Head of Applied AI & Agent Factory - Managing Director

Citi is establishing a new, unified firmwide AI organization under a newly created Group Head of Artificial Intelligence - merging the firm's Head of AI and CTO responsibilities into a single executive accountable for AI-led transformation across every business and function. This post-merger structure is intentionally distinct from prior models and will be the engine through which Citi competes in the AI era.

The Head of Applied AI & Agent Factory is the leader who turns Citi's AI capability into measurable business outcomes. This role operates the Agent Factory - Citi's industrialized capability for designing, building, evaluating, and certifying enterprise AI agents - and embeds delivery talent directly into business lines to drive deep, real adoption of AI agents into the firm's most important processes. This is a rare C-16 mandate to build - and run - the delivery engine on which Citi's key AI agenda will ultimately rest.

Why This Role

You will own the proof. The Agent Factory and the Applied AI function you build will be where Citi's AI strategy stops being a strategy and starts being a P&L line. If the firm's AI bet pays off, this is the seat where it shows up first.

Key Responsibilities

Agent Factory - Industrialized Agent Delivery

• Operate the Agent Factory: an industrialized capability for the design, build, evaluation, and certification of enterprise AI agents at Citi scale.
• Define and continuously evolve the firm's standards, patterns, and reference implementations for enterprise agents in close partnership with the Head of Core AI Platform (who provides the agentic runtime, guardrails, and evals) and the Head of Responsible AI (who owns approval and controls).
• Own the official enterprise agent catalog - the curated, certified set of agents that Citi formally sanctions for production use across the firm - including lifecycle management, versioning, and decommissioning.

In-Business Adoption - Applied AI

• Build and lead a cadre of Applied AI engineers embedded directly into business lines, partnering with business COOs and process owners to design, deliver, and scale AI agents inside real workflows.
• Co-design agent-led process redesigns with business COOs - moving beyond point automations to the redesign of end-to-end business processes around AI agents.

• Operate a deliberate "delivery-to-platform" feedback loop: ensure reusable assets, patterns, and components emerging from business-specific work are fed back into the Core AI Platform and Enterprise AI Solutions portfolio rather than re-built.
• Partner with the Head of Enterprise AI Solutions to graduate high-leverage, repeatedly built business solutions into productized, horizontal capabilities.

What Success Looks Like (First 12 Months)

• A live, certified enterprise agent catalog adopted by named business lines, with measurable usage and outcomes against committed ROI.
• A scaled Applied AI function embedded in priority business lines, with active sponsorship from business COOs.
• A working delivery-to-platform feedback loop demonstrably reducing duplicate build across the firm.
• A clear, trusted scorecard of agent adoption and business impact - the "source of truth" for the Group Head of AI's narrative on real-world AI value at Citi.

Qualifications

• 15 years of progressive leadership experience, including senior roles building and scaling delivery organizations - consulting partnerships, Forward Deployed Engineering / solutions engineering teams, or comparable in-business technology delivery functions inside complex firms.
• Builder-operator profile - has personally stood up and scaled delivery organizations from a small core to hundreds of practitioners, ideally inside or alongside large, regulated businesses.
• Deep current expertise in modern AI - agentic systems, LLM-based applications, AI evaluation and certification, and the practical realities of getting AI agents adopted in production enterprise environments.
• Strong commercial and storytelling skills - credible peer to business COOs and CEOs; able to co-design process redesigns and to sell the change rather than impose it.
• Bias to action, ruthlessly outcome-focused - relentless on real adoption, usage, and business impact rather than activity metrics; comfortable killing projects that aren't landing.
• Cross-functional influencer - proven ability to operate in a matrixed environment across product, platform, controls, and business stakeholders without direct authority over all of them.
• Strong financial acumen - fluent in business cases, ROI realization, and the commercial drivers of a complex global firm.
• Risk & Compliance awareness - understands controls, model risk, and regulatory expectations as they apply to AI agents in global banking.
• Excellent communication - credible with engineers, business leaders, controls partners, and regulators alike.
• Financial Services fluency strongly preferred; comparable scaled enterprise delivery experience in regulated industries will be considered.

Education

• Bachelor's degree required, preferably in a quantitative, technology, or business discipline.
• MBA, advanced technical degree, or equivalent strongly preferred.

Job Family Group:
Technology

Job Family:
Applications Development

Time Type:
Full time

Primary Location:
New York New York United States

Primary Location Full Time Salary Range:
$250,000.00 - $500,000.00

In addition to salary, Citi's offerings may also include, for eligible employees, discretionary and formulaic incentive and retention awards. Citi offers competitive employee benefits, including: medical, dental & vision coverage; 401(k); life, accident, and disability insurance; and wellness programs. Citi also offers paid time off packages, including planned time off (vacation), unplanned time off (sick leave), and paid holidays. For additional information regarding Citi employee benefits, please visit citibenefits.com. Available offerings may vary by jurisdiction, job level, and date of hire.

Most Relevant Skills
Please see the requirements listed above.

Other Relevant Skills
For complementary skills, please see above and/or contact the recruiter.

Anticipated Posting Close Date:

Citi is an equal opportunity employer, and qualified candidates will receive consideration without regard to their race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability, status as a protected veteran, or any other characteristic protected by law.

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Salary : $250,000 - $500,000