Director of AI & Digital Design-D

Purpose of the role

To manage and drive the innovation strategy to meet customer needs and ensure the bank's long-term success and competitive edge.

• Set the HR AI and automation strategy, translating enterprise AI direction into a clear HR roadmap linked to HR strategy, enterprise transformation, scaled automation, agentic delivery and personal productivity
• Define and evolve the HR AI architecture in partnership with Enterprise Architecture, CDO, Digital Channels, HR Technology and control functions, ensuring solutions are coherent, governed, reusable and aligned to the wider technology landscape
• Own the AI vendor strategy for HR, shaping how platforms such as Microsoft, Workday and Service Now are used as part of a joined-up approach
• Surface, shape and challenge vendor AI roadmaps, ensuring emerging capabilities are understood early and aligned to Barclays’ architecture, priorities and risk appetite
• Act as a visible enterprise leader for AI in HR, building confidence and momentum by connecting strategy to tangible use cases, scaled enablement and measurable outcomes
• Define and drive the AI adoption model across HR, separating broad colleague adoption from targeted “power user” enablement and scaling both effectively
• Build capability across HR, improving AI literacy, confidence and practical application at all levels
• Design and ope rationalise AI governance for HR, setting clear guardrails for risk, ethics, data use and controls while enabling delivery pace
• Act as the link into enterprise AI governance, translating central standards into practical, usable guidance for HR teams
• Bring hands‑on technical credibility, working closely with delivery teams to understand code, data, orchestration and design, and challenge decisions to avoid over‑engineered or fragmented solutions
• Partner with the Foundry and Federated AI teams, where they lead build and run, while this role owns use case definition, AI patterns and reuse across HR
• Bring forward new AI use cases and reusable patterns, testing, proving and scaling them across HR
• Identify and drive reuse of AI components and patterns, reducing duplication and accelerating scale
• Act as the primary interface into the Portfolio Office, improving the quality, consistency and alignment of AI demand into prioritisation and funding decisions
• Shape and assure the AI demand pipeline, challenging whether use cases solve the right problems and use the right solutions, aligned to platform capability
• Set strategic plans and delivery objectives for the AI and automation portfolio, aligning backlog to enterprise priorities, journey outcomes, control requirements and capacity creation goals
• Drive execution through clear operating rhythms, governance and decision points to convert ideas into live services and sustained value
• Track benefits and value realisation, with Journey reporting first and AI second, covering efficiency, capacity creation, experience, quality and control outcomes
• Build strong partnerships across HR, Technology, Data, Risk, Compliance and external partners to remove blockers, accelerate delivery and maintain control alignment

• Execution of market research to understand customer needs, pain points, and emerging trends to support the analysis of profitability, market size and positioning for new products compared to existing offerings, and to identify opportunities for diversification to gain a competitive advantage.
• Collaboration with stakeholders across departments and teams including marketing, sales, technology, engineers, designers etc to generate innovative and feasible product ideas and prototypes for testing aligned with customer needs and strategic goals.
• Development of concepts and specifications which define features, functionalities, target market, user interface, technical specifications and potential revenue models of new products.
• Evaluation of the technical feasibility, legal compliance, and potential risks associated with the development and launch of the new product.
• Monitoring of market trends and analysis feedback from internal employees and target customers through prototypes, user testing sessions, and beta…