NextGen AI Manager - Innovation and Data Office - Assistant Director

NextGen AI Manager

About the Next Frontier:

Applied Innovation's Next Frontier focuses on emerging technologies, including Physical AI, Quantum Computing, and Next-Generation AI amongst others. This initiative translates advanced capabilities into measurable outcomes, helping clients and EY teams improve decision-making, strengthen resilience, and unlock new opportunities through technology-driven solutions.

About the Delivery Team:

The Next-Generation AI team helps EY teams turn emerging AI capabilities into practical, secure, and governable solutions. The team builds small, high-fidelity prototypes to test what AI can realistically do before decisions on scale or production are made. We work closely with EY teams to translate real business and engineering pain points into rapid, value-focused prototypes.

Position Summary:

A manager for the Next-GenAI team serves as a strategic conduit between engineering pods, client-facing professionals, and governance stakeholders. This role is pivotal in shaping AI prototypes and pilots by owning the backlog, driving sprint-based delivery, and ensuring strong compliance and review alignment. The manager partners closely with account teams to test pilots with clients and quantify value through rapid iteration. The role ensures clear executive communication through demos, updates, and release narratives while proactively managing risks, dependencies, and trade-offs.

Essential Responsibilities of the Job:

• Product & Delivery Leadership
  • Own the lifecycle of AI prototypes, pilots, and MVPs, ensuring delivery against defined milestones and value metrics.
  • Coordinate cross-functional pods, managing dependencies across engineering, governance, and client-facing teams to enable timely execution.
• Value-Driven Experimentation & Innovation
  • Lead rapid, governed experimentation to validate where next-generation AI capabilities deliver measurable impact.
  • Translating business and engineering pain points into scoped pilots, clear requirements, and prioritized backlogs.
  • Guide prototypes from concept to pilot through structured iteration and evidence-based decision making.
• Team Enablement & Execution
  • Work closely with engineers and designers to evolve prototypes into high-fidelity pilots that balance feasibility, compliance, and speed.
  • Establish strong delivery rhythms through sprint planning, backlog refinement, and continuous feedback loops.
• Stakeholder & Client Engagement
  • Partner with client-facing professionals to test pilots with customers and validate real-world outcomes.
  • Communicate progress, risks, and results through executive-ready updates, demos, and release narratives, escalating issues early with clear options and trade-offs.

Analytical/Decision Making Responsibilities:

• Examine new AI methods and delivery patterns to determine where they are feasible, responsible, and worth piloting.
• Apply governance, security, and compliance requirements consistently across the experiment-to-delivery lifecycle, ensuring alignment with EY processes.
• Use evidence and outcome signals to make timely trade-offs, re-prioritize work, and steer teams toward the highest-impact results in a fast-moving environment.

Knowledge and Skills Requirements:

• Background in regulated domains.
• Experience running pilots and driving change management in client environments.
• Tools & stack you may touch:
  • Backlog/Delivery: Azure DevOps
  • Analytics: BI dashboards
  • AI Platforms: Azure OpenAI endpoints (familiarity hands-on not required)
• Collaboration: Teams/SharePoint

Education & Experience:

• 6+ years in product leadership, consulting, or program delivery, 12+ years overall
• Demonstrated ability to translate complex business processes into clear requirements and ability to manage engineering teams at pace and operating at a great cadence.
• Familiarity with GenAI concepts and enterprise constraints (privacy, security, etc).
• Excellent written/verbal communication executive stakeholder presence.