Director, Artificial Intelligence, Finance

Location: Montreal

Job Description Overview  AtkinsRéalis is looking for a Director, Artificial Intelligence, Finance to turn the potential of AI into measurable improvements in how Finance works and how the business makes decisions. This is a hands‑on leadership role. The Director will define a practical AI strategy, identify the opportunities worth pursuing and lead a disciplined portfolio from business case through adoption and verified results.

They will also personally design, build, test and help deploy practical Finance agents and AI‑enabled workflows within approved enterprise environments. Success means tangible outcomes: capacity released for higher‑value work, faster and better‑informed decisions, stronger controls, improved cash performance and protection of project margins. The role is not about deploying technology for its own sake or accumulating pilots that never change how Finance operates.

Leading a small team with a global mandate, the Director will bring together Finance leaders and process owners with the Financial Systems Centre of Excellence (CoE), IT, Global Digital, the Chief Digital Officer’s organization, and data, cybersecurity, privacy and risk specialists. They will develop Finance‑specific strategy and governance within enterprise standards, not create competing platforms or policies. You are a business‑led AI and transformation leader who combines strategic ambition, financial discipline and genuine hands‑on ability.

You can inspire executives, challenge a weak business case and align Finance, Digital, IT and control teams. You are as comfortable discussing strategy as you are building an agent to test an idea with users.

Your role  Set the strategy and build alignment:
Define and communicate a value‑first AI strategy and roadmap for Global Finance, aligned with Finance priorities, enterprise AI strategy, technology standards and the Financial Systems roadmap. Determine where AI can materially improve outcomes, where conventional automation or process redesign is preferable, and where an opportunity should not proceed. Build a shared agenda across FP&A, Controllership, Project Finance and other Finance teams;

engage regional and business leaders to identify needs that can scale. Advise Finance leadership on investment choices, dependencies and risks; secure sponsorship and rally teams that do not report to the Director. Own a disciplined portfolio of use cases:
Establish transparent intake and prioritization connected to enterprise channels and governance; assess business value, process and data readiness, feasibility, adoption, total cost and risk. Maintain a sequenced portfolio with named sponsors, accountable process owners, delivery partners, milestones and clear decisions to proceed, change direction or stop. Prioritize a few opportunities with a credible path to impact over a large collection of pilots.

Candidate areas include reporting commentary, Finance knowledge access, exception handling, forecasting support, collections and project‑margin early warning; each requires its own assessment and business case. Make the business case and prove the return:
Require proportionate business cases before material investment, with baselines, expected benefits, implementation and ongoing costs, risks, dependencies, adoption assumptions and alternatives. Distinguish time saved from capacity genuinely redeployed and from cost removed; do not treat these as interchangeable financial benefits. Agree measurement methods and benefit owners before delivery; track investment and realized value at use‑case and portfolio levels, with independent validation where appropriate.

Report candidly on adoption, net value, cost and control effectiveness; recommend whether to improve, scale…