Director, AI Enablement

Church’s Texas Chicken

Employee Job Description

Job Title: Director, AI Enablement

Reports To: SVP, Chief Technology Officer

Department: Technology and Digital Platforms

Location: On-Site — Atlanta, GA

Revised: May 2026

Job Summary:

 Leads AI enablement across Church’s Texas Chicken, serving as the primary connector between business needs and AI solutions. A player-coach role combining program management discipline with the instincts of a trainer, solution curator, and technology evangelist — working directly with business teams to surface high-value AI use cases, match them to the right solutions, steward initiatives from idea to adoption, and build the skills and cultural readiness the organization needs to leverage AI with confidence. The ideal candidate brings off-the-charts intellectual curiosity and an innovative, entrepreneurial mindset — energized by the pace of change in AI, relentlessly exploring what is new and possible, and approaching every business problem as an opportunity to imagine a better solution.

Key Duties/Responsibilities:

• Act as the primary connector between business teams and AI solutions — engaging Marketing, Operations, Finance, Supply Chain, and Franchise partners to identify and curate AI use cases, translate business problems into well-scoped opportunity briefs, and support partners hands-on from use case identification through adoption.
• Own the enterprise AI enablement roadmap — maintaining a prioritized initiative pipeline, tracking program status, measuring adoption against defined targets by function and role.
• Lead AI solution and vendor evaluation, conducting structured assessments and making evidence-based recommendations balancing business value, feasibility, and readiness. Manage vendor relationships with rigor.
• Design and deliver AI training programs, workshops, and introductory experiences across roles and fluency levels. Define and maintain a company-wide AI skills framework mapping capability requirements to roles, identifying gaps, and prescribing a learning progression from AI awareness to practitioner-level application, in partnership with HR.
• Build and sustain an internal AI Champion network of early adopters who serve as local advocates and peer enablement resources. Maintain an AI use case library documenting evaluated cases, deployed solutions, reusable patterns, and lessons learned — making institutional knowledge accessible and accelerating future delivery.
• Own enterprise AI governance policies — defining the principles, standards, and guardrails governing how AI solutions are evaluated, approved, deployed, and monitored. Own AI security standards and policies, coordinating implementation of guidelines covering data handling, access controls, prompt security, output validation, and third-party vendor risk, in partnership with IT Security, Legal, and Compliance.
• Collaborate regularly with the Senior Manager of Data Architecture, AI/BI Product Director, and Director of IT Operations to evaluate technology directions, explore alternatives, and align on platform and policy decisions.
• Bring hands-on technical depth sufficient to prototype, evaluate, and critique AI solutions using leading LLMs — including Anthropic Claude, OpenAI GPT, and Microsoft Copilot — integrated with MCP servers and enterprise data. Applies this capability to assess solution quality, explore options, and form grounded corporate direction recommendations rather than own production development. Stays current with the AI landscape to serve as a credible internal voice on what is emerging, ready for adoption, or warrants monitoring.

Position Requirements (Education, Qualifications, Experience):

• Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in Business, Information Technology, Organizational Development, or a related field (or equivalent experience).
• 5+ years combined in AI enablement, leveraging data/BI technologies, technology adoption, digital transformation, or program management, with a demonstrated track record of helping organizations adopt and benefit from emerging technologies.
• Proven ability to engage business stakeholders across functions, identify technology-solvable problems, and translate requirements into well-scoped AI use case briefs or solution recommendations.
• Experience designing and delivering technology training programs and enablement curricula for diverse audiences, adapting content and style to different roles and AI fluency levels.
• Experience evaluating AI tools, platforms, and vendors — including structured assessments and proof-of-concept engagements — and making evidence-based recommendations to business and technology leadership.
• Strong program and project management skills — tracking concurrent AI initiatives, managing stakeholder expectations, identifying risks, and delivering clear portfolio-level status reporting.
• Working knowledge of AI and generative AI — including LLMs, AI agents, prompt engineering, and enterprise AI applications — sufficient to evaluate solutions, guide scoping, and communicate clearly to non-technical audiences.
• Demonstrated ability to drive adoption and behavior change across organizational boundaries without direct authority, with strong influence, facilitation, and stakeholder engagement skills.
• Hands-on technical depth to prototype, evaluate, and critique AI solutions; familiarity with leading LLMs (Anthropic Claude, OpenAI GPT, Microsoft Copilot) and MCP integration frameworks sufficient to assess quality, compare platforms, and guide vendors and developers.
• Familiarity with data model and rules schema design supporting descriptive, analytic, and prescriptive AI outputs — sufficient to evaluate vendor approaches and guide internal developers.
• Proven vendor management skills — evaluating providers, managing relationships, conducting performance reviews, negotiating contracts, and holding vendors accountable to commitments.
• Proven experience leveraging Big Data capabilities to deliver AI/ML solutions, including large-scale structured and unstructured data, distributed processing, and cloud data platforms. Experience with Microsoft Azure — including Azure Data Lake, Synapse Analytics, Azure Machine Learning, and Azure OpenAI — strongly preferred.
• Experience in restaurant, retail, or multi-unit consumer-facing environments is a plus, as is familiarity with operational, marketing, and back-office contexts where AI use cases will be developed.

Competencies:

• Connector Mindset- Bridges business problems and AI solutions naturally. Listens to understand needs, frames them as opportunities, and assembles the right people, tools, and providers to move from use case to value. Builds and uses a broad internal and external network to accelerate adoption.
• Influencing Others - Drives enablement outcomes without direct authority. Builds credibility through knowledge and results, using facilitation, storytelling, and relationships to move stakeholders from awareness to active engagement.
• Communication - Communicates AI concepts and program progress clearly for every audience — frontline teams to senior executives. Creates training content and enablement materials that are engaging, practical, and jargon-free.

Initiative - Proactively identifies use cases, surfaces adoption barriers, and builds programs without waiting for direction. Brings energy and ownership to the AI agenda and creates momentum at every stage of the organization’s AI journey.

Managing Execution - Manages a concurrent portfolio of enablement initiatives, training programs, and use case workstreams with discipline. Tracks progress, surfaces risks, and keeps both enablement and delivery activities on course.

Curiosity & Learning Agility - Maintains genuine, active interest in the evolving AI landscape. Learns continuously, applies new knowledge quickly, and models the learning behaviors the role is designed to cultivate across the organization.

Stakeholder Management - Builds productive relationships across Operations, Marketing, Finance, Franchise, HR, and technology teams. Manages expectations, communicates status clearly, and navigates competing priorities with a consistent focus on AI-driven business value.

Training & Knowledge Sharing - Designs and delivers engaging, role-appropriate training that builds AI capability practically and progressively. Translates complex concepts into accessible content and fosters a culture of open AI knowledge sharing.

Critical Thinking - Evaluates use cases, vendor solutions, and enablement approaches with rigor and intellectual honesty. Distinguishes genuinely valuable AI applications from technically interesting but premature ones and makes well-grounded recommendations.

Physical Requirements:

Employees must be able to perform the essential functions of the position with or without reasonable accommodation.

Travel: Up to 25%

1. If you’re hungry for a career that’s fun, fast-paced and loaded with opportunity, then you’ve come to the right place. At Church's®, we’re not your typical quick service restaurant. We make real comfort food that makes a difference in peoples’ lives. And for over 60 years, our restaurant has been a place where hard-working people can get ahead and go on to do amazing things by serving others.

2. Church’s Chicken is an equal employment opportunity employer and makes hiring and employment decisions without regard to race, color, religion sex, national origin, age, disability, genetic information or any other factor prohibited by applicable law.