Job Specifications
Position Title: Head of AI
Position Type: Regular - Full-Time
Position Location: Toronto HQ
Grade: Grade 07
Requisition ID: 32923
Our Head of AI will lead the strategy, creation and execution of AI Lab, identify areas of AI infusion to support McCain’s existing digital transformation priorities.
This leader will design, develop, and implement AI-driven initiatives to enhance operations, drive growth, enhance customer experience, and enhance business decision-making across McCain. This role focuses on leveraging AI including machine learning, Gen AI, and emerging technologies to drive innovation to transform our business.
Key Responsibilities
AI Strategy & Vision
Develop and execute a comprehensive AI strategy aligned with the company’s business goals.
Identify emerging AI trends and assess their potential impact on McCain’s operations.
Collaborate with executives to reimagine value chain, process, business capabilities, leveraging Agentic AI and assessing their potential applications within our existing digital transformation priorities.
Identify opportunities to integrate AI into existing value chain to enhance functionality, user experience, and market competitiveness.
Build productivity tools and adoption of AI to enhance productivity of every McCainer and empower them to do more.
Leadership & Team Management
Build and lead a high-performing AI Product Management team, collaborating with product owners, platform engineers, data engineers, data scientists, functional and domain experts.
Foster a culture of continuous learning and innovation within the team.
Mentor and develop junior AI product team members, ensuring technical excellence and professional growth.
AI Evangelism: be the advocate and evangelist on what is possible with AI across McCain enterprise wide.
Partner with Engineering Directors to run AI based hackathons and other initiatives to drive AI first culture in Digital Technology.
Collaboration & Cross-Functional Support
Collaborate with cross-functional teams, including global and regional business functions, engineering, data science, and other technology functions to ensure seamless integration of AI solutions into new and existing systems.
Engage with external partners, vendors, and academic institutions for cutting-edge AI research and development.
AI Product Development
Lead the end-to-end AI product development lifecycle, from ideation to launch, ensuring timely delivery and positive ROI.
Design and deploy AI models and agents to help the organization improve revenue efficiency, new market share across value chains and domains of Agriculture, Manufacturing, Supply Chain, Commercial, and corporate functions.
Create positive digital workforce experience through advanced analytics, predictive modeling, and AI agent recommendation systems.
Conduct persona research and gather user feedback to identify unmet needs and areas for product and process enhancements, using AI toolkits.
AI Platform and Engineering
Own the AI Architectural and platform decisions that allows McCain data and AI engineers to scale AI agent development.
Work with Digital Technology Engineering & Ops Leaders to collaboratively define AI tools for Software Engineering, DevSecOps and IT Operations including AI Ops.
Define strategy of Buy vs Build of AI Agents especially for packaged softwares like SAP, SFDC which are infusing AI agents into their platforms.
AI Governance
Partner with Legal, Privacy and CISO to ensure all AI initiatives comply with data privacy regulations and ethical standards.
Establish governance frameworks for AI systems and machine learning models to ensure ethical and responsible use.
Implement monitoring and validation mechanisms for AI models to maintain accuracy and fairness.
Collaborate with AI and data science teams to integrate governance practices into the AI lifecycle, from development to deployment.
Ensure transparency and accountability in AI algorithms and decision-making processes.
Qualifications:
Bachelor or master's degree in Computer Science, Data Science, AI, or a related field.
Extensive experience in product management, with a strong focus on AI and machine learning technologies ideally in CPG, Retail or Connected devices platform companies
10+ years of experience in product development in AI and Data products, with 5+ years in a people leadership capacity.
Proven track record deploying AI solutions within the CPG / retail industry or similar sectors, from concept to market.
Deep understanding of B2B innovation and R&D, marketing, and consumer behavior / engagement.
Strong understanding of AI/ML algorithms, frameworks, and tools.
Soft Skills
Strategic thinker with strong problem-solving capabilities.
Excellent communication skills for conveying complex technical concepts to non-technical stakeholders.
Proven leadership and team-building abilities.
Experience working in a fast-paced, agile environment.
Disrupti
About the Company
At McCain, we believe food plays an important role in people’s lives, with the power to bring individuals, families, and communities together.
As a privately owned family company with over 67 years of experience, a presence in over 160 countries, and a global team of 23,000+ people, our values and culture are at the heart of everything we do. Our product quality, people and customer dedication help us achieve global sales in excess of CDN $14 billion. Through our investment and innovation agenda, we continue to be a globa...
Know more