Director, AI Product Management

Opportunity Information:

Position Overview:

Worldpac is seeking an experienced, director level AI Product Manager to accelerate the adoption of artificial intelligence across our high-volume wholesale distribution business focused on the automotive aftermarket. This role combines two responsibilities: (1) hands-on product leadership for Worldpac's AI solutions, owning the vision, roadmap, requirements, adoption, and business value of AI products and use cases; and (2) high-level oversight of the enterprise wide AI program rollout, ensuring the AI portfolio is prioritized, governed, coordinated, and reported on effectively.

This role provides AI program and portfolio-level oversight, sets priorities and success criteria, monitors progress and value realization, and partners closely with the PMO Project Managers to ensure AI initiatives are executed and deliver on Worldpac's strategy.  The Director serves as Worldpac's primary owner of AI product strategy and operates as the connective leader between business stakeholders, AI engineering, data, security, the PMO, and external partners. 

Key Responsibilities

AI Product Strategy & Vision

• Collaborate to define and own the AI product vision, strategy, and multi-year roadmap aligned with Worldpac's business objectives and AI maturity roadmap.
• Partner with executive and business leaders across Operations, Supply Chain, Sales, Finance, IT and HR to identify, evaluate, and prioritize high-value AI opportunities, including generative and agentic AI use cases.
• Work with departments to develop business cases for AI initiatives, including expected benefits, costs, risks, ongoing cost and resource requirements, and prioritize the portfolio based on impact, value, feasibility, and strategic fit.
• Monitor the AI market, vendor, and technology trends, and assess their relevance and applicability to wholesale distribution and the automotive aftermarket.

AI Product Ownership & Delivery

• Serve as product owner for Worldpac's AI products and use cases, translating business problems into clear product requirements, user stories, acceptance criteria, and success metrics.
• Own and prioritize the AI product backlog in partnership with AI engineering, data, architecture, and application teams.
• Lead discovery with business users, including process analysis, user interviews, and workflow mapping, to ensure AI solutions are designed around real operational needs.
• Guide solution design decisions related to AI models, AI platforms, data requirements, integrations, human-in-the-loop controls, and user experience, in partnership with AI engineers and enterprise architecture who collaborate on solution design and then provide architecture, technical design and tooling decisions.
• Oversee testing and validation of AI outputs for accuracy, reliability, and business fit prior to production release in collaboration with AI Engineering and Quality staff who validate accuracy and reliability. Accepts AI solutions for business fitness before release. 
• Manage the full AI product lifecycle from ideation and pilot through production, scaling, continuous improvement, and retirement.

Adoption, Change Management & Value Realization

• Drive business adoption of AI solutions in partnership with business leaders, training, and change management resources.
• Define and track KPIs for each AI product, including adoption, productivity, cost savings, revenue impact, quality, and user satisfaction.
• Measure and report realized business value against business cases, and use results to refine roadmaps and investment decisions.
• Gather ongoing feedback from users and stakeholders to continuously improve AI products.

AI Program Oversight

• Provide high-level oversight of the enterprise AI program rollout, ensuring alignment between the AI portfolio, roadmap, and business priorities.
• Own the AI intake and prioritization process, establishing clear criteria for evaluating, approving, and sequencing AI initiatives.
• Partner with the PMO, which is responsible for project planning, execution, and project management, to ensure AI projects are appropriately scoped, resourced, and aligned with product goals and success criteria.
• Monitor portfolio-level progress, dependencies, risks, and issues across AI initiatives, escalating and resolving cross-functional barriers as needed, without directly managing individual projects.
• Prepare and present AI portfolio status, value realization, and investment recommendations to the CIO, executive leadership, and, as required, the Board and parent-company stakeholders.
• Track AI program spend, including platform, model usage, and partner costs, in partnership with the PMO. Own the business case and economics for the AI portfolio, leveraging usage and cost data from Infrastructure and FinOps

AI Governance, Risk & Responsible AI

• Actively manage and support the Worldpac AI Governance Committee and its four Subcommittees.
• Partner with Cybersecurity, Legal & Compliance and Data Governance to apply AI governance policies to AI products, and provide input as policies are developed.
• Ensure AI products incorporate appropriate controls for security, data protection, accuracy, transparency, and human in the loop oversight.
• Maintain an inventory of AI products, use cases, models, and vendors in use across Worldpac. 

Partner & Vendor Management

• Support and maintain relationships with AI platform providers, technology vendors, and implementation partners in coordination with the PMO and IT leadership, ensuring accountability for quality, scope, cost, and outcomes.
• Evaluate build-versus-buy options and AI capabilities embedded in existing enterprise platforms (e.g. Salesforce, ServiceNow, Oracle Fusion, Workday).

Leadership & Collaboration

• Act as a trusted advisor and AI evangelist across Worldpac, building AI literacy and enthusiasm among business and IT stakeholders.
• Provide direction and prioritization to AI engineers and supporting teams on product priorities.  Future growth may include leading product owners or analysts as the AI program scales.
• Establish the AI Product Management practice and support Product Managers across domains as they take on AI work in their areas.
• Communicate product plans, progress, risks, and trade-offs clearly to both technical and non-technical audiences.

Required Qualifications

• 10-15 years of progressive experience in IT, including product management, product ownership, business systems, or technology program leadership, with at least 5 years at the Senior Manager or Director level.
• Proven experience as a product manager or product owner delivering enterprise technology solutions that achieved measurable business outcomes.
• Demonstrated hands-on experience defining, delivering, and scaling AI, machine learning, generative AI, or advanced analytics solutions in an enterprise environment.
• Experience with agentic AI solutions, AI-enabled process improvement and process automations in medium to large enterprise environments.
• Experience with enterprise AI platforms and services such as AWS Bedrock, Microsoft Azure AI Foundry/Azure OpenAI, Google Vertex AI, other agentic platforms and repositories, and AI gateways such as Kong.
• Familiarity with developing AI solutions connecting to enterprise systems, for example Oracle Fusion, Salesforce, Workday, ServiceNow, IBMi (iSeries), and enterprise data platforms such as Snowflake or Data Bricks.
• Experience providing portfolio or program-level oversight across multiple initiatives, including intake, prioritization, governance, and executive reporting, working in partnership with a PMO.
• Strong understanding of AI concepts and the AI solution lifecycle, including large language models, prompt engineering, retrieval-augmented generation (RAG), AI agents, model evaluation, and AI risk considerations.
• Experience working in Agile / Scrum environments, including intake and backlog management with tools such as Jira and Confluence.
• Proven ability to build business cases, define KPIs, and measure value realization.
• Excellent strategic thinking, problem-solving, and prioritization skills in complex, cross-functional environments.
• Excellent communication, leadership, and stakeholder management skills, with very strong presentation skills and the ability to convey complex technical topics clearly to executive audiences.
• Proven ability to influence and drive change without direct authority.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience in the automotive aftermarket or other high-volume wholesale distribution, supply chain, or logistics environments.
• Experience establishing AI governance or Responsible AI frameworks (e.g., NIST AI RMF).
• Working knowledge of SQL, Python, or data analysis tools to validate data and AI outputs.
• Experience applying accuracy and validation controls to AI used with product data

Education / Certifications

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Information Systems, Business Administration, or a related field required.
• MBA or equivalent advanced degree preferred.
• Product management (e.g., Pragmatic Institute, SAFe POPM, CSPO), Agile, PMP, or AI-related certifications are desirable but not required.

Location Type: On-Site Pay Range: USD $200,000.00 - USD $225,000.00 /Yr.