Enterprise AI Director

Atlas is a trusted leader in environmental and infrastructure consulting services; we provide services that enable communities to flourish and thrive. With a team of 3,500 employees and offices throughout the US, we combine local expertise and a network of relationships to deliver solutions to both public and private clients. Our services help improve the quality of life in the communities where we live and work.

We always aim for smart, safe, and sustainable results. At Atlas we understand that our future is everyone’s responsibility, and we create a better experience at every stage of a project.

The Enterprise AI Director is accountable for building and running Atlas’s enterprise AI program. This includes establishing responsible AI governance; selecting, deploying, and operating AI platforms and tools; delivering prioritized AI use cases with measurable business outcomes; and enabling safe adoption across business lines.

Enterprise AI strategy and portfolio

• Define and maintain an enterprise AI vision, strategy, and 12–24 month roadmap aligned to Atlas business goals (growth, margin, safety, quality, and client experience).
• Lead use‑case intake, value sizing, prioritization, and sequencing across the enterprise; maintain a transparent portfolio with KPIs and financial impact tracking.
• Establish AI product patterns (e.g., knowledge assistants, document automation, reporting copilots) to accelerate repeatable delivery.

Responsible AI governance, risk, and compliance

• Operationalize an AI governance model for approvals, exceptions, and risk acceptance in partnership with ELT, Legal, Privacy, HR, and IT.
• Define policies and controls for acceptable use, data handling, model selection, third‑party AI, and human‑in‑the‑loop requirements.
• Implement model and solution risk assessments (privacy, security, bias, explainability, IP, regulatory) and ensure audit‑ready documentation.

Platform, architecture, and operations (AI/MLOps)

• Own the enterprise AI reference architecture (approved patterns for LLM apps, RAG, integrations, and monitoring).
• Stand up and govern AI platform capabilities (identity/access, data connectors, model gateways, logging, evaluation, monitoring, and incident response).
• Partner with IT teams to ensure reliability, scalability, and cost controls for AI workloads and vendors.

Delivery and adoption enablement

• Lead cross‑functional delivery teams to build, test, and deploy AI solutions into production with clear success criteria.
• Create training, communications, and playbooks to drive adoption; build an AI champions network across regions and business lines.
• Establish and track adoption metrics (active users, usage frequency, satisfaction, time saved) and change management effectiveness.

Vendor, contract, and financial management

• Evaluate vendors, negotiate contracts/SLAs, and manage renewals in partnership with Procurement and Legal.
• Build and manage the AI budget (run vs. grow), including ROI tracking, cost optimization, and chargeback/showback where appropriate.
• Maintain a vendor risk program for AI tools, including security reviews and ongoing monitoring.

Leadership and talent

• Build and lead a high‑performing enterprise AI team (product, engineering, data, governance) and/or a federated delivery model.
• Set standards for delivery quality, documentation, and engineering excellence; establish career paths and hiring plans as maturity increases.
• Foster a culture of responsible innovation: fast learning, measurable value, and disciplined risk management.

The role is accountable for day‑to‑day AI decisions and is the escalation point for AI risk and delivery issues. The AI Governance Board provides executive oversight and resolves tradeoffs.

• Owns: enterprise AI roadmap, platform/tooling recommendations, use‑case prioritization process, delivery standards, AI policy implementation, and ongoing program KPIs.
• Decides: go/no‑go for production deployments (within policy), approved architectural patterns, evaluation and monitoring requirements, and exception routing.
• Recommends to ELT: strategic investments, budget, major vendor selections, changes to…