Senior Director, AI/ML

Salary Range

$153,720-$203,580

Position Overview

We are seeking a Senior Director of AI/ML to champion the enterprise AI vision and drive the strategic scaling of our intelligence capabilities across a $30B supply chain and retail footprint. In this high-impact executive role, you will own the strategic roadmap, governance, and business-value realization of our next-generation AI portfolio, spanning wholesale distribution, retail merchandising, supply chain operations, and digital commerce. You will serve as the chief bridge between enterprise business strategy and advanced engineering, transforming a multi-hundred-million-dollar AI value portfolio into sustainable, competitive advantages.

As a visionary leader, you will oversee the strategic evolution of our cutting-edge Agentic AI platform and Google Cloud (BigQuery/Vertex AI) Medallion data foundation. You will partner dynamically with executive stakeholders across merchandising, logistics, store operations, and finance to embed AI natively into business workflows. Leading through influence and direct mentorship, you will inspire and cultivate high-performing, cross-functional delivery teams across our onshore organization, Global Capability Centers (GCC), and strategic external AI partners

Job Description

Strategic Context

• Enterprise scale: Wholesale grocery distribution, ~400 owned retail stores, ~190 corporate stores in a recently integrated subsidiary, plus thousands of independent retail customers and a military commissary channel.
• Stack reality: Two-plane architecture (Microsoft and Google Cloud) with BigQuery + Vertex AI as the AI/ML core, LangGraph orchestration for agent workflows, MCP / A2A / ACP / ANP agent protocols in active use, and a Medallion data model under unified governance.
• Portfolio: Run / Grow / Monetize operating model with ~100 prioritized AI use cases, a domain-pod delivery model (Supply Chain, Merchandising, Store Ops, Digital Commerce, Finance), and an 18-month independence target from external delivery partners.

Key Responsibilities

Strategy & Architectural Governance

• Enterprise AI Strategy & Architecture: Define, govern, and own the end-to-end enterprise AI/ML reference architecture, ensuring seamless interoperability across Google Cloud (Vertex AI/BigQuery), Microsoft, and legacy ecosystems to power a $30B multi-banner operation.
• Next-Gen Agentic Frameworks: Orchestrate the strategic roadmap for agentic AI and multi-protocol interoperability, enabling secure, autonomous decision-making paradigms across core retail execution, supply chain, and warehouse systems.
• Core Systems Integration Strategy: Establish enterprise-level integration patterns to natively embed AI services into foundational business platforms, including ERP (Oracle Fusion), merchandising (SymphonyAI, Revionics, DemandTec), WMS, TMS, and PIM systems.
• Model Lifecycle & Optimization Standards: Set corporate standards for LLM selection, RAG vs. fine-tuning frameworks, and knowledge graph patterns to optimize model efficacy while controlling compute overhead.
• Capital Allocation & Gatekeeping: Chair the AI Architecture Review Board and Pre-Evaluation Gates for all new AI initiatives, translating complex technical trade-offs into business-risk records and production-readiness benchmarks for executive alignment.

Platform Strategy, MLOps & AI FinOps

• Scalable MLOps/LLMOps Governance: Oversee the evolution of enterprise MLOps and LLMOps capabilities, ensuring robust guardrails, automated CI/CD for prompts/models, and real-time drift and quality monitoring are standardized across all delivery tracks.
• AI-Accelerated Engineering Strategy: Define the AI-centric Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC) strategy, driving the secure, compliant adoption of autonomous developer tools and next-gen coding environments to boost enterprise engineering velocity.
• AI FinOps & Economic Modeling: Partner with platform engineering and corporate finance to architect enterprise AI cost models—optimizing token consumption, inference routing, and reserved capacity to ensure clear ROI and sustainable FinOps at scale.

Enterprise Governance, Risk & Compliance

• Cross-Functional AI Governance: Co-lead the Enterprise AI Governance Committee alongside Legal, Privacy, and Information Security to manage model risk classification, bias mitigation, IP protection, and data leakage controls.
• Algorithmic Compliance & Risk Mitigation: Proactively mitigate regulatory and antitrust risks associated with algorithmic pricing and merchandising, implementing strict data isolation patterns across independent multi-banner and retailer networks.
• AI Security & Access Frameworks: Secure enterprise AI workloads by embedding advanced data-classification and Identity & Access Management (IAM) patterns into the broader corporate security fabric (e.g., Entra ID, SailPoint).

Leadership, Delivery & Talent Cultivation

• Cross-Domain Delivery Leadership: Provide strategic architectural oversight across five core business domain pods (Supply Chain, Merchandising, Store Ops, Digital Commerce, Finance), ensuring technical execution directly maps to business KPIs.
• Global Capability & Talent Scaling: Cultivate and scale a high-performing AI/ML engineering culture, mentoring a global community of data scientists and solution architects across the onshore organization, the Hyderabad Global Capability Center (GCC), and strategic external AI partners.
• Executive Stakeholder Engagement: Serve as the primary voice of AI technology in enterprise forums, including the Executive Leadership Team (ELT) and the Audit Committee, translating highly technical capabilities into clear business strategy, growth opportunities, and risk mitigation.

Required Qualifications

Education & Experience

• Academic Foundation: Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in Computer Science, Data Science, Engineering, Mathematics, Statistics, or a highly quantitative field; an advanced technical degree (Ph.D. or Master's) or MBA is strongly preferred.
• Progressive Enterprise Leadership: 12+ years of progressive experience in software engineering, data engineering, or applied machine learning, including 5+ years of executive-level leadership directing the strategy, architecture, and deployment of production AI/ML systems at multi-billion-dollar scale.

Technical & Architectural Mastery

• Next-Gen AI Orchestration: Proven track record of architecting and scaling production-grade Agentic AI ecosystems. Deep understanding of advanced orchestration frameworks (e.g., LangChain, LangGraph, PydanticAI) and strategic familiarity with multi-protocol agent interoperability (MCP, A2A, ACP, ANP).
• AI Stack & Foundation Strategy: Deep architectural mastery across the modern AI lifecycle, including LLMs/SLMs, advanced RAG architectures, vector databases (Vertex AI Vector Search, Pinecone, Milvus), knowledge graphs, and classical ML frameworks (Scikit-Learn, PyTorch, TensorFlow).
• Enterprise Data Grounding: Strong foundational knowledge of enterprise-scale data architectures, including the Medallion/Lakehouse pattern, data contracts, and feature stores utilizing BigQuery or Snowflake to fuel enterprise intelligence.

Cloud & Ecosystem Integration

• Cloud Platform Governance: Proven success steering cloud-native AI strategies on major cloud surfaces—with a strong preference for Google Cloud/Vertex AI (or equivalent depth in Azure AI Foundry/AWS Bedrock)—including rigorous oversight of IAM, networking security, and AI cost controls.
• Core Enterprise Integration: Extensive experience directing the integration of AI/ML services into mission-critical corporate ecosystems, such as ERP (Oracle Fusion, SAP), advanced merchandising platforms (SymphonyAI, Revionics, DemandTec), WMS, TMS, and MDM systems.

Executive Leadership & Governance

• Global Talent & Matrix Leadership: Demonstrated success building, mentoring, and scaling high-performing global technical teams (Data Scientists, ML Engineers, Architects) across onshore business units and Global Capability Centers (GCC), leading effectively through both direct and matrixed governance structures.
• C-Suite Influence & Presence: Exceptional executive communication skills and commanding presence. Proven ability to serve as a trusted advisor to the Executive Leadership Team (ELT), seamlessly aligning and defending AI architectural, financial, and risk choices before the CIO, CFO, CISO, and General Counsel.

Qualifications

Shift

1st Shift (United States of America)

Company

C&S Wholesale Grocers, LLC

About Our Company

C&S Wholesale Grocers, LLC is an industry leader in supply chain solutions and wholesale grocery supply in the United States. Founded in 1918 as a supplier to independent grocery stores, C&S now services customers of all sizes, supplying more than 7,500 independent supermarkets, chain stores, military bases and institutions with over 100,000 different products. C&S also proudly operates and supports corporate grocery stores and services independent franchisees under a chain-style model throughout the Midwest, South and Northeast. We are an engaged corporate citizen, supporting causes that positively impact our communities.

Working Safely is a Condition of Employment at C&S Wholesale Grocers, LLC. C&S Wholesale Grocers is an Equal Opportunity Employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, age, disability or veteran status, or any other applicable state or federal protected class. The Company provides affirmative action in employment for qualified Individuals with a Disability and Protected Veterans in compliance with Section 503 of the Rehabilitation Act and the Vietnam Era Veterans’ Readjustment Assistance Act.