Head of AI Strategy & Operations

ABOUT THE ROLE

Accela is seeking a Head of AI Strategy & Operations to help teams across the company use AI effectively and responsibly. You will shape our enterprise AI strategy, set practical standards, and guide investments that improve how people work and deliver measurable results.

As Accela becomes an AI-first company, you will help turn that ambition into everyday practices, useful tools, and stronger employee capabilities. You will work with business and technical leaders to set priorities, support experimentation, and give executives a clear view of progress, costs, and risks. Each function will continue to own its workflows and results.

This role combines strategic thinking, practical AI experience, and the ability to bring people together around shared goals. You will work closely with Product, Engineering, IT, Security, Legal, Privacy, GRC, HR, Finance, Procurement, and functional leaders to make responsible AI adoption easier and faster. Functions retain ownership of their workflows, delivery, and outcomes. You own the enterprise strategy, requirements, operating model, and portfolio visibility that help those teams execute consistently. You will partner closely to align enterprise requirements with operational needs and incorporate evidence from that portfolio into enterprise decisions.

Responsibilities:

• Shape AI strategy. Develop Accela’s enterprise AI strategy and investment priorities. Assess the company’s AI capabilities and readiness, and align plans with business goals, available resources, and acceptable risk.
• Prioritize opportunities. Work with business and technical leaders to identify promising uses of AI. Weigh expected benefits, readiness, data needs, effort, risk, and cost. Define success measures and recommend which initiatives to fund, expand, adjust, or stop.
• Lead AI governance. Establish clear risk categories, review processes, and approval criteria so teams can move forward responsibly and efficiently.
• Set practical requirements. Translate legal, regulatory, contractual, and policy obligations—including those related to government customers—into clear requirements for security, privacy, data use, human oversight, and AI evaluation.
• Clarify ownership and decisions. Define responsibilities and handoffs from early experiments through deployment and retirement. Resolve conflicts between enterprise and functional requirements within your authority, document decisions, and respect existing approval responsibilities.
• Maintain portfolio visibility. Keep a current company-wide view of AI initiatives, approved tools, owners, investments, dependencies, and risks.
• Support employee adoption. Provide training suited to different roles, practical guides, templates, office hours, and peer learning. Build an AI champion network and use employee feedback to make approved tools and practices easier to use.
• Build team capabilities. Partner with functional leaders to address skill gaps, support changing roles, and set AI goals that improve workflows, quality, employee experience, and business results.
• Guide technology choices. Work with Engineering, IT, Security, and other responsible teams to select approved tools, reduce duplication, and develop reusable capabilities. Evaluate when to build, buy, or configure solutions.
• Establish technical standards. Partner with implementation teams on access controls, activity records, monitoring, incident response, and ongoing management of AI systems.
• Test ideas in practice. Use AI-assisted development and targeted prototypes to test assumptions before larger investments. Work closely with teams that build and operate production systems to understand technical constraints and trade-offs.
• Measure results and costs. Build an executive scorecard covering adoption, business outcomes, quality, reliability, risk, cost, and value. Work with Finance and functional owners to establish baselines, verify benefits, and identify underused capabilities.
• Lead through collaboration. Build trusted relationships across business and technical teams. Partner closely with the Senior Director, AI Transformation & Operations to align enterprise requirements with operational needs. Lead executive reviews with clear recommendations, decisions, and follow-through.

Requirements:

• 6+ years of experience in AI, AI strategy, or technology strategy, including leadership of complex initiatives involving multiple teams.
• Experience establishing enterprise AI or technology governance, standards, operating practices, or adoption programs.
• Practical experience with large language models, retrieval, agents, workflow automation, AI evaluation, and AI-assisted development sufficient to prototype and assess solutions.
• Ability to prioritize opportunities, turn unclear business problems into actionable requirements, and deliver measurable operational or financial results.
• Strong communication, facilitation, and negotiation skills, including the ability to explain technical topics clearly, build agreement, and lead without direct authority.
• Relevant credentials, such as IAPP AIGP, ISO/IEC 42001 Lead Implementer, ISACA AAISM, CRISC, or CGEIT, or equivalent practical experience implementing enterprise AI governance.

Preferred Requirements:

• • Experience in enterprise SaaS, GovTech, or another regulated environment.
  • Experience working with security, risk, or compliance teams.
  • Experience building AI champion networks, employee learning programs, or shared internal AI capabilities.

 ABOUT ACCELA
For nearly 20 years, Accela has been an industry leader in designing and delivering government software to improve efficiency, increase citizen engagement and enable the development of thriving communities. Today, citizens are savvy to how services should be delivered, and expect a consistently convenient, openly transparent view into their local government. While government agencies struggle to do more with less, our mission has never been more critical. Accela provides a robust, cloud-based platform of government software solutions that accelerate growth, efficiency, and transparency in communities of all sizes. From planning, to building, to service request management and more, Accela’s SaaS offerings level the playing field for small and medium governments and enable smaller agencies to leverage larger city technologies. Our open and flexible technology helps agencies address specific needs today, while ensuring they are well prepared for the emerging challenges of the future.

OUR COMMITMENT TO DIVERSITY, EQUITY, AND INCLUSION
Accela believes in developing and nurturing a workplace community where our differences are celebrated, and everyone feels a sense of psychological safety and belonging. Accela is committed to putting resources and attention towards evolving our practices, policies, and philosophies to enable diversity to thrive and to support equity in opportunity for everyone.

COMPENSATION AND WELL-BEING
The annual base salary range for this full-time position is $240,000-$280,000 (less applicable taxes). The actual annual base salary offered may be adjusted based on a variety of factors, including but not limited to, location, education, skills, training, and experience. In addition to an annual base salary, this position is eligible for an annual bonus target. This is a discretionary bonus awarded based on company and individual goal achievement. 
 
Accela’s U.S. team members will receive a generous benefits package consisting of options including flexible time off, comprehensive medical, dental, and vision plans, family planning benefits, 401(k) retirement savings plan with company match, health savings account with company contributions, flexible spending account, life, accident, and disability coverage, business travel insurance, employee assistance programs, and other well-being benefits.

Accela is an Equal Opportunity Employer/Affirmative Action Employer and will respond to requests for job accommodations.

All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, sex, color, religion, national origin, protected veteran status, or based on disability, gender identity, and sexual orientation

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