Manager, AI Strategy & Portfolio Management

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Ford's Central AI Team is the enterprise hub responsible for scaling AI and agentic solutions across the company. Behind every AI Bet that reaches an Enterprise scale decision, there’s a pipeline of opportunities that started as a rough idea, got scoped, got prioritized against everything else competing for time and funding, and either earned its way forward or didn’t. This role owns that pipeline.

Ford is building a new capability at the center of our enterprise AI strategy. Reporting into the Central AI Team’s Senior Manager, AI Strategy & Communications, the AI Portfolio Manager is responsible for running the intake and inventory process for every AI opportunity moving through Sandbox, Functional Program, and Enterprise Bet stages. This role is the operational backbone behind early portfolio decisions - making sure leadership always has an accurate, current view of what’s in the pipeline, what it will cost, and what the tradeoffs are between funding one bet over another.

The ideal candidate is organized, comfortable working with cross-functional teams to pull out details they haven’t fully thought through yet, and able to turn a messy, half-formed idea into a clean business case with a sponsor, a funding ask, and a clear next decision point.

Based in Dearborn, MI, this is a hybrid position with a required four-day onsite presence each week

• Manage intake of new opportunities across Sandbox, Functional Program, and Enterprise Bet stages, running a consistent process so every opportunity gets evaluated the same way
• Maintain the portfolio pipeline and opportunity inventory as the single source of truth for what’s in flight, what stage it’s at, and what’s changed since the last review
• Prepare prioritization inputs, tradeoff views, and start/stop/scale/sunset recommendations for leadership decision forums, laying out the choice clearly enough that a decision can be made in the room
• Partner with business functions to clarify the business problem, sponsorship,value hypothesis, business casefunding need, and readiness to progress for each opportunity before it goes in front of leadership
• Flag opportunities that are stalled, underfunded, or missing a clear sponsor, so they don’t sit in the pipeline without a decision
• Support the Strategy & Comms Lead in building decision packages and progression materials by supplying accurate, up-to-date pipeline data and analysis

• Bachelor’s degree or equivalent combination of relevant education and experience

• 3+ years of experience in program management, portfolio management, business operations, or strategy roles involving intake and prioritization of competing initiatives with skills that include:

  • Strong organizational skills and comfort owning a live inventory or pipeline that changes constantly and needs to stay accurate
  • Ability to extract a clear business case — problem, value, sponsor, funding, readiness — from a stakeholder who hasn't fully articulated it yet
  • Experience preparing tradeoff analysis or prioritization materials used in a leadership decision-making process
  • Comfort working across a matrixed organization, leveraging cross-functional leadership skills
  • Strong attention to detail combined with the ability to synthesize a messy set of inputs into something clean and decision-ready
• 3+ years of Excel/PowerPoint or related skills for building tradeoff views, pipeline trackers, and prioritization materials

• Master’s degree
• Experience in automotive, technology, or another large-scale enterprise environment managing a multi-initiative portfolio
• Background in venture, corporate strategy, PMO, or business case development where you evaluated new ideas against a fixed pool of funding
• Familiarity with how AI or technology pilots typically progress from experiment to scaled program, and what readiness signals predict success
• Experience building or maintaining a…