Board Technology Adviser — Generative AI Governance, Banking

The mandate

The standing question is whether the bank can move from scattered generative-AI experiments to customer-facing deployment without accepting model, conduct and data risks the board cannot see. Directors want a voice that can distinguish durable capability from vendor theatre.

The adviser will reserve three days each month: one working session with the Chief Technology and Risk Officers, one portfolio review, and Technology Committee attendance. Material ad-hoc questions receive an initial view within one business day and a considered note within seventy-two hours.

The appointment runs for nine months and may be renewed once for three months by the committee chair after an eighth-month effectiveness review. The adviser holds no line authority, procurement vote or executive responsibility; management remains accountable for models, controls and delivery.

The retainer may sit alongside no more than two other substantial advisory commitments. A board role, investment or paid assignment with an Indian retail bank, large payments processor or a vendor being evaluated must be disclosed before interview and may constitute a conflict.

Why the board wants this voice

Management presents strong technical proposals, while risk discussions arrive after investment choices have hardened. The committee lacks a member who has taken probabilistic systems from lab to regulated production. An independent adviser can make uncertainty legible before capital and reputation are committed.

What you will own

• Test the assumptions behind the bank's twelve highest-value GenAI use cases and expose benefits that depend on unavailable data.
• Press the committee on risk appetite for hallucination, customer harm, intellectual-property leakage and human override.
• Shape a stage-gate that separates exploration, controlled pilot and production approval without becoming the approval authority.
• Challenge management's build, buy and partner logic for foundation models, orchestration layers and evaluation tooling.
• Guide the design of board metrics covering model drift, exception rates, unit economics and unresolved control breaches.
• Stress-test the proposed accountability map across technology, business, legal, compliance and model-risk teams.
• Advise the chair on questions to put to vendors before any multi-year platform commitment is authorised.

Candidate qualifications

• 22–28 years leading technology, data or model-risk decisions in a regulated financial institution.
• Direct governance experience with at least two machine-learning or GenAI deployments serving more than one million customers.
• Evidence of briefing a bank board or technology committee on material technology risk and investment trade-offs.
• Working command of model evaluation, retrieval architectures, privacy engineering and responsible-AI control patterns.
• Experience adjudicating a build-versus-buy decision involving global cloud or foundation-model providers.
• Independence from vendors likely to bid for the bank's GenAI platform or assurance work.