Head of AI Lab / Sr. Vice President – AI & Innovation

Reports To: Chief Executive Officer

Location: Pune

Employment Type: Full-Time, Executive Leadership

About the Role

We are seeking a visionary and highly accomplished leader to head our AI Lab, responsible for driving the company’s end-to-end artificial intelligence strategy, innovation roadmap, research initiatives, and AI-driven product transformation. This executive will act as the strategic architect of our AI vision, ensuring that AI initiatives align with business goals and deliver measurable value across the organization. This is a high-impact leadership role with direct visibility to the CEO and the Board.

Key Responsibilities

Strategic Leadership & Vision

• Define and execute the short-term and long-term AI vision, roadmap, and research strategy for the company.

• Drive enterprise-wide AI adoption, ensuring alignment with business strategy and product objectives.

• Build and lead a world-class AI Lab that fosters innovation, experimentation, and rapid prototyping.

AI Research & Product Innovation

• Oversee AI/ML research initiatives, including generative AI, predictive analytics, NLP, computer vision, and reinforcement learning.

• Collaborate with product teams to conceptualize, design, and integrate AI features into new and existing products.

• Evaluate emerging technologies and conduct feasibility studies to determine their impact on the company’s product portfolio.

AI Engineering & Delivery

• Lead architecture and engineering efforts for scalable, secure, and production-ready AI systems.

• Establish best practices in data engineering, model development, evaluation, deployment, and monitoring.

• Own the end-to-end lifecycle of AI solutions—from ideation to development to production rollout.

Team Building & Leadership

• Build, mentor, and manage a high-performing multidisciplinary team of AI researchers, ML engineers, data scientists, and AI product managers.

• Foster a culture of innovation, excellence, and continuous learning.

Governance, Compliance & Risk Management

• Establish ethical AI practices, governance frameworks, and model compliance guidelines.

• Ensure the responsible use of data in alignment with privacy laws and organizational policies.

• Implement robust model validation, security standards, and risk management procedures.

Executive Stakeholder Management

• Provide strategic guidance to the CEO, executive leadership team, and board on AI opportunities and risks.

• Influence cross-functional leaders to drive AI-led transformation across the organization.

• Represent the AI Lab in external forums, conferences, and partnerships with academia, startups, and research bodies.

Required Qualifications

Technical Expertise

• Master’s or PhD in Computer Science. Strong knowledge of Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, Data Science, or related discipline.

• 10+ years of experience research or engineering, with at least 5+ years in leadership roles.

• Deep understanding in machine learning, generative AI, LLMs, cloud AI platforms, and modern data architectures.

• Proven experience in productizing AI solutions at scale.

Leadership & Business Skills

• Strong executive presence with the ability to communicate complex concepts to senior business stakeholders.

• Demonstrated success building and scaling high-performing AI teams.

• Experience developing AI strategy, budgets, timelines, and cross-functional plans.

• Strong understanding of business models, product lifecycles, and go-to-market considerations.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience in software product companies or SaaS environments.

• Track record of innovation—patents, publications, open-source contributions.

• Experience collaborating with global teams and external research communities.

• Exposure to AI ethics, regulatory frameworks, and enterprise AI governance.

What We Offer

• Opportunity to shape the AI vision of a fast-growing software company.

• Direct influence on strategic decisions at the executive level.

• A collaborative environment that values innovation, creativity, and impact.

• Competitive compensation with executive-level benefits.