Director, AI Security

Role Description

The Director, AI Security is a newly created senior leadership role responsible for building, leading, and continuously maturing the IRC’s AI security function. This role sets the organizational direction for securing AI systems — from initial design through production deployment, ongoing governance, and team development.

This is a high-visibility, cross-functional leadership role that sits at the intersection of security engineering, risk management, and emerging technology. The Director, AI Security will advise the CISO, build and develop a dedicated AI security team, own the function’s budget, and partner with various teams to ensure AI adoption is secure by design.

Key Responsibilities

• AI Security Strategy & Governance
  • Define, own, and continuously mature the IRC's AI security strategy and program roadmap.
  • Establish and maintain the organization-wide AI agent registry.
  • Develop and publish secure-by-default standards, frameworks, and reference architectures.
  • Create and enforce AI security policies.
  • Report AI security risk posture and program progress to the CISO and senior leadership.
• Security Risk Assessment & Review
  • Coordinate and perform GIS security reviews.
  • Partner with stakeholders to support the AI intake, assessment, and stage-gating process.
  • Perform security risk assessments and classify AI platforms.
  • Conduct a structured controls assessment for every use case.
  • Issue formal, documented approval decisions for every reviewed use case.
  • Manage defined SLA timelines for all reviews.
  • Conduct periodic reassessments of all active agents.
  • Monitor the evolving AI threat landscape.
  • Lead post-incident reassessments for any active agent involved in a security incident.
  • Evaluate third-party AI tools for security risk.
  • Maintain a risk register specific to AI systems.
  • Report aggregate review metrics to the CISO.
• Technical Oversight & Controls
  • Define technical security requirements for AI agents.
  • Build, lead, and develop a team of AI security engineers.
  • Own and resource red team and adversarial testing programs.
  • Drive adoption of secure coding practices and security tooling.
• Identity & Data Security Coordination
  • Establish governance frameworks with the IAM team.
  • Set data security standards with the ML/Data Security Analyst.
  • Define data classification requirements for information flowing through AI systems.
• Incident Response
  • Develop and maintain AI-specific incident response runbooks.
  • Serve as executive sponsor for significant AI-related security incidents.
  • Conduct post-incident reviews and drive lessons learned back into the AI security program.
• Regulatory & Compliance Alignment
  • Serve as the organization's primary subject matter expert on AI-specific regulatory requirements.
  • Partner with the GRC team to map AI security controls to compliance obligations.
  • Monitor the evolving AI regulatory landscape.
• People Leadership & Team Development
  • Recruit, hire, onboard, and develop a high-performing AI security team.
  • Set clear team goals and conduct regular performance reviews.
  • Foster a team culture of continuous learning.
• Vendor Management
  • Lead vendor evaluation and selection for AI security tooling.
  • Develop a multi-year AI security roadmap.
• Working Relationships
  • Internal: CISO, ITLT, Security Operations & Engineering lead, IAM lead, GRC lead, AI Review Panel lead, Office of General Council team, AI & Program tech engineering team, Data Architecture lead.
  • External: AI and Security Vendors, Industry Peers & Research Communities.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Information Security, Cybersecurity, or a related technical field.
• Advanced degree (Master's or equivalent) preferred but not required where experience is demonstrably strong.
• 10+ years of experience in information security, with at least 4-5 years in a people management or senior security leadership role.
• Demonstrated hands-on experience securing AI/ML systems.
• Proven experience conducting threat modeling, security architecture reviews, and risk assessments.
• Experience building and leading security teams.
• Track record of working cross-functionally with engineering, product, legal, and compliance teams.
• Prior experience with incident response and managing security incidents involving automated or AI-driven systems is strongly preferred.
• Demonstrated experience managing and developing a team of security professionals.

Benefits

• 10 sick days.
• 10 US holidays.
• 20-25 paid time off days depending on role and tenure.
• Medical insurance starting at $163 per month.
• Dental starting at $6.50 per month.
• Vision starting at $5 per month.
• FSA for healthcare and commuter costs.
• 403b retirement savings plans with immediately vested matching.
• Disability & life insurance.
• Employee Assistance Program available to staff and their families.

Company Description

The International Rescue Committee (IRC) responds to the world's worst humanitarian crises, helping to restore health, safety, education, economic wellbeing, and power to people devastated by conflict and disaster. Founded in 1933 at the call of Albert Einstein, the IRC is one of the world's largest international humanitarian non-governmental organizations (INGO), at work in more than 40 countries and 29 U.S. cities.