the governed innovation environment and its supporting services

Use Cases, Permissions & Requirements

• Define the key citizen‑development use case archetypes and, for each, the specific permissions, data access boundaries, tool tiers, and review requirements that apply
• Build the decision logic so a builder can answer \what am I allowed to build, with what tools, and what review do I need\ in minutes, not weeks
• Maintain the use‑case and permission framework as new tools, patterns (agents, MCP‑style integrations), and risk decisions land

Templates & Reusable Assets

• Create the program's starter kit: build templates, pre‑approved patterns, intake forms, review checklists, and documentation standards
• Grow a library of shared components and vetted templates so builders start from approved patterns rather than blank pages — cutting both risk and review load

Technical & Non‑Technical Requirements

• Define what the capability requires from the product and IT organizations — environments, identity and access, logging hooks, deployment paths — and drive those requirements to agreement with the owning teams
• Define the capability’s organizational requirements — training completion, sponsorship, support model, escalation paths — and secure the commitments needed to meet them
• Own the requirements roadmap as the capability scales: what the next tier of capability needs before it can safely be opened up

Observability

• Define what must be visible on every build — who built it, what data it touches, what tools it uses, where it runs — and ensure it is instrumented from the pilot onward
• Establish standing monitoring across governed builds (usage, drift, data‑handling flags, orphaned or abandoned assets) with clear escalation paths when something moves out of bounds

Visibility

• Stand up and maintain a registry of citizen‑built assets so nothing is built in the dark
• Feed the firm's enterprise AI inventory and flag duplicated capability across business units
• Create showcase channels so strong builds are seen, reused, and promoted rather than rebuilt

Training & Builder Enablement

• Define the minimum training bar required before anyone builds — safe use, data handling, tool boundaries
• Develop tiered builder pathways (consumer, builder, advanced builder) and certification for business‑unit builders, with refresher requirements tied to tool tiers
• Leverage the firm's existing enablement and adoption channels rather than building parallel ones

Scaling & Community

• Deliver the pilot readout and an evidence‑based recommendation on whether and how the program scales
• Grow a federated community of business‑unit builders and champions — standards, shared components, and peer review — so quality scales without headcount scaling
• Align with the firm's deployment‑as‑a‑service capability so citizen builds have a sanctioned landing zone
• Build a capacity model for intake and review so governance doesn't become the bottleneck as demand grows

Scope Boundaries

• Sandbox, tooling, environments, and provisioning are built and operated by the product organization
• Product build, scale decisions, and the enterprise \front door\ for AI requests sit with the product organization
• Security reviews sit with the security organization; technology risk reviews sit with the firm's risk review board
• The enterprise AI inventory and value measurement sit with the AI Portfolio Intelligence & Value role — this role feeds them, it does not own them

Qualifications

Required

• 5+ years in innovation programs, technology enablement, citizen‑development/low‑code governance, or a related discipline

• Demonstrated ability to run requirements‑gathering with business stakeholders and translate their needs into process or platform design

• Credible with technical and non‑technical BU audiences alike

• Demonstrated experience designing and standing up a new program, operating model, or capability — not just running an existing one

• Working technical fluency: comfortable with low‑code/no‑code platforms, modern AI tools, and enough architecture literacy to negotiate requirements credibly with IT and security teams

• Strong cross‑functional coordination instincts — able to build jointly with product, IT, and security organizations without owning their processes

• Credibility with practitioners: able to set and hold a gate while being seen as an enabler, not a blocker

Preferred

• Experience running a citizen‑development, power‑platform, or innovation/CoE program at scale in a large organization

• Familiarity with AI governance concepts and emerging patterns (agents, MCP‑style integrations)

• Prior experience in a consulting or professional services firm

Your journey at A&M

We recognize that our people are the driving force behind our success, which is why we prioritize an employee experience that fosters each person’s unique professional and personal development. Our robust performance development process promotes continuous learning, rewards your contributions, and foster a culture of meritocracy. With top‑notch training and on‑the‑job learning opportunities, you can acquire new skills and advance your career.

We prioritize your well-being, providing benefits and resources to support you on your personal journey. Our people consistently highlight the growth opportunities, our unique, entrepreneurial culture, and the fun we have together as their favorite aspects of working at A&M. The possibilities are endless for high‑performing and passionate professionals.

Regular employees working 30 or more hours per week are also entitled to participate in Alvarez & Marsal Holdings’ fringe benefits consisting of healthcare plans, flexible spending and savings accounts, life, AD&D, and disability coverages at rates determined periodically as well as a 401(k) retirement savings plan. Provided the eligibility requirements are met, employees will also receive an annual discretionary contribution to their 401(k) retirement savings plan from Alvarez & Marsal. Additionally, employees are eligible for paid time off including vacation, personal days, seventy‑two (72) hours of sick time (prorated for part time employees), ten federal holidays, one floating holiday, and parental leave. The amount of vacation and personal days available varies based on tenure and role type.

Thesalaryrange is $150,000-$165,000 annually dependent on several variables including but not limited to education, experience, skills, and geography. In addition, A&M offers a discretionary bonus program which is based on a number of factors, including individual and firm performance. Please ask your recruiter for details.