Associate Director, Responsible AI Solutions

The Ford Foundation’s Information Technology team seeks an Associate Director, Responsible AI Solutions. Reporting to the Chief Information and Technology Officer (CITO), the Associate Director leads the development and implementation of ethical, cutting-edge AI solutions that align with our mission. The Associate Director works closely with the CITO and senior leaders across the foundation in refining and implementing the foundation’s evolving AI strategy.

Responsibilities

• AI Portfolio Management: As the focal point for all AI initiatives within the IT team, manage a dedicated AI portfolio and consult with the cross-functional IT teams on their AI projects, fostering a cohesive approach to AI development and implementation.
• Develop and implement ethical AI solutions: Identify and translate complex business challenges into AI solutions. This involves assessing organizational needs, recommending ethical solutions, gathering requirements, designing and developing AI solutions, and deploying them into production environments within required budget and quality standards expectations. This includes defining project scope, gaining insight and agreement from others, allocating resources, managing timelines, and mitigating risks.
• AI Strategy: Collaborate with the CITO and senior leaders from cross-functional teams on refining the foundation’s AI strategy to ensure that the foundation’s AI systems, guidelines, processes, and procedures are aligned to the foundation’s mission and values and are being scaled throughout the entire foundation.
• Governance & policy development: Monitor evolving AI regulations and data privacy laws. As a key member of the AI Advisory Group, draft, implement, and maintain clear, accessible Responsible AI guidelines, safety policies, and use‑case criteria for the whole foundation to follow. Ensures all AI‑related activities, all relevant stakeholders are aware of and adhering to ethical guidelines and protecting organizational data. Promote responsible AI development and deployment within the organization across departments, while considering potential biases, fairness, and transparency in AI systems.
• AI Model evaluation and optimization: Continuously monitor and evaluate the effectiveness and performance of AI models, identifying areas for improvement and implementing optimization strategies to reduce our carbon footprint and enhance accuracy, efficiency, and scalability.
• Vendor & technology assessment: Remain up-to-date with emerging AI trends, technologies, and best practices. Research and recommend new AI tools and techniques to improve operational efficiency and drive innovation. Evaluate, propose and manage AI vendors and consultants to deliver strategic value within an approved budget.
• Education, culture & capacity building: Partner with People & Culture and other departments to build organization‑wide AI literacy and upskilling, responsible prompt engineering, and ethical awareness. Cultivate a culture of responsible innovation across different teams, empowering non‑technical staff to identify potential ethical risks early.
• Communicate effectively with stakeholders: Clearly and effectively communicate project solutions, requirements and updates, technical details, and AI concepts to technical and non‑technical audiences, including senior management, business stakeholders, and team members. Translate complex technical information into clear business value for non‑technical stakeholders.

Skillset

• 8+ years of related professional experience and a Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in Computer Science, AI, Machine Learning, or a related field (or an equivalent combination of education and experience).
• Proficient in Python and AI frameworks (e.g., TensorFlow, PyTorch), with expertise in machine learning, deep learning, NLP, foundational models, and GenAI technologies.
• Experienced in Generative AI techniques (e.g., LLMs, LangChain, RAG), Agentic architecture, and establishing connections using Model Context Protocol (MCP).
• Experience with Google Cloud Platform (GCP), Vertex AI, and production deployment using Gemini Enterprise or equivalent platforms (working knowledge of Google’s ADK is a plus).
• Familiar with major cloud platforms (AWS, Azure, GCP), data technologies (SQL, Hadoop, Spark), and AI Ops principles (CI/CD pipelines, containerization, automated testing).
• Experienced in deploying AI models to cloud environments—optimizing for performance, latency, cost, and resource utilization (GPU/TPU)—and troubleshooting issues like performance drift.
• Strong capability in working with large datasets, extracting meaningful insights from unstructured data, and understanding content management systems, knowledge graphs, and information retrieval techniques.
• Demonstrated ability to recommend and apply practical AI solutions to real‑world problems within content‑rich domains.
• Deep conceptual understanding of how models process data, exhibit bias, and handle data privacy.
• Excellent project management skills with experience managing complex AI projects using Agile development methodologies.
• Experience managing AI vendors and the technical capability to evaluate vendor claims regarding model safety, data retention, and training data provenance.
• Strong communication, interpersonal, and relationship‑management skills, with the ability to translate complex technical concepts for executive and non‑technical audiences.
• Ways of working and engaging that align with the Foundation’s mission, core values, and commitment to creating a culture of excellence.