Director of Data and AI Product Management

Role Description

The Director, Data & AI Product Management will lead the portfolio of data and AI products built for Salas O'Brien's internal teams. This role will set product strategy, manage roadmaps and investment decisions, guide product owners, and ensure internal products deliver measurable adoption and business value.

The goal of this role is to turn internal business needs into scalable data and AI products that are easy to adopt, clearly governed, and tied to measurable business value. The portfolio supports how the firm works every day, including:

• Enterprise data
• Project automation
• Pricing
• Business development
• Digital engineering operations
• Knowledge management
• Talent-related solutions

This is a hands-on leadership role. You will manage product owners, set portfolio direction, participate in roadmap and backlog decisions, and stay close enough to the work to make informed tradeoffs on scope, timing, adoption, and value realization.

Reporting and Scope

This role reports to the Senior Vice President, Data & AI and leads a team of Data & AI Product Owners, each accountable for one or more products supported by engineering delivery teams.

The current portfolio includes:

• Enterprise data
• Digital engineering operations support
• Project automation
• Knowledge and talent solutions
• Business development enablement
• Pricing improvement

You will also lead the Data & AI Innovation and Ideas Committee, a cross-functional prioritization forum for the internal product portfolio. The committee brings together Operating Group leaders and advisory partners across various departments to evaluate opportunities, guide investment decisions, and support adoption.

You will partner closely with Data & AI Risk Management to ensure products are designed with practical governance, privacy, security, and client expectations in mind from the start.

Responsibilities

• Own the internal data and AI product portfolio, including strategy, roadmap, sequencing, investment priorities, and lifecycle decisions.
• Lead and develop Data & AI Product Owners, setting clear expectations for product discovery, execution, adoption, value measurement, and stakeholder communication.
• Lead the Data & AI Innovation and Ideas Committee by setting agendas, managing intake and prioritization, documenting decisions, and bringing funding requests or escalations to senior leadership with clear recommendations.
• Convert approved ideas into delivery plans with named owners, timelines, success measures, adoption plans, and governance checkpoints.
• Define and track adoption measures that reflect meaningful usage, including eligible-user activation, recurring active use, license utilization, and depth of use.
• Own value realization by documenting hours saved, productivity improvements, revenue support, or cost avoidance using methods that Finance can validate.
• Use product data, stakeholder feedback, and business outcomes to decide what scales, what needs improvement, and what should be retired.
• Partner with leaders across Operating Groups to secure sponsorship, recruit early users, support rollout, and understand adoption barriers before assuming the solution.
• Work closely with engineering, data platform, architecture, and security partners to ensure products are built on sustainable, governed, and scalable foundations.
• Manage product-related budget considerations, including platform consumption, license spend, implementation effort, and cost per active user where applicable.
• Partner early with governance, privacy, security, and client-facing stakeholders so product requirements are understood during design rather than after launch.

Adoption and Value Matter

Internal data and AI products create value only when team members understand them, trust them, and use them in the flow of work. This role will help teams adopt practical products that improve productivity, decision-making, and business outcomes while ensuring the portfolio remains focused on measurable value.

You will be measured by the effectiveness of the portfolio, including:

• Adoption depth
• Stakeholder confidence
• Value realization
• Delivery discipline
• The ability to make the approved path practical for the business

Qualifications

• You have led a product portfolio, not just a single product, and have managed product managers or product owners.
• You define outcomes and measurement approaches before launch rather than reconstructing value after the fact.
• You are fluent enough in data, analytics, and AI-enabled product delivery to challenge plans, ask practical questions, and make informed tradeoffs.
• You can navigate senior stakeholder conversations with sound judgment, clear recommendations, and a bias toward responsible progress.
• You are comfortable making scope, sequence, and retirement decisions when the evidence supports them.

Requirements

• Ten or more years of product management, product ownership, or related experience, including three or more years leading product managers or product owners.
• Demonstrated experience delivering enterprise data, analytics, automation, or AI-enabled products for internal business users at scale.
• Experience defining adoption metrics, value measures, and reporting methods that connect product usage to business outcomes.
• Working knowledge of modern data platforms, lakehouse architecture, governed data environments, or related enterprise analytics capabilities.
• Experience working with operational, financial, project, or enterprise resource planning data, including the data quality and reconciliation work needed to build trust.
• Practical change management experience, including rollout planning, stakeholder enablement, training, feedback loops, and sustained adoption support.
• Experience managing product investment decisions, budgets, vendor or platform costs, or funding recommendations for senior leaders.
• Bachelor's degree in a technical, quantitative, business, or related discipline, or equivalent experience.
• Strong written and verbal communication skills, including the ability to translate technical product decisions into business language.

Preferred

• Preference may be given to candidates with experience in environments with elevated governance, security, privacy, or regulatory expectations.
• Experience delivering applications on Databricks Apps or an equivalent embedded analytics or internal application surface.
• Experience building or using a metric layer, semantic layer, or shared data model that multiple products consume.
• Experience in a federated or multi-entity organization where adoption is earned through sponsorship, enablement, and demonstrated value.
• Background as a practitioner in data engineering, analytics, business intelligence, product operations, or software delivery.

Travel

This position is remote within the United States, with occasional travel expected for leadership meetings, product planning sessions, governance discussions, or business engagement as needed.

Compensation & Benefits

The expected base salary range for this role is $215,000 - $245,000 USD per year. Actual compensation will be determined based on a number of factors including skills, experience, qualifications, and location.

This role is also eligible for a performance-based bonus and a comprehensive U.S.-based benefits package, including:

• Medical, dental, and vision insurance
• 401(k) with company match
• Paid time off and company holidays
• Wellness programs and employee assistance resources
• Professional development support

Equal Opportunity Employment Statement

Salas O’Brien provides equal employment opportunities to all employees and applicants for employment and prohibits discrimination and harassment of any type without regard to race, colour, religion, age, sex, national origin, disability status, genetics, protected veteran status, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, or any other characteristic protected by federal, state/provincial, or local laws. Salas O’Brien will accommodate the disability-related needs of applicants as required by law.

Third-Party Agency Notice

Salas O’Brien does not accept unsolicited resumes from external recruiters or agencies. We only work with approved partners engaged directly by our Talent Acquisition team for specific searches. Unsolicited submissions will not be eligible for placement fees.