AI Leadership-Bench Architecture Adviser

The mandate

The board repeatedly asks which senior roles Hyderabad needs to own AI products rather than supply specialist capacity. Hiring plans multiply principal titles across research, safety, data and platform teams, while product decisions remain abroad and succession depends on two individuals. The standing question is how to build a credible leadership bench before rapid recruitment hardens shallow management layers.

The adviser will contribute three working days monthly, lead a monthly leadership-architecture review, attend four people-and-technology committee meetings and complete four India or headquarters talent reviews. A critical appointment or retention question receives an initial view within two business days; routine papers receive comments within five. All preparation and stated attendance are included.

The appointment ends after ten months. At month nine, the chair may propose a distinct succession-assurance mandate, but renewal requires a new board resolution and conflict declaration; no automatic continuation applies. Unused days expire and cannot be attached to later executive searches.

The adviser holds no line authority and carries no executive, selection, remuneration, performance, research, product or hiring responsibility. Management appoints and develops leaders, while the board governs succession. The adviser may challenge role logic, assessment evidence and bench risk, but cannot interview as decision maker, direct employees or promise appointment and reward outcomes.

Up to three unrelated roles may continue. Work for a competing AI company, executive-search firm, university laboratory, cloud or model provider, candidate, investor or compensation adviser creates a conflict requiring disclosure and possible recusal. Placement fees and compensation tied to hires, retention or valuation are prohibited.

Why the board wants this voice

The committee sees hiring volume and market scarcity but lacks someone who has built India AI leadership with genuine global product authority. Search firms can fill roles yet cannot independently decide whether the role architecture creates succession or title inflation. The board wants an experienced builder to test decision scope, evidence and development pathways before committing a costly senior layer.

What you will own

• Press management to define decisions, outcomes and interfaces for research, product, safety, data, platform and engineering leadership.
• Test whether proposed roles carry budgets, roadmap, release, risk, talent and global stakeholder authority proportionate to title.
• Challenge spans, layers, duplicated principals and overseas shadow leaders that prevent India successors from exercising scope.
• Examine assessment evidence through product judgment, technical depth, incident, talent and cross-border influence scenarios.
• Shape succession slates, development assignments, emergency cover and retention choices for each critical capability.
• Probe rewards and equity for scarce skills, internal fairness, mobility, cliff risk and unintended title escalation.
• Frame the board’s closing bench view with ready-now, develop, recruit, redesign and single-point-of-failure decisions.

Candidate qualifications

• Built senior AI research, evaluation, product, safety, data and platform leadership inside an India GCC carrying global roadmap accountability.
• Distinguished technical eminence from enterprise leadership through observed funding choices, model incidents, product trade-offs and multiplication of scarce talent.
• Redesigned inflated principal and vice-president layers where impressive titles concealed duplicated approvals, weak succession and absent customer ownership.
• Developed ready-now successors through exercised global launches, research disagreements and safety escalations rather than classroom programmes or tenure assumptions.
• Governed retention, equity and international mobility for scarce AI leaders without allowing external offers to dictate spans or organisation design.
• Advised nomination and technology committees independently of search firms, candidates, investors and model providers whose commercial interests affected appointments.

Non-negotiables

• Can meet the Hyderabad cadence and complete four India and headquarters leadership reviews within ten months.
• Will disclose candidate, search, university, AI provider, investor and compensation-adviser relationships.
• Accepts that appointment, reward, product and people authority remains with management and the board.
• Brings India AI leadership-building evidence; recruitment volume or generic succession advice alone is insufficient.

1. 49 words maximum. Describe an AI leadership title you redesigned because its decision rights could not support the promised accountability.
2. 49 words maximum. Which current candidate, search, laboratory or investor relationship could require your recusal?
3. 49 words maximum. Confirm the Hyderabad cadence and name one assignment that proves a successor can lead globally.