POSITION SUMMARY:

The Director, AI Automation is an onsite, business-facing leadership role responsible for building and leading WAI's enterprise AI automation capability. The role owns the use-case pipeline, prioritization process, workflow redesign standards, adoption approach, value measurement, and governance cadence for AI-enabled automation across business functions.

This role leads the business side of a business-led, IT-governed operating model. The Director partners closely with functional leaders, IT, data and security stakeholders, AI platform resources, offshore engineers, vendors, and business users to deliver practical AI-enabled workflows that improve productivity, quality, speed, decision-making, customer experience, and employee experience while maintaining appropriate human review, controls, and accountability.

ESSENTIAL DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES:

• Lead WAI's AI automation program, including use-case intake, prioritization, roadmap development, governance routines, adoption planning, and ROI tracking.
•  Partner with leaders across Finance, Customer Service, Supply Chain, Sales Support, Operations, HR, Product/Catalog, Shared Services, and other functions to identify high-value AI and automation opportunities.
•  Create and maintain a repeatable operating model for AI automation, including intake templates, value/feasibility scoring, process readiness criteria, solution design standards, testing expectations, rollout plans, and benefit measurement.
•  Lead discovery workshops, process reviews, and current-state/future-state workflow design sessions with business teams and process owners.
•  Prioritize opportunities based on business value, feasibility, risk, data readiness, change impact, scalability, and alignment with company priorities.
•  Coordinate with IT leadership and technical AI resources on architecture, data access, security, integration, production readiness, monitoring, and support requirements.
•  Define business requirements, acceptance criteria, controls, approval steps, escalation paths, and human-in-the-loop expectations for approved automations.
•  Oversee business-facing AI Automation Engineers, project contributors, vendors, and remote technical resources to ensure delivery is timely, practical, documented, and aligned with business needs.
•  Facilitate an AI governance or review forum that evaluates use cases, monitors risk and ROI, removes duplication, and sequences work across departments.
•  Support AI literacy, power-user enablement, training, change management, and adoption activities so business teams can identify, use, and sustain AI-enabled workflows responsibly.
•  Track adoption, performance, quality, productivity impact, cost avoidance, service improvement, and realized ROI for deployed solutions.
•  Stay current on AI automation, agentic AI, enterprise workflow platforms, human-in-the-loop design, governance practices, and market practices relevant to WAI.
• Undertakes additional responsibilities and tasks as directed by management.

QUALIFICATIONS (Education, Experience, & Skills required)

• Education: Bachelor's degree in Business Administration, Operations, Engineering, Information Systems, Computer Science, Data Analytics, or a related field required. Master's degree or MBA preferred; equivalent senior leadership experience may be considered.

Experience:

•  10+ years of experience in business transformation, process improvement, operations, automation, product management, consulting, enterprise technology-enabled change, or related work.
•  Demonstrated experience leading or scaling AI-enabled automation, intelligent workflow, or agentic AI initiatives in an enterprise environment, with measurable productivity, quality, or efficiency outcomes (required).
•  Experience leading cross-functional initiatives with senior business stakeholders and measurable operational outcomes.
•  Experience building or scaling a new capability, program office, transformation function, automation program, digital initiative, or enterprise productivity program.
•  Experience with broader workflow automation, digital transformation, and enterprise productivity tooling preferred.
•  Experience coordinating technical teams, IT partners, vendors, offshore/remote delivery resources, or implementation partners preferred.
•  Experience in automotive aftermarket, manufacturing, distribution, retail, shared services, supply chain, finance, or other operationally complex businesses preferred.

Competencies:

Core Competencies & Leadership Attributes

•  Strategic thinking with the ability to translate business priorities into practical execution plans and measurable outcomes.
•  Executive presence and ability to influence leaders, department heads, managers, technical teams, and front-line users.
•  Process orientation and ability to simplify complex workflows into clear requirements, controls, and implementation plans.
•  Balanced judgment regarding where automation creates value and where human review, controls, or escalation must remain in place.
•  Change leadership with the ability to build trust, drive adoption, and help teams work differently.
•  Ownership mindset, pragmatism, curiosity, and comfort building standards while the capability is still evolving.
•  Ability to balance speed, business value, risk management, and enterprise technology standards.

Skills:

•  Strong communication, facilitation, executive presentation, stakeholder management, and change-management skills.
•  Ability to create business cases, roadmaps, project plans, process maps, use-case documentation, adoption plans, and ROI tracking summaries.
•  Demonstrated working fluency with AI automation concepts — including AI agents, workflow orchestration, knowledge retrieval, prompting, human-in-the-loop design, testing, monitoring, and governance — required for this role.
•  Familiarity with enterprise systems such as ERP, CRM, customer service platforms, collaboration tools, knowledge repositories, reporting tools, and workflow systems.
•  Ability to partner with technical teams on data access, security, architecture, integrations, production release, and support models without owning day-to-day technical infrastructure.
•  Proficiency with Microsoft Office Suite; experience with Microsoft Copilot, Power Platform, Power Automate, Azure AI tools, OpenAI/ChatGPT Enterprise, Claude, or similar platforms preferred.
•  English fluency required; additional languages are a plus based on business needs.

Licensing or other special certifications:

• No specific license required. Certifications in project management, Lean/Six Sigma, product management, business process management, data analytics, AI, automation tools, or change management are preferred.

TRAVEL REQUIREMENT:

Up to 10-20% travel may be required for business meetings, site visits, workshops, project discovery, training, governance meetings, or implementation support. Travel may include domestic locations and occasional international coordination as business needs require.

FINANCIAL RESPONSIBILITY:

• Does this job have budget responsibilities (Yes/No)? Yes, may support or manage AI automation program budget planning, vendor estimates, project prioritization, and resource allocation as assigned.
• Does this job have other financial responsibilities (Yes/No)? Yes. Responsible for supporting productivity, cost avoidance, service improvement, business value measurement, and ROI tracking for AI automation initiatives.

MANAGEMENT/SUPERVISORY AUTHORITY

• Does this job manage or supervise associates (Yes/No)? Yes. May directly supervise AI Automation Managers, AI Automation Engineers, project contributors, or other resources as the program scales.
• Does this job supervise in multiple business units and/or countries (Yes/No)? Yes. May coordinate work across multiple departments, business units, regions, and remote or international delivery resources.