AI Strategy and Solutions Lead

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Direct message the job poster from Human Rights Watch

Human Rights Watch is an international human rights monitoring and advocacy organization known for its in-depth investigations, its incisive and timely reporting, its innovative and high-profile advocacy campaigns, and its success in changing the human rights-related policies and practices of influential governments and international institutions.

We're seeking an AI Strategy and Solutions Lead to build the foundation for responsible AI adoption across our organization. This role balances strategic planning with hands‑on implementation. You'll play an essential role in developing our AI strategy, establishing partnerships, building governance frameworks, and delivering solutions that demonstrate value. You'll work at the intersection of strategy and execution. You'll assess organizational readiness, identify what needs to change for us to be AI‑ready, and map partnership opportunities.

You'll prototype solutions, facilitate stakeholder engagement, and create the processes that enable sustainable AI adoption beyond individual projects. This role requires someone who can think strategically about infrastructure and readiness while also building and shipping solutions. You'll conduct readiness assessments and deliver working systems that solve real problems while building capacity for others. This is a one year fixed‑term position and must be based within commuting distance of one of the following HRW offices:
Amsterdam, Amman, Berlin, Brussels, London, Stockholm, New York, Washington DC, Miami, Sao Paulo, Toronto or Chicago. You will be expected to work from the office as needed and will report to the Chief Information Officer based in Berlin. You will work closely with the Information Security and Technology (IST) Leadership team.

• Contribute to AI strategy and assess organizational readiness
• Work alongside the CIO, the IST Leadership team and relevant stakeholders to build a comprehensive AI strategy that includes data foundation requirements, infrastructure gaps, and organizational readiness assessment
• Assess current state and inform roadmap development that balances quick wins with long‑term capacity building
• Research what peer organizations in the nonprofit, humanitarian, and human rights space are doing with AI and identify collaboration opportunities
• Identify and deliver flagship solutions
• Work with departments to discover high‑impact use cases and translate business needs into technical approaches
• Build and deploy AI/ML solutions that demonstrate measurable value (time saved, efficiency gained, improved outcomes)
• Develop solutions using Microsoft AI ecosystem (Copilot Studio, Azure AI, Power Platform) and other appropriate tools
• Oversee consultants and vendors to extend delivery capacity where needed
• Balance tool adoption with capacity building
• Design approach that balances onboarding staff to AI tools with identifying use cases where custom solutions amplify what we do best
• Create training materials tailored to different work areas and skill levels on effective prompting and responsible use
• Support working groups and communities of practice
• Build playbooks and guides that make AI accessible to non‑technical staff
• Coordinate governance and cross‑organizational alignment
• Partner with IST leadership to develop risk assessment frameworks and ensure solutions align with security, infrastructure, and architecture requirements
• Contribute to AI policy development and operationalization
• Create standards for Proof of Concepts (POC) and Minimal Viable Products (MVP) evaluation in collaboration with relevant stakeholders
• Engage with business units to understand priorities and build co‑ownership of outcomes
• Balance innovation with practical constraints around data quality, security, and resources, as well as in alignment with HRW’s core values and mission as a Human Rights organization

Education:

A bachelor's degree or relevant work experience in Computer Science, Data Science, Information Systems, Mathematics, AI/ML…