Executive Service
DEPUTY CTO FOR ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE & DIGITAL INNOVATION
Department of Finance & Administration
Strategic Technology Solutions
Nashville, TN
Annual Salary: $160,128.00 - $213,336.00
Closing Date: 07/22/2026
This position is designed as Hybrid.
Background Check:
This position requires a criminal background check and CJIS/FTI Fingerprints. Therefore, you may be required to provide information about your criminal history in order to be considered for this position.
How you make a difference in this role:
See key responsibilities
Job Overview:
The Deputy CTO for Artificial Intelligence & Digital Innovation provides enterprise leadership for the strategy, governance, development, procurement, and operationalization of artificial intelligence, emerging technologies, and digital innovation platforms across state government. Reporting to the Chief Technology Officer, this role partners with executive leadership, agencies, cybersecurity, privacy, legal, data, procurement, and engineering teams to ensure AI and digital innovation efforts are secure, scalable, ethical, transparent, measurable, and aligned to public service outcomes. The Deputy CTO will help Tennessee responsibly adopt AI to improve constituent services, increase operational efficiency, strengthen decision-making, modernize digital service delivery, and build public trust. This role requires both strategic leadership and strong technical depth. The successful candidate must be capable of engaging at the executive, governance, architectural, engineering, and operational levels while guiding enterprise-scale AI modernization and digital transformation efforts. The ideal candidate brings demonstrated experience implementing or overseeing complex enterprise technology platforms and can translate between executive priorities and technical implementation realities.
Key Responsibilities:
AI Strategy, Governance & Public Trust Define and execute the enterprise AI and digital innovation strategy aligned with state priorities, agency missions, and public service values.
Establish statewide AI governance frameworks, responsible AI principles, policies, standards, and guardrails.
Maintain an enterprise inventory of AI systems, pilots, vendor tools, models, and use cases.
Partner with legal, privacy, cybersecurity, procurement, and policy leaders to ensure AI solutions comply with applicable laws, security requirements, records requirements, accessibility expectations, and ethical standards.
Establish expectations for transparency, human oversight, explainability, auditability, risk classification, and escalation for higher-risk AI use cases.
Develop metrics to measure value, risk, adoption, performance, service impact, and return on investment.
Establish governance and operational accountability models that balance innovation velocity with cybersecurity, privacy, compliance, resilience, and public trust.
Lead enterprise decision-making related to acceptable AI use patterns, risk classification, model governance, human oversight requirements, and operational safeguards for production AI systems.
AI Platforms, Infrastructure & Model Lifecycle Lead the design, implementation, and operation of enterprise AI platforms, including model development environments, data pipelines, compute infrastructure, secure integration patterns, and reusable AI services. Ensure AI platforms are secure, resilient, scalable, cost-effective, accessible, and reusable across agencies.
Oversee lifecycle management for AI models, tools, prompts, agents, and services from experimentation through production, monitoring, improvement, and retirement.
Establish standards for model evaluation, data quality, testing, security review, privacy review, documentation, monitoring, and incident response.
Accountable for enterprise AI platform maturity, operational reliability, scalability, interoperability, observability, and secure production adoption across agencies.
Lead evaluation of enterprise AI architecture patterns, orchestration frameworks, retrieval systems, model hosting approaches, API integration strategies, and reusable shared services.
Establish standards for AI operational resilience, incident response, failover approaches, auditability, monitoring, human-in-the-loop controls, and long-term platform sustainability.
AI Portfolio, Procurement & Vendor Management Manage the statewide AI opportunity pipeline, including intake, prioritization, feasibility assessment, resource planning, delivery tracking, and benefits realization.
Establish procurement and vendor evaluation standards for AI tools, including data rights, model transparency, security, privacy, accessibility, bias risk, contract safeguards, and long-term supportability.
Partner with procurement and agencies to evaluate build-versus-buy decisions and ensure AI investments align with enterprise architecture and governance standards.
Monitor AI pilots and production systems for outcomes, risks, duplication, sustainability, and statewide reuse.
Evaluate vendor claims, architectural fit, operational viability, security implications, implementation complexity, and long-term supportability of emerging AI technologies and platforms.
Ensure enterprise AI investments align with statewide architecture standards, integration strategies, operational support models, and measurable business outcomes.
Digital Innovation & AI Lab Leadership Lead or oversee an AI and Digital Innovation Lab to explore, prototype, pilot, and validate emerging technologies.
Translate proofs of concept into production-ready solutions with clear business ownership, operating models, funding paths, and measurable outcomes.
Promote responsible experimentation while maintaining governance, security, privacy, and operational discipline.
Identify opportunities to modernize services, automate manual processes, improve employee experience, and enhance constituent-facing digital services.
Drive transition of successful pilots into scalable enterprise capabilities with sustainable operational ownership, support models, and enterprise reuse strategies.
AI-Enabled Software Development & Engineering Enablement Enable safe and effective use of AI-powered tools to improve software development productivity, quality, security, documentation, testing, and knowledge management.
Partner with engineering, DevSecOps, enterprise architecture, and platform teams to integrate AI into development workflows.
Establish best practices for responsible use of generative AI, coding assistants, test generation, documentation automation, and AI-supported operations.
Ensure AI-enabled engineering practices protect sensitive data, source code, credentials, and state systems. Provide technical leadership and credibility in discussions involving software architecture, engineering workflows, DevSecOps, cloud platforms, enterprise integration, AI-assisted development, and modernization strategies.
Establish enterprise standards for secure AI-assisted engineering practices, source code protection, model usage controls, software supply chain security, and AI-enabled operational tooling.
Workforce Enablement & Change Leadership Build AI literacy and role-based training programs for executives, agency leaders, technical teams, legal, procurement, security, privacy, and frontline staff.
Support agency adoption through playbooks, communities of practice, reusable templates, office hours, and practical guidance.
Foster a culture of responsible innovation, learning, collaboration, and continuous improvement.
Mentor technical and business leaders to grow internal AI capability across state government.
Recruit, develop, and retain high-performing multidisciplinary teams spanning AI engineering, architecture, cybersecurity, platform operations, data, product delivery, and digital innovation.
Build organizational structures, operating models, communities of practice, and career pathways that support sustainable enterprise AI capability development.
Collaboration & Ecosystem Management Serve as a key liaison across agencies, internal teams, external partners, vendors, academic institutions, peer governments, and industry groups.
Promote knowledge sharing, transparency, and reuse of successful AI patterns across state government.
Represent the State in AI-related forums, partnerships, and intergovernmental collaboration where appropriate.
Ensure partners align with state values around transparency, security, privacy, fairness, stewardship, and public trust.
Serve as a trusted advisor to executive leadership, technical teams, and agency stakeholders on emerging AI capabilities, implementation realities, enterprise risks, and modernization opportunities.
Minimum Qualifications:
The Department of Finance & Administration will not sponsor applicants for work visas.
Required Qualifications Bachelors degree in Computer Science, Engineering, Information Systems, or a related field. 10+ years of progressive leadership experience in technology, digital transformation, enterprise platforms, data, innovation, or AI-enabled modernization.
Demonstrated experience leading enterprise-scale technology initiatives in complex, multi-stakeholder environments.
Experience developing technology strategy, governance, standards, delivery models, and measurable outcomes.
Strong understanding of AI/ML concepts, generative AI, cloud and hybrid infrastructure, data governance, cybersecurity, secure software development, and product delivery.
Proven ability to balance innovation, risk management, operational responsibility, and public accountability.
Strong executive communication, stakeholder management, and change leadership skills.
Experience leading or supporting multidisciplinary technical teams responsible for engineering, platform operations, DevSecOps, architecture, analytics, AI/ML, or digital product delivery.
Demonstrated experience designing, implementing, operating, governing, or modernizing enterprise technology platforms or shared services in production environments.
Demonstrated record of delivering enterprise modernization initiatives from concept through operational adoption and measurable business outcomes.
Preferred Qualifications:
Masters degree in a relevant field.
Experience in state government, public sector, regulated industries, or large complex enterprises.
Experience implementing responsible AI, data governance, cybersecurity, privacy, or technology risk frameworks.
Hands-on exposure to AI platforms, model lifecycle management, analytics platforms, innovation labs, or AI-enabled product delivery.
Experience with vendor evaluation, technology procurement, contract review, and portfolio governance.
Experience building workforce training, AI literacy programs, communities of practice, or enterprise adoption programs.
Experience managing large enterprise technology budgets, including multi-year investment planning, forecasting, and financial governance.
Experience developing or managing statewide/shared-services chargeback, cost allocation, or consumption-based funding models for technology platforms and services.
Familiarity with public-sector considerations such as transparency, accessibility, records retention, procurement rules, constituent trust, and interagency governance.
Background as an enterprise architect, software engineering leader, platform engineering leader, CTO, principal engineer, or comparable technically oriented leadership role preferred.
Pursuant to the State of Tennessee's Workplace Discrimination and Harassment policy, the State is firmly committed to the principle of fair and equal employment opportunities for its citizens and strives to protect the rights and opportunities of all people to seek, obtain, and hold employment without being subjected to illegal discrimination and harassment in the workplace. It is the State's policy to provide an environment free of discrimination and harassment of an individual because of that person's race, color, national origin, age (40 and over), sex, pregnancy, religion, creed, disability, veteran's status or any other category protected by state and/or federal civil rights laws.