Director, Applied AI

The Director, Applied AI North America, leads the identification, development, and deployment of artificial intelligence capabilities across DSV Contract Logistics' North America shared business functions and core warehouse and distribution operations. This is a greenfield, builder role: the Director will personally architect and ship AI solutions agents, fine-tuned models, and integrated workflows that drive measurable improvements. The Director will establish the AI capability for North America from the ground up, set the standards and governance practices that protect the business, and represent North America in DSV's global AI governance forums.

Essential duties and responsibilities include identifying, prioritizing, and quantifying high-value AI use cases across Operations, BCM, Engineering, Shared Services, P+O, and other functions; building the multi-year AI roadmap and aligning it to enterprise growth, savings, and transformation targets. The Director will personally design, build, and ship AI solutions, including LLM-based agents, fine-tuned models, retrieval pipelines, and intelligent automations integrated into the Microsoft 365 ecosystem, DSV's WMS, TMS, and adjacent operational systems.

The Director will establish and own the North America AI engineering practices, including model selection, evaluation, prompt and agent design standards, MLOps, observability, and cost control. They will define and operate the AI governance, risk, security, and responsible-AI framework for North America in alignment with DSV global policy; represent North America in DSV's global AI governance bodies.

The Director will construct rigorous business cases for each AI investment with clear ROI, baseline measurement, and post-deployment value tracking; partner with Operations Finance to validate realized savings. They will translate business problems articulated by functional and operational leaders into well-scoped AI solutions; act as the primary internal consultant for AI feasibility, build-vs-buy, and vendor selection decisions. The Director will evaluate, pilot, and operationalize commercial AI capabilities embedded in the existing technology stack, including Microsoft 365 Copilot, Coupa AI, and AI features in WMS, TMS, and ERP platforms; negotiate value where appropriate.

The Director will build and lead a small, high-performing team of AI builders over time; recruit, develop, retain, and motivate technical talent capable of operating in a complex matrix environment. They will establish KPIs and OKRs that track adoption, model performance, and realized business value; report progress to North America executive leadership and contribute to global AI reporting. The Director will partner closely with IT, Information Security, Legal, Privacy, P+O, and Finance to ensure deployments meet enterprise standards for data handling, access control, and regulatory compliance. They will develop and deliver targeted enablement to functional leaders and operators so AI tools are adopted, trusted, and used at scale.

Skills and abilities include a Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Data Science, Engineering, Mathematics, Statistics, or an equivalent quantitative field. Minimum 10 years of progressive professional experience, with a minimum of 5 years building and shipping production AI/ML systems and a minimum of 3 years in a senior or lead capacity within a matrixed enterprise. Demonstrated track record of personally shipping AI solutions to production and quantifying realized business value. Experience standing up an AI capability or function from a greenfield state is strongly preferred.

Computer skills include strong, current proficiency in Python and modern AI/ML libraries (e.g., PyTorch, Hugging Face Transformers, scikit-learn). Hands-on experience with leading LLM ecosystems (OpenAI, Anthropic, Azure AI Foundry); agent frameworks (e.g., LangGraph, AutoGen, MCP); retrieval architectures and vector databases. Working knowledge of model fine-tuning, evaluation methodologies, and MLOps tooling. Strong fluency in the Microsoft 365 ecosystem, including Copilot, Power Platform, Microsoft Fabric, and Azure AI services. Familiarity with cloud platforms (Azure preferred), SQL, and modern data warehousing patterns.

Language skills include English (reading, writing, and verbal). Mathematical skills include advanced quantitative skills, including statistics, linear algebra, and the financial mathematics required to construct rigorous business cases. Other skills include the ability to walk into an ambiguous business problem, understand it deeply, and propose pragmatic AI and non-AI solutions. Demonstrated ability to balance executive-level strategic framing with hands-on technical delivery. Excellent written, verbal, and visual/presentation communication skills, including the ability to brief senior executives and translate technical concepts for non-technical audiences. Strong commercial instincts; ROI-oriented; able to kill ideas that do not pencil out. Ability to influence and build trust across multiple levels and functions in a complex, matrixed global organization. Comfortable operating with significant ambiguity and limited precedent; bias to action. Sound judgment regarding AI risk, including data privacy, intellectual property, model reliability, and reputational exposure. Capable of recruiting, mentoring, and developing technical talent.