Head of AI Solutions, COO Technology - MD (C16)

Citi's COO Technology organization is building one of the most consequential AI platforms in global financial services — and this is the role that leads it.

The Head of AI Solutions is a newly created, executive-level position with a clear mandate: architect a unified AI strategy, build a world-class engineering team, and deliver production-grade AI at scale across the operational nerve center of a global bank. This is not a coordination or advisory role. It is a builder's role — one with the budget, the mandate, and the organizational reach to make it real.

You will own the AI strategy and delivery capability across a $200M+ technology portfolio spanning some of the most operationally complex domains in banking: KYC, fraud detection, wholesale lending operations, global reconciliations, cash management, payments control, non-financial regulatory reporting, payroll, and international operations. The scale is significant, the problems are highly complex at this stage, and the impact is direct — the solutions you build will influence how trillions of dollars in transactions flow daily, how regulatory risk is managed, and how Citi's operational infrastructure evolves over the next decade.

Unlike a role at a pure-play technology company, you will be solving AI challenges where failure has regulatory and systemic consequence — and where success reshapes the economics and resilience of critical global operations. The ambiguity is real, the stakes are high, and the opportunity for lasting impact is unmatched.

This role reports directly to the Head of COO Technology.

Responsibilities:

AI Strategy & Platform Architecture:

• Define and own the multi-year AI strategy for the COO Technology portfolio; translate business intent into a concrete, milestone-driven execution roadmap with measurable outcomes

• Develop architecture blueprints and end-to-end systems design for Generative AI and agentic workflows across diverse operational domains

• Build the shared AI platform — reusable models, tooling, guardrails, evaluation frameworks, and accelerators — that reduces duplication, lowers cost, and enables faster adoption across COO

• Establish and enforce engineering standards, architectural guardrails, and development patterns across all AI initiatives

• Define a rigorous total cost of ownership model for developing, deploying, and sustaining AI in production

• Identify and evaluate emerging GenAI technologies, foundation models, and agent frameworks — and make deliberate, defensible decisions on where to build, buy, or partner

Production AI Delivery at Enterprise Scale

• Lead end-to-end delivery of AI solutions across high-complexity, regulated operational environments — from architecture through production deployment, monitoring, and continuous improvement

• Drive the agentic product development lifecycle: runtime harness design, evaluation frameworks, human-in-the-loop workflows, feedback loops, and production readiness criteria

• Manage cross-functional delivery spanning engineering, product, data, architecture, cyber, risk & compliance, and operations

• Proactively identify and resolve dependencies, critical path risks, and systemic delivery blockers; ensure on-time, on-budget execution

• Ensure all AI solutions meet production-grade standards: stability, scalability, auditability, explainability, and regulatory compliance

Executive Partnership & AI Governance

• Serve as the senior AI executive point of contact for COO function leads — partnering directly with the Heads of Core Operations Technology, Shared Services Technology, and Controls Technology

• Lead AI governance forums and Architecture Review Boards; establish clear decision rights and review cadences across the portfolio

• Translate complex technical realities into clear, compelling narratives for senior non-technical audiences — including COO, CIO, and regulatory stakeholders

• Develop executive-level communications — steering committee materials, portfolio dashboards, and milestone tracking — that improve decision velocity and reduce execution risk

• Ensure full adherence to Citi's internal policies, risk and control frameworks, model risk management (MRM) standards, and applicable regulatory requirements

Building the AI Engineering Organization

• Build, structure, and lead a high-performing AI engineering function aligned to COO's operational priorities — including team topology, operating model, and career pathways

• Foster a culture of technical excellence, intellectual curiosity, and pragmatic innovation: engineers who ship production solutions, not prototypes

• Own and manage the AI technology portfolio budget (~$200M), driving disciplined funding allocation, financial transparency, and cost-to-serve accountability

• Lead productivity and efficiency programs with measurable targets across cycle time, quality, throughput, and engineering leverage

• Define and optimize vendor and partner strategy, including strategic AI platform partnerships (e.g., Google, Anthropic), third-party tooling, and outsourced delivery models

Qualifications:

15+ years of experience in Technology - Required:

• Generative AI & LLM Engineering: Deep, hands-on expertise in large language models including model selection, fine-tuning, prompt engineering, retrieval-augmented generation (RAG), vector database design, and evaluation methodologies. You understand how models behave in production, not just in demos.

• Agentic Systems Design: Proven experience designing and deploying multi-agent architectures and orchestration frameworks (e.g., LangGraph, AutoGen, CrewAI); tool-use patterns, human-in-the-loop workflows, and agentic safety at enterprise scale

• AI/ML Engineering & MLOps: Full AI/ML lifecycle ownership: training pipelines, model deployment, versioning, monitoring, drift detection, observability (e.g., Weights & Biases, Arize), and lifecycle management using platforms such as MLflow, Vertex AI, or SageMaker

• Cloud AI Platforms: Demonstrated deployment of AI workloads on AWS, GCP, and/or Azure including managed ML services, scalable inference infrastructure, and vector stores

• Programming & Frameworks: Strong Python proficiency; working knowledge of PyTorch or TensorFlow; applied experience with AI application frameworks (LangChain, LlamaIndex, or equivalents)

• Enterprise AI Architecture: Designing AI systems for regulated production environments: data security, model explainability, audit logging, access controls, and integration with legacy systems

Leadership & Delivery - Required:

• 15+ years in technology, with a proven record of leading large-scale engineering organizations through build-out and transformation

• 10+ years of management experience, including direct leadership of senior engineers and architects, and management of managers across global teams

• Demonstrated delivery of enterprise AI solutions with realized measurable business outcomes — not just successful pilots or proofs of concept

• Experience managing large, complex technology budgets ($50M+) with accountability for financial transparency and ROI

• Track record of operating effectively in matrixed, cross-functional organizations at the intersection of technology and operations

Domain & Contextual Knowledge - Strongly Preferred

• Deep familiarity with financial services operations and the regulatory landscape — particularly KYC/AML, fraud, reconciliations, and regulatory reporting

• Strong understanding of model risk management (MRM) and what it takes to move AI from development to production under regulatory scrutiny

• Experience engaging with strategic technology partners (cloud providers, AI platform companies) at an executive level

Leadership Profile

• You build platforms, not point solutions — you instinctively seek the reusable, the shared, the scalable

• You are equally credible in a deep technical architecture review and a board-level strategy discussion

• You attract, develop, and retain strong technical talent — engineers want to work for you because they grow

• You operate with clarity and urgency in ambiguous environments; complexity energizes rather than paralyzes you

• You communicate with precision — you can make a complex AI architecture concept land with a CRO, a COO, and a principal engineer, and you do it differently for each

Education:

• Bachelors required; Master's in CS, AI/ML, or related field preferred

What success looks like:

In the first year, we expect the successful candidate to:

• Establish the AI engineering team and operating model — hire and structure a high-performing team with clear roles, responsibilities, and a strong culture

• Deliver 3+ production-grade agentic AI systems across priority COO domains, with measurable operational impact (cost, speed, quality, or risk reduction)

• Launch the shared AI platform — reusable RAG infrastructure, evaluation frameworks, and common tooling adopted across COO Technology

• Define and align the multi-year AI roadmap with COO function leads and the Head of COO Technology, with clear prioritization, milestones, and funding allocation

• Establish AI governance — Architecture Review Boards, model risk processes, and compliance frameworks embedded in the delivery lifecycle

Why this role

• Scale that is rare. You will build AI capabilities across one of the world's most operationally complex banking platforms — with direct, measurable impact on how trillions of dollars in transactions are processed, controlled, and reported daily.

• Greenfield mandate. The team, the platform, and the strategy are yours to define. You will set the architectural direction, the engineering culture, and the standards that govern AI across the COO portfolio.

• Uniquely hard problems. Banking operations at this scale generate AI challenges that simply do not exist elsewhere — legacy system integration, regulatory auditability requirements, multi-jurisdictional data constraints, and the need for explainability in consequential decisions. If you want to solve problems that matter and that are genuinely difficult, this is the role.

• Executive visibility and sponsorship. This role has CIO and COO-level visibility, a clear organizational mandate, and the budget to execute without delay.

• Strategic partnerships. Collaborate directly with Google, Anthropic, and leading cloud AI providers to design and deploy core platform capabilities at scale.

Citi is an equal opportunity and affirmative action employer. Qualified applicants will receive consideration without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability, or protected veteran status.

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Most Relevant Skills

Please see the requirements listed above.

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Other Relevant Skills

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Citi is an equal opportunity employer, and qualified candidates will receive consideration without regard to their race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability, status as a protected veteran, or any other characteristic protected by law.

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