Head of Product & AI

This role is about building things. Not scoping them for someone else to build, not writing requirements documents, not waiting for the engineering team to have capacity. The Head of Product & AI and the AI Product Builders are expected to take a problem and produce working software - front-end code, AI-integrated interfaces, functional prototypes - that is close enough to production-ready that the engineering team can harden and ship it. We are not a design-and-hand-off shop. We build.

Concretely, the Head of Product & AI is responsible for three things:

• -Understanding what needs to be built and building it. Working with group entity stakeholders to understand what they actually need - not what they think they want - and then getting on and building it. Front-end code, AI-integrated interfaces, functional prototypes. The output is working software, not a specification document.
• -Owning AI initiatives from problem to result. Taking AI initiatives from problem to working software. Framing the problem correctly, building with the team, and tracking whether the result actually delivered what was promised. The programme management discipline matters here - most of these initiatives fail on the basics, not the technology. But the output is always something built, not something documented.
• -Building and developing the AI product function. Hiring and developing AI Product Builders who can build, not just specify. Setting the standard for how the product and AI function works across all delivery clusters - how problems get understood, how code gets written, how builds get handed to engineering for hardening. The team should be producing working software continuously, not waiting for a sprint to open up.

Your background is probably in product management or programme delivery, but you have always stayed close to the code. You are not an engineer by training, but you are comfortable enough with front-end development and AI tooling to build working software yourself - and to lead a small team of AI Product Builders who are doing the same. You know how to work with stakeholders to understand what they need, and then you go and build it rather than writing it up for someone else.

You have used AI tools in your delivery or programme management work - not as a bystander, but as someone who has thought carefully about where they help and where they create noise. You do not need to have run a full AI programme. But you need to be genuinely curious about how these tools are changing the way work gets done, and honest about what you do not yet know. We are figuring this out too. We want someone who will engage with that seriously rather than paper over it.

On the technical side, you need enough literacy to have a real conversation with an engineer. You should have a working understanding of what AI tools can and cannot do, why some use cases are harder than they look, and what it means to measure whether something actually worked. You do not need to write the code. You do need to understand what you are asking someone to build, and be able to tell when the answer you are getting back does not quite add up.

On the programme side, this is where you should be strong. You are good at getting things out of people - requirements, decisions, sign-offs. You keep plans honest. You escalate early and constructively. You know the difference between a stakeholder who is genuinely blocked and one who is just slow, and you handle both without drama.

A few things that matter to us:

• -You default to building over planning. Given a problem, your instinct is to make something, not document something.
• -You are comfortable with ambiguity in the problem space but intolerant of ambiguity in ownership. You want to know what you are responsible for, and you hold others to the same standard.
• -You have strong instincts on what a credible AI result looks like versus a demo dressed up as one. You are not easily impressed by a good slide.
• -You are comfortable working across a multi-sector portfolio and switching context between a financial services use case and an F&B one in the same week.
• -You have been in rooms with senior stakeholders and not been pushed around on scope or timeline without good reason. You can hold a position without making it a confrontation.

There is no existing product function to inherit and no backlog to pick up from. We are looking for someone who wants to build something from scratch - and who understands that in this team, building means actually building.