Director, Business Transformation & AI

Job Summary:

The Director of Business Transformation & AI leads how Olympia Development works, decides, and grows through the practical use of artificial intelligence and emerging technology. This is a business leadership role, not a technology role. Working in close partnership with Ilitch Companies’ central IT organization — which owns the enterprise technology, platforms, and AI direction — this position is responsible for translating that capability into real change inside ODM: improving how work gets done, how knowledge is captured and used, how risk is identified, and how leadership makes decisions.

The role demands a leader who can champion change, challenge legacy thinking, and drive meaningful evolution across the business — someone with the energy, conviction, and passion to move an organization forward, not simply to deploy tools.

Key Responsibilities:

Lead Adoption and Change Management:

• Own the adoption of AI and new ways of working across ODM’s departments.
• Teach and coach the team on practical, everyday use of AI, building fluency from the ground up.
• Turn new tools into lasting habits, recognizing that most initiatives fail on behavior change, not technology.

Drive Workflow Transformation:

• Identify where ODM should change how it operates, not simply where tools can be added.
• Redesign core processes to capture real gains rather than bolting AI onto existing workflows.
• Prioritize the highest-value opportunities and sequence the work so results are visible.

Own Knowledge Management:

• Organize ODM’s institutional knowledge — deal structures, partnership terms, entitlement history, construction lessons, and vendor experience — into a resource the team can find and reuse.
• Turn fragmented information across files and systems into accessible business intelligence.
• Ensure the business's accumulated experience becomes a durable organizational asset rather than knowledge trapped in files and individuals.

Lead Legal, Contract, and Risk Intelligence:

• Make legal and contractual knowledge — development agreements, leases, contracts, and incentive documents — far easier to find, summarize, and act on across the business.
• Support faster, more reliable contract review, lease abstraction, and document comparison.
• Help leadership identify legal, contractual, and operational risk earlier, before it grows.
• Partner with the legal team and outside counsel to improve both efficiency and insight.

Champion Innovation and New Value:

• Research and pursue new opportunities the business has not previously had the tools to take on.
• Lead applied innovation on high-impact industry problems, including faster and more accurate construction cost estimating.
• Bring forward creative, well-vetted solutions that create competitive advantage, not just efficiency.

Amplify Leadership Capacity:

• Help senior leaders spend less time on administrative and routine analytical work and more time on judgment, relationships, negotiation, and decision-making.
• Increase the organization’s capacity to evaluate opportunities and reach sound decisions without adding senior headcount.
• Strengthen leadership decision-making through faster, clearer synthesis of complex information.

Ensure Responsible Governance:

• Partner with central IT and the Director of AI Strategies to ensure AI is used responsibly and securely within ODM.
• Establish clear, business-aligned standards for the use of AI with confidential deal, legal, and financial information.
• Align ODM’s adoption with enterprise-wide technology direction and standards.

Required Knowledge, Skills and Abilities:

• Bachelor’s degree in related field required.
• 10+ years of progressive leadership experience in business transformation, strategy, operations, consulting, innovation, or a related discipline.
• Demonstrated success leading organizational change and driving adoption of new processes or technology across multiple functions.
• Strong business judgment with the ability to translate between business needs and technical capability; deep technical or data-science credentials are not required.
• Working fluency with AI and emerging technologies, with a clear focus on business application over technical depth.
• Proven ability to influence and align stakeholders across departments and at the executive level.
• Excellent written and verbal communication, including the ability to brief and persuade senior leadership.

Preferred Knowledge, Skills and Abilities:

• Advanced degree preferred.
• Experience in real estate development, construction, hospitality, or a comparably complex, project-driven industry preferred.

Core Competencies:

• Champions change and challenges legacy thinking with conviction and credibility.
• Brings genuine energy and passion for moving the organization forward.
• Strong communication and executive presence.
• High emotional intelligence, with the ability to influence without direct authority.
• Sets priorities and drives results, with a strong bias for action.
• Translates complexity into clarity for decision-makers.
• Builds trust and collaborates effectively, including with central IT and across functions.
• Exercises sound judgment and discretion with sensitive and confidential information.

The above is intended to describe the essential job functions, the general supplemental functions and the essential requirements for the performance of this job.  It is not to be construed as an exhaustive statement of all supplemental duties, responsibilities or nonessential requirements.  Olympia Development has the right to change, modify, suspend, interrupt or cancel in whole or in part any job functions outlined in a job description at any time and without advance notice to the employee.

All items listed above are illustrative and not comprehensive.  They are not contractual in nature and are subject to change at the discretion of Olympia Development of Michigan.

Olympia Development of Michigan is an Equal Employment Opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regards to that individual’s race, color, religion or creed, national origin or ancestry, sex (including pregnancy), sexual orientation, gender identity, age, physical or mental disability, veteran status, genetic information, ethnicity, citizenship, or any other characteristic protected by law.                  

                
The Company will strive to provide reasonable accommodations to permit qualified applicants who have a need for an accommodation to participate in the hiring process (e.g., accommodations for a job interview) if so requested.

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