Head of AI & Automation

Role purpose

Strategy, team, and delivery

• Set AI and automation strategy and prioritize opportunities across business operations, client support, marketing, and trading or risk intelligence.
• Own investment proposals, budgets, build-versus-buy decisions, vendor performance, and a sequenced portfolio roadmap.
• Recruit and lead product, architecture, AI engineering, automation, data, quantitative, evaluation, and platform capabilities.
• Set delivery standards from discovery through launch, monitoring, and retirement; establish business ownership and adoption plans.
• Resolve dependencies and intervene when initiatives lack usable data, ownership, adoption, or demonstrated value.

Governance and adoption

• Establish risk-based AI governance covering approved use, data access, vendors, evaluation, human oversight, incidents, and model changes.
• Secure relevant approvals for material trading, payment, and client-facing applications before launch.
• Report portfolio outcomes, costs, adoption, service performance, model limitations, and incidents to executive leadership.
• Build organizational AI capability through training, approved tools, and process redesign; retire ineffective or unsupported solutions.

Essential experience and qualifications

• 12+ years in technology, data, AI, product, or transformation leadership, including 5+ years leading teams and significant delivery programmes.
• Proven production AI/ML and automation delivery with measurable outcomes, including recent generative AI adoption.
• Strong understanding of FX/CFD brokerage operations or related electronic trading, including onboarding, trading, payments, risk, and support.
• Technical fluency across architecture, model evaluation, data quality, security, operating costs, and vendor assessment.
• Experience owning budgets, hiring specialist teams, managing vendors, and working with executive leadership.
• Strong governance and change leadership, including scaling adoption beyond isolated pilots.
• Bachelor’s degree in a relevant business, quantitative, or technology discipline, or equivalent experience; postgraduate qualifications are advantageous.

Preferred experience

• Leadership of an AI or automation function in a multi-entity financial services group is preferred.
• Experience with enterprise AI and quantitative trading or risk analytics is preferred.
• Experience establishing model oversight, platform capabilities, and business-benefit validation from an early stage is preferred.