CIO – Enterprise Platforms — Industry-Solutions Business

The mandate

Regional businesses have accumulated overlapping enterprise platforms with different costs, adoption levels and control practices. Local solutions answered urgent needs, but duplication now slows change, weakens data consistency and makes responsible-AI evidence harder to govern. A deliberate acceleration is required. The CIO – Enterprise Platforms will define the standard core, migrate priority users and reduce run cost without breaking industry-specific delivery.

The remit supports approximately US$1.05 billion in AI product and services revenue and covers about 425 employees and material partners across the USA, San Francisco and the wider region. Platforms include data, workflow, customer, finance, people, integration, identity and control services supporting multiple industry-solutions clusters. The challenge is not choosing one system for everything; it is making justified variation explicit and governable.

The year-one destination is standard platforms, measurable adoption and lower run cost. Responsible-AI controls must be embedded in identity, data, change, evidence and monitoring flows. Consolidation that merely moves cost or creates manual work will not count as progress. Business leaders should see service, migration and economics together.

Why this seat is open

This requirement emerged outside the hiring calendar when the control build exposed the cost of split platform ownership. Interim cover protects essential choices, but a permanent CIO is needed before the next operating gate. The board intends a four-to-six-week path from shortlist to offer. San Francisco is the required onsite base, with relocation available internationally; accountability runs to the Group Chief Executive or a nominated executive committee leader.

What you will own

You will establish a platform and cost baseline spanning applications, integrations, data, suppliers, users, controls and service. Each regional variant needs a business owner and evidence of value or obligation. The baseline should expose full costs, including integration, reconciliation, support and control effort.

From that evidence, you will select standard platforms and sequence migrations around value and risk. Product, process and data ownership must accompany technology choice. Adoption will be measured through completed business journeys and retired legacy work, not licence activation. Exceptions need economic justification, expiry and governance.

Responsible-AI controls belong inside platform workflows. You will partner with risk, product and legal leaders on data lineage, access, approval, change and evidence retention. Control automation must be tested through representative use and accompanied by clear first-line ownership. High-risk manual workarounds require remediation or explicit acceptance.

The 425-person employee and partner perimeter needs end-to-end service leaders, architecture authority and succession. Suppliers should face consolidated commercial and performance governance. Business forums must decide priorities using one view of adoption, service, controls, run cost and migration investment.

Change adoption must be funded as part of every migration rather than assigned to business units after technical release. You will identify process owners, user cohorts, local readiness and benefit measures before waves begin. Training, data remediation and retirement activity require capacity in the plan. Adoption barriers should alter sequencing while keeping the target platform decision intact.

The first 12 months

Within 90 days, map platforms, spend, adoption, controls, integrations and critical business dependencies. Trace representative journeys, assess leaders and stabilise urgent service or evidence gaps. Present target-platform principles, migration waves, business ownership and decision gates to the board.

From months four to nine, launch priority migrations, retire selected duplicate services and embed controls in common workflows. Negotiate material suppliers, fill leadership gaps and demonstrate one business journey with improved adoption, lower run cost and better evidence. Preserve rollback where transition risk warrants it.

At year end, standard-platform use should be increasing across multiple journeys, with visible cost reduction and responsible-AI control improvement. The next plan must reconcile migration, run spend, users, suppliers and talent. Present a three-year target state with downside actions for adoption delay or service instability.

What the board will measure

The first-year platform case should remain within 10% of approved investment and outcomes, with likely variance signalled early. Three quarterly forecasts must reconcile spend, cash, adoption, customer dependencies and people. One major source of duplication or control inconsistency should improve quantitatively from a verified baseline.

Priority service, migration and control issues require closure by approved dates with proof that remediation holds. Critical-talent retention should meet 90%, and ready-now successors should cover 70% of direct reports. Severe technology escalations cannot remain undecided beyond 30 days or be withheld from governance.

The person

You are a CIO, Enterprise Applications Head or Regional Technology Director with 22–28 years in AI, enterprise software, data infrastructure, cloud, analytics, applied research or a comparable organisation. You have owned at least US$800 million of P&L, budget, book or technology portfolio and led at least 400 people.

Your evidence includes consolidating regional platforms, driving genuine adoption and reducing run cost while controls improved. You can explain where standardisation was inappropriate and how exceptions were governed. The board will test a migration whose original plan failed and how you recovered it. References must confirm numerical and sustained outcomes.

Compensation and terms

The anticipated package is US$430,000–575,000 base plus annual incentive and equity, calibrated to the confirmed platform scope and current mix. Equity follows standard vesting and performance conditions. Notice up to six months can be accommodated. The CIO will work frequently with the board and investment committee.

Confidentiality

The organisation, platform estate, control gaps and transition details remain confidential until reciprocal relevance is established under an undertaking. Published context is rounded and blended.