Head of AI Solutions, COO Technology

Salary: £62,000 - 102,000 per year

Requirements:

• 15+ years of experience in technology, with deep hands-on expertise in generative AI and LLM engineering.
• Proven experience designing and deploying multi-agent architectures and orchestration frameworks at enterprise scale.
• Full ownership of the AI/ML lifecycle, including training pipelines, deployment, versioning, monitoring, drift detection, and observability.
• Demonstrated deployment of AI workloads on AWS, GCP, and/or Azure, including managed ML services, scalable inference infrastructure, and vector stores.
• Strong Python proficiency, with working knowledge of PyTorch or TensorFlow and applied experience with AI application frameworks.
• Experience designing AI systems for regulated production environments, including data security, explainability, audit logging, access controls, and legacy system integration.
• 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 measurable business outcomes.
• Experience managing large, complex technology budgets of $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.
• 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 and the requirements for moving AI from development to production under regulatory scrutiny.
• Experience engaging with strategic technology partners at an executive level.
• Bachelors degree required; Masters degree in CS, AI/ML, or a related field preferred.

Responsibilities:

• Define and own the multi-year AI strategy for the COO Technology portfolio and translate business intent into an execution roadmap with measurable outcomes.
• Develop architecture blueprints and end-to-end systems design for generative AI and agentic workflows across operational domains.
• Build the shared AI platform, including reusable models, tooling, guardrails, evaluation frameworks, and accelerators.
• Establish and enforce engineering standards, architectural guardrails, and development patterns across AI initiatives.
• Define a rigorous total cost of ownership model for developing, deploying, and sustaining AI in production.
• Evaluate emerging GenAI technologies, foundation models, and agent frameworks to make build, buy, or partner decisions.
• Lead end-to-end delivery of AI solutions across regulated operational environments from architecture through production deployment, monitoring, and continuous improvement.
• Drive the agentic product development lifecycle, including runtime harness design, evaluation frameworks, human-in-the-loop workflows, feedback loops, and production readiness criteria.
• Manage cross-functional delivery across engineering, product, data, architecture, cyber, risk and compliance, and operations.
• Identify and resolve dependencies, critical path risks, and systemic delivery blockers to ensure on-time, on-budget execution.
• Ensure all AI solutions meet production-grade standards for stability, scalability, auditability, explainability, and regulatory compliance.
• Serve as the senior AI executive point of contact for COO function leads and partner directly with senior technology leaders.
• Lead AI governance forums and Architecture Review Boards, and establish decision rights and review cadences.
• Translate complex technical realities into clear narratives for senior non-technical audiences and develop executive-level communications.
• Ensure adherence to internal policies, risk and control frameworks, model risk management standards, and regulatory requirements.
• Build, structure, and lead a high-performing AI engineering function aligned to operational priorities.
• Foster a culture of technical excellence, intellectual curiosity, and pragmatic innovation.
• Own and manage the AI technology portfolio budget of approximately $200M.
• 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, third-party tooling, and outsourced delivery models.

Technologies:

• AI
• AWS
• Azure
• GCP
• LLM
• PyTorch
• Python
• Security
• TensorFlow
• Cloud
• Agentic AI
• Architect
• Embedded
• Fine-tuning
• Flow
• MLflow
• MLOps
• RAG

More:

We are Citis COO Technology organization, building one of the most consequential AI platforms in global financial services. This executive-level role is based in London and reports directly to the Head of COO Technology. We offer a greenfield mandate, significant executive visibility and sponsorship, and the opportunity to shape AI capabilities across highly complex banking operations with direct impact on how trillions of dollars in transactions are processed, controlled, and reported. We are looking for a leader who can build reusable platforms, scale production-grade AI in regulated environments, and partner with senior stakeholders and strategic technology providers to deliver lasting impact.

last updated 34 week of 2026