Head of AI Virtual, EUROPE

Enable Impact at the Heart of Technology Development at BCD!

Full time, United Kingdom, Netherlands, Spain

This is a rare opportunity to build and lead the AI capability of one of the world's largest travel management companies.

Reporting into senior technology leadership, you will define and execute BCD's enterprise AI strategy, establish our AI Centre of Excellence, shape the governance and technology architecture that will underpin future innovation, and ensure AI is embedded into real operational workflows across a global organization.

This is not an optimization role. It is a build-from-zero leadership opportunity for someone who combines startup energy, enterprise leadership and deep understanding of applied AI.

At BCD, we believe AI must become part of how work gets done, not simply a collection of isolated pilots.

• Set and own the enterprise AI strategy and multi-year roadmap, aligned to commercial and operational priorities
• Build and lead an AI Centre of Excellence: hire and develop engineers, solution architects, and enablement staff
• Define standards for model selection, prompt/agent design, evaluation, and responsible-AI/risk controls; own the shared AI platform strategy (including governance of the MCP/data layer)
• Act as the primary interface to the AI Leadership Council — reporting progress, and escalating risk or resourcing gaps
• Establish the embedded AI champion network: recruit, train, and manage the community of practice across Product & Tech, Client Ops, Sales, Finance and People
• Own vendor and partner relationships (model providers, platform vendors, systems integrators)
• Define and report enterprise-wide AI KPIs (productivity, adoption, ROI, risk incidents) to the executive team and board as needed
• Champion change management and training so adoption is measured in embedded workflow change, not pilot counts
• Enable enterprise wide engineering teams to imbed AI within the BCD suite of products, including Trip source to deliver differentiated traveler experiences.
• Lead development, deployment and adoption of a new, enterprise AI-SDLC framework, inclusive of internal and partner based delivery centers.

You will be accountable for transforming AI from an emerging capability into a strategic business advantage.

BCD operates across more than 100 countries with thousands of professionals supporting some of the world's most complex corporate travel programmes.

This role is fully remote and globally oriented.

You will work with leaders, practitioners, AI champions, technology teams and business stakeholders across multiple continents while helping define the future operating model of an AI-enabled enterprise.

• Building a world-class AI Centre of Excellence
• Embedding AI into core operational workflows
• Establishing a scalable AI platform and governance framework
• Driving measurable productivity gains and ROI
• Increasing enterprise-wide AI adoption
• Creating reusable capabilities that accelerate innovation across the company
• % of core operational processes with an active AI workflow embedded (not pilot-stage)
• Productivity gains (time saved, cost reduced) attributable to CoE-supported initiatives, tracked quarterly
• Employee AI adoption/training completion rates across spokes
• Platform reuse rate (initiatives built on shared infrastructure vs. one-off builds)

• 10+ years of technology or digital transformation leadership experience
• 3+ years leading AI, machine learning or data science initiatives at enterprise scale
• Founder or early-stage startup experience required — proven ability to build new capability from zero within a fast-moving, resource-constrained environment
• Demonstrated experience standing up or scaling a CoE, platform team, or federated operating model in a large, multi-country organization
• Track record of translating AI initiatives into measurable productivity or revenue outcomes, not just proofs of concept
• Strong grasp of enterprise AI governance: data privacy, model risk, responsible AI, especially in a regulated or data-sensitive context
• Experience working with or overseeing agentic AI, LLM-based tooling, or integration frameworks (e.g., MCP)
• Executive presence: comfortable setting strategy with C-suite and travel/operations stakeholders alike
• Executive-level communication and stakeholder management capabilities

Most importantly, you know how to connect AI investment with…