Director, AI and Digital Foundry - Greif Packaging LLC

Greif is a leading supplier of industrial packaging products and services, growing from its beginnings in Cleveland, Ohio, to a global footprint across more than 30 countries and 200-plus locations.

OUR VISION:

Be the best performing customer service company in the world.

OUR PURPOSE:

We create packaging solutions for life’s essentials.

ROLE OVERVIEW:

At Greif, our bold vision is to become the best performing customer service company in the world. As a Director of Digital Foundry, you will be responsible for managing end-to-end design and development activities for various innovative and bespoke digital solutions. You will groom your team of product managers and innovation experts to drive landscape changing innovations leveraging emerging technologies, such as Gen AI. You will lead the AI Center of Excellence and drive the process from experimentation to scale. Digital Foundry will be the birthplace for several digital solutions that will contribute directly to Greif’s competitiveness in the short and long term.

In this role, you’ll be expected to demonstrate proficiency in four key areas: 

• Human Centered. You’ll deeply immerse yourself in knowing your internal and/or external customer(s) by employing empathy and design thinking to define broad-scale solutions that provide breakthrough leverage. You’ll model adaptability by encouraging continuous evolution to product strategy in light of industry trends, emerging solutions, new insights and changing customer and business needs.
• Business Focused. You’ll deeply learn the financial drivers, externalities, and points of leverage within your domain to identify new products or product enhancements that drive sustainable value for Greif. You’ll be promote a culture anchored in data, used to instrument products, validate outcomes, drive insights, and manage the business both tactically and strategically 
• Technology Driven. You’ll be responsible for fostering a strong agile discipline and inspiring teams to continuously improve delivery evidenced through key agility metrics. You’ll partner with Technology leaders to influence end-state architecture and drive secure, resilient, performant, and scalable technology solutions that solve material customer and business problems. You’ll govern the responsible and efficient application of technology resources by assessing opportunities for reusing existing solutions, clearly defining minimum viable products, and always building with extensibility in mind. 
• Integrated Problem Solving. Develop and champion a bold vision that drives meaningful outcomes by embracing the art of the possible. Build frameworks for complex decision making that enable effective debate and accelerate getting to the right answer.  
• Transformational Leadership. You’ll establish a long-term product portfolio strategy, informed by customer and business needs, and partner with leaders and stakeholders to regularly drive alignment, secure resources and overcome impediments. You’ll attract, grow, empower, and inspire top product talent as they develop and deliver on their local product strategy in an iterative, outcome-focused and well-managed way. 

Key Responsibilities:

• Develop and execute a comprehensive Generative AI Strategy 
• Build and lead a high-performing, agile, flexible, team of experts fostering a culture of collaboration, innovation, growth mindset, and continuous improvement. 
• Lead the build and execution of Gen AI projects from proof of concept through adoption, monitoring, and measurement of impact. 
• Coordinate and communicate effectively with all stakeholders throughout the project lifecycle to ensure alignment and drive success. 
• Stay updated on the latest advancements in generative AI technologies and apply this knowledge to drive innovation, business growth, and efficiency. 
• Identify potential risks and issues related to generative AI and develop mitigation plans. 
• Ensure compliance with relevant regulations and industry standards. 
• Oversee the development of AL models, integrations, algorithms, and applications to achieve business objectives. 
• Oversee development of digital partnerships with 3rd party technology providers to drive innovation through collaborative innovation engagements.  
• Develop and maintain AI governance frameworks: Establish and evolve governance frameworks for ethical and responsible AI usage, develop best-of-class principles for AI application and integration, and address issues related to data privacy, security, and bias in AI implementation.  
• Shape organizational culture and employee impact: Promote a data-driven and AI-enabled decision-making culture within the organization, foster a positive impact on employees through AI adoption and integration, and support employee development in AI literacy and expertise.  
• Design and kick off an internal innovation scrum team that focuses on niche business challenges and leverages various emerging technologies to develop solutions that drive competitive advantage. 
• Be highly collaborative, working closely with product, engineering, data science and design teams across the enterprise to clearly articulate the vision and facilitate digital innovation across the value chain. 
• Establish new product teams to focus on critical business opportunities (Smart Factory, CRM, Safety, etc.)  

Education and Experience:

• Required bachelor’s in computer science, Engineering, AI or related fields. Additionally an MBA or Master’s level education on AI or Engineering would be preferred 
• Proven experience in Product management, ideally within the AI technology or Gen AI domain 
• Product Management 3-5 years. 
• Agile/SAFe/SCRUM development framework 2-4 years. 
• Business Process Engineering preferred 2-3 years. 
• Data Analytics and Management 2+ years. 
• Generative or Predictive AI / Machine Learning 3+ years. 

Knowledge and Skills:

• Exceptional communication, interpersonal, and leadership skills 
• Strong leadership skills with a record of leading AI teams to success 
• Purposeful mindset, with a strong focus on delivering value and driving impact. 
• Passion to stay up to date with the latest advancements in AI to drive innovation.
• Ability to navigate complex business challenges and provide innovative AI solutions. 
• In-depth knowledge of the Agile framework and principles, certification preferred. 
• Skilled in Lean and Agile thinking, Design Thinking, and Systems thinking while remaining focused on the customer experience and journey. 
• Must be proficient at writing Epics, User stories, Acceptance Criteria and Testing Criteria 
• Strong working knowledge with JIRA