Sr. Director, Data Science & AI, Orthopedics

Company Overview

Johnson & Johnson believes health is everything. Our strength in healthcare innovation empowers us to build a world where complex diseases are prevented, treated, and cured. Through our expertise in Innovative Medicine and Med Tech, we innovate across the full spectrum of healthcare solutions to deliver breakthroughs today and profoundly impact health for humanity.

DePuy Synthes, a global leader in orthopaedics, is separating from Johnson & Johnson to become a standalone company. This role will be an employee of DePuy Synthes post‑separation.

The Sr. Director, Data Science & AI provides strategic and operational leadership for enterprise‑wide data science and artificial intelligence capabilities supporting DePuy Synthes. This role reports to the Chief Data and AI Officer and is responsible for shaping and executing the Data & AI strategy, translating business priorities into scalable analytics and AI solutions, and enabling data‑driven decision‑making across the organization.

• Define and lead the enterprise Data Science & AI strategy, roadmap, and investment aligned with business priorities and IT objectives across ML, generative AI, and agentic AI.
• Build, lead, and develop a high‑performing Data Science & AI team, hiring top talent, defining roles and career paths, and establishing a culture of rigor, speed and accountability.
• Serve as senior technical voice for AI across the enterprise, translating business problems into AI opportunities and setting realistic expectations.
• Stand up and operate the enterprise AI hub, including reusable patterns, model registry and delivery accelerators, orchestrations, retrieval patterns, semantic layers, agent action boundaries, observability, and human‑in‑the‑loop controls.
• Evaluate and manage the AI tech stack and vendor ecosystem, including build‑vs‑buy decisions and commercial negotiations with procurement.
• Partner with business and functional leaders to prioritize and deliver high‑value analytics and AI use cases.
• Design and operationalize the enterprise AI governance framework: model risk management, validation standards, explainability, bias/fairness testing, drift monitoring, and audit trails.
• Partner with Quality, Regulatory, Legal and Privacy to ensure AI deployments meet GxP, 21 CFR Part 11, SOX and data‑privacy obligations.
• Track performance, value realization and adoption of Data & AI initiatives, continuously driving improvement and innovation.
• Collaborate with enterprise data, digital, and IT teams to enable modern data platforms and advanced analytics capabilities.

• Education: Bachelor’s degree required in Data Science, Computer Science, Engineering, Mathematics, Statistics, or a related field. Master’s degree or PhD preferred.
• Experience: 12‑14 years of senior leadership experience in data science, advanced analytics, or AI; deep current expertise in AI/ML landscape and MLOps/LLMOps at enterprise scale.
• Technical expertise: Proven ability with modern AI/data stack (Databricks, Snowflake, Sage Maker, vector databases, GenAI provider ecosystem); fluency in translating complex data insights into actionable business outcomes.
• Leadership skills: Strong people leadership, talent development, change management, and global/matrixed organization experience.
• Communication: Executive‑level communication, ability to set strategy with C‑suite audiences, defend technical positions, and translate between business and deep technical stakeholders.
• Other requirements: English proficiency required; up to ~20% domestic and international travel.

• Experience in healthcare, medical technology, life sciences, or regulated industries.
• Familiarity with enterprise data platforms,…