Associate Director, AI Vendor & Platform Management

Associate Director, AI Vendor & Platform Management

Location: Hybrid in Chicago

Base Salary: $200,000–$264,000 + Discretionary bonus of up to 6–8%

About the Company

Our client is a global law firm with a growing team dedicated to AI across its legal and business functions. The challenge is pace: adopting AI fast enough to matter while maintaining the security and governance standards a global firm requires.

The Role

In this newly created position, you will own the process behind the firm's AI technology decisions, from market research and pilots through vendor selection, rollout, and ongoing governance.

You will serve as a subject matter expert on the evolving AI market, managing strategic vendors and enterprise platforms while translating technology evaluations into actionable recommendations for senior leadership.

This is a leadership role, not an engineering position. Technical credibility with IT and Information Security is important, but the primary focus is technology evaluation, strategic vendor relationships, enterprise platform governance, and team development.

Key Responsibilities

• AI Technology Evaluation: Lead pilots and competitive assessments of legal and general-purpose AI tools, developing structured evaluation frameworks and scoring criteria.
• Strategic Vendor Management: Own relationships with key AI and technology vendors, including negotiations, service commitments, performance management, escalations, and product roadmaps.
• Enterprise Platform Governance: Oversee operational management of enterprise AI platforms, including licensing, user access, usage reporting, configuration, and vendor support.
• Cross-Functional Collaboration: Partner with IT, Information Security, Risk, Procurement, and General Counsel on technology procurement, security reviews, compliance, and deployment.
• AI Market Intelligence: Monitor emerging legal AI products, capabilities, pricing models, and market trends, providing insights and recommendations to senior leadership.
• Business Requirements: Collaborate with practice groups and business functions to translate operational needs into technology evaluation and selection criteria.
• Process Development: Establish scalable frameworks, standards, and best practices for AI technology evaluation, vendor management, and platform governance.
• Team Leadership: Lead, mentor, and develop a growing team, establishing priorities, performance expectations, and professional development opportunities.

Required Qualifications

• 8+ years of experience in product management, technology evaluation, vendor management, or a comparable field.
• Demonstrated experience evaluating, piloting, selecting, or procuring AI or enterprise software solutions through structured assessments.
• Strong strategic vendor management experience, including relationship ownership, negotiations, escalations, and performance management.
• Experience managing enterprise software platforms, including licensing, user access, usage reporting, governance, and vendor support.
• Current knowledge of the enterprise AI landscape, ideally encompassing general-purpose and legal-specific AI technologies.
• Experience developing technology recommendations and presenting evaluation findings to senior executives.
• Proven people management experience, including mentoring, coaching, and developing direct reports.
• Strong communication skills and the ability to collaborate with technical teams, external vendors, and non-technical senior leadership.
• Authorization to work in the United States without current or future employer sponsorship.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience within a law firm, legal technology organization, or regulated industry such as financial services, healthcare, or consulting.
• Familiarity with legal AI tools used for research, drafting, contract analysis, e-discovery, or regulatory work.
• Exposure to enterprise AI platforms such as ChatGPT Enterprise or Claude Enterprise, or legal AI solutions including Harvey, CoCounsel, or Relativity aiR.
• Experience with enterprise identity management, data governance, security reviews, or document management systems.