Executive: Head of Artificial Intelligence

Job Summary

• Accountable for translating AI strategy into enterprise-wide delivery, adoption, and measurable value.
• Accountable for the enterprise AI use-case portfolio; from identification and prioritisation through to production deployment and value realisation.
• Responsible for the AI investment discipline framework, ensuring all AI spend is tied to measurable business outcomes and that ROI is tracked with the rigour required for board-level reporting.
• Responsible for the pace of AI adoption across the bank and moving the bank from experimentation to embedded, operational AI at scale.
• Accountable for the AI governance operating model, ensuring responsible AI principles are embedded into delivery, not bolted on as compliance afterthoughts.

• Align with stakeholders to evolve the AI strategy linked to clear financial and operational outcomes.
• Lead the systematic identification, prioritisation, and industrialisation of high-impact AI use cases across all business domains. Apply rigorous business case discipline that links AI investment to measurable value (revenue growth, risk reduction, cost efficiency, customer experience).
• Drive the shift from fragmented AI pilots to coordinated, product-based AI execution, through establishing the operating model, governance, and delivery rhythm for enterprise-scale AI industrialisation.
• Produce board-grade reporting, strategy papers and investment submissions that demonstrate the results of the AI strategy the execution.
• Track execution progress against key strategic initiatives and intervene to correct course where needed.
• Lead the delivery team for AI initiatives, translating business objectives into a prioritised backlog and clear technical execution plan.
• Work directly with business teams to identify and build out high-value use cases using AI tools and matching the right tool to the right problem.
• Align with stakeholder to help drive productivity and stay competitive by embedding generative AI tooling into day-to-day work, at scale.

• Own the AI Governance framework, including policy, standards, guidelines, AI risk framework, model inventory and lifecycle management.
• Align the governance framework to international and local standards and regulatory requirements.
• Establish and maintain AI Key Risk Indicators (KRIs) for ongoing monitoring of production AI systems across the group, ensuring that model risk management processes are robust, documented, and auditable.
• Ensure responsible AI principles (fairness, accountability, transparency, explainability) are embedded into the AI delivery lifecycle, not managed as a separate compliance function.

• Work with the AI Engineering Team to develop the enterprise AI platform by providing scalable, governed, model-agnostic AI infrastructure that enables business domains to build, deploy, and operate AI solutions within enterprise guardrails.
• Establish AI practitioner enablement that ensures that the bank's data scientists, ML engineers, and AI product managers are equipped with the tools, standards, patterns, and training to deliver high-quality AI at speed.
• Drive AI literacy across the enterprise to enable business users, executives, and board members to engage with AI outputs intelligently, ask the right questions, and make informed AI governance decisions.
• Run training, awareness workshops, and regular updates to the business to support Adoption.
• Manage the AI vendor and technology ecosystem strategy in a manner that ensures that the bank avoids vendor lock-in, maintains model-agnostic optionality, and makes technology choices that reflect long-term enterprise architecture principles.

• Own the AI investment portfolio through maintaining a consolidated view of all AI initiatives across the enterprise, tracking value delivery, surfacing risks, and making prioritisation recommendations to the CDAIO and Group Exco.
• Develop and maintain the AI business case framework, ensuring all AI investments are anchored in measurable outcomes, with defined value metrics and explicit ownership of benefits realisation.
• Report AI portfolio value to board and Exco on a regular cadence; with the transparency, rigour, and narrative quality required at board grade.
• Manage the AI operating budget and resource allocation and balance central platform investment with domain-level AI capability development

• Serve as the primary AI strategic partner to business domain executives, translating AI capability into domain-specific value propositions and ensuring business leaders are active co-owners of their AI agendas.
• Lead the enterprise AI governance forum or an equivalent bringing together cross-divisional AI stakeholders, executive sponsors, and business domain leaders to align strategy, prioritisation, and governance.
• Manage relationships with key external partners (technology vendors, academic institutions, regulators, and peer-bank networks) to ensure that Absa remains at the frontier of responsible AI practice in African banking.
• Represent Absa in external AI forums, regulatory engagements, and industry bodies. Help build the bank's reputation as a responsible and innovative AI leader in the South African and Pan-African context.

• Build and lead a high-performing, multidisciplinary AI function.
• Attract, develop, and retain top AI talent though building a team culture that combines technical excellence and innovation with business orientation, ethical commitment, delivery discipline and collaboration.
• Develop future-ready talent through structured learning and career development.
• Coach and develop AI practitioners across the group; raising the quality of AI delivery, governance, and adoption beyond the AI function into business domains.
• Embed people processes and values into business routines, reinforcing a strong leadership culture.
• Develop workforce capabilities to meet business plan execution requirements and future readiness.
• Create inclusive team environments that support performance, wellbeing, and growth.
• Address escalated people issues and ensure application of performance and development processes.
• Develop future leaders through mentorship, stretch assignments, and tailored development experiences.
• Provide expertise and advice in the development and implementation of human capability and accountability frameworks across functions.
• Direct the development and implementation of human capability strategies to support people management priorities.

• Postgraduate degree in a quantitative discipline such as Computer Science, Data Science, Mathematics, Statistics, Engineering, or equivalent and Professional Qualifications.
• An MBA with a demonstrated focus on technology strategy and innovation is a strong complement.
• Certification in AI governance, responsible AI, or equivalent frameworks is advantageous.

• 12–18 years of progressive leadership experience in data, analytics, AI, or technology functions within financial services.
• Demonstrable experience in a tier 1 or tier 2 bank, insurance group, or equivalent financial services institution; with working knowledge of banking operations, risk, and compliance.
• Experience reporting to C-suite executives and presenting to board committees on AI strategy, governance, and investment.
• Track record of delivering measurable AI value at enterprise scale with specific, quantified outcomes that demonstrate commercial impact.
• Experience owning or co-owning an AI governance framework including policy, model risk, and regulatory alignment.
• Experience building and leading AI teams in a complex, federated organisational environment.
• Demonstrated ability to translate data insights into business strategy, influencing decisions at executive or board level.
• Experience driving measurable outcomes such as revenue growth, cost reduction, or customer retention.
• Cross-Functional Collaboration - experience working with data engineering, IT, compliance, risk, and business units to align data science initiatives with enterprise goals.

• Enterprise AI strategy design and execution through business case development, portfolio prioritisation, value realisation frameworks, multi-year AI roadmap construction.
• AI governance and model risk management including policy authoring, AI risk frameworks, model lifecycle governance, regulatory alignment, AI KRI design.
• Technical AI architecture credibility with sufficient depth in GenAI platforms, LLM orchestration, MLOps, and agentic AI to evaluate technical proposals and hold engineering teams accountable.
• The ability to produce Board-grade communication such as producing and delivering board papers, Exco presentations, and investment submissions that meet the narrative and analytical standards required.
• Change management and enterprise adoption through design and execution of adoption programmes that move the bank from experimentation to embedded operational AI.
• The ability to own an AI investment portfolio, track ROI, and make investment decisions with financial discipline.
• The ability to build high-performing AI functions, attract top talent, and develop AI practitioners across the enterprise.
• Knowledge of retail banking, corporate and investment banking, risk management, credit, fraud, compliance, and the South African regulatory environment.
• Working knowledge of ML models, GenAI and LLM architecture, NLP, computer vision, and intelligent document processing sufficient to evaluate and challenge technical proposals.
• Enterprise data architecture including cloud data platforms, data governance, data products, semantic modelling, data lineage, and data quality management.
• Responsible AI regulatory frameworks and equivalent South African regulatory guidance.
• Vendor and technology ecosystem, major AI platform providers, LLM orchestration tools, MLOps platforms, and model-agnostic architecture principles.
• Strategic management through business case construction, financial modelling of AI ROI, investment governance, commercial strategy.

Education

Absa Bank Limited is an equal opportunity, affirmative action employer. In compliance with the Employment Equity Act 55 of 1998, preference will be given to suitable candidates from designated groups whose appointments will contribute towards achievement of equitable demographic representation of our workforce profile and add to the diversity of the Bank.

Absa Bank Limited reserves the right not to make an appointment to the post as advertised