Director, Artificial Intelligence

At Samsonite Group, we are building the next generation of AI-enabled capabilities to elevate consumer experience, sharpen operations, and scale innovation across a global, multi-brand portfolio. We are seeking a Director of AI to help shape and accelerate this transformation - a role at the intersection of applied AI, enterprise platform delivery, and global business transformation, translating enterprise strategy into shipped outcomes.

Reporting to the CIO, the Director is accountable for execution and measurable business impact. A successful candidate will partner closely with the regional IT leaders, business function heads, and AI champions to ensure consistent delivery across our multi-brand, multi-region portfolio. This is not a traditional engineering role and not a purely strategic role - it is a high-leverage delivery leadership role for someone who can identify the right problems, shape AI-enabled solutions, drive pilots, measure value, and help scale what works.

AI Portfolio Delivery & Value Realization

• Execute the enterprise AI roadmap across tablestakes, transformational, and disruptive opportunity tiers; own end-to-end delivery from prototype through production.
• Drive rapid experimentation cycles and accelerate time-to-value, ensuring disciplined progression from pilot to scaled deployment without bottlenecks.
• Own definition, tracking, and reporting of ROI and business KPIs; tie initiatives directly to revenue growth, margin improvement, cost efficiency, or working capital optimization.
• Maintain a disciplined backlog of AI use cases across consumer experience, supply chain, retail and eCommerce, marketing, finance, and operations.

AI Delivery & Platform Integration

• Lead the development, deployment, and scaling of AI/ML and GenAI solutions, including consumer-facing experiences (conversational assistants, agentic commerce, personalization) and AI-driven marketing and discovery capabilities.
• Work with Digital and Data Strategy team to lay solid foundation for Samsonite’s AI journey
• Drive integration of AI capabilities into core enterprise platforms (eCommerce, CRM, CDP, SAP, O365) and establish scalable MLOps practices for lifecycle management, monitoring, and cost/performance optimization.
• Operate the AI technology stack day-to-day and drive strategic platform and ecosystem decisions in partnership with IT leadership (hyperscalers, GenAI platforms, agentic commerce platforms, enterprise SaaS).

AI Governance & Compliance Execution

• Operate the enterprise AI governance framework; ensure compliance with EU AI Act, GDPR, SOX/GRC, and equivalent regional regulations, with support from regional teams.
• Maintain audit-ready model documentation, risk assessments, and validation evidence in coordination with Legal, Compliance, and Internal Audit.
• Apply readiness tests before promoting AI from pilot to production, particularly for autonomous and agentic deployments; flag governance gaps to the CIO.

Cross-Regional Coordination

• Partner with regional IT and business leaders across Americas, EMEA, and APAC to deliver AI use cases tuned to local market and regulatory needs.
• Coordinate with regional AI roles and adoption leads to ensure consistent execution; scale proven regional use cases group-wide.

AI Adoption & Enablement

• Build, lead, and develop the global AI CoE; create reusable patterns, accelerators, and documentation to compound delivery velocity.
• Operate enterprise AI literacy and upskilling programs (tiered by user proficiency) and a network of AI champions across regions and functions, in partnership with HR.
• Lead group-wide activation and adoption of enterprise AI tooling (copilots, GenAI assistants, productivity AI platforms) and maintain a shared inventory of approved tools.

Vendor & Budget Execution

• Manage day-to-day relationships with AI vendors, hyperscalers, and delivery partners; execute against the approved AI budget and surface variance and reallocation needs.
• Support build-vs-buy assessments with delivery feasibility, effort estimates, and operating cost modeling.

Stakeholder Reporting

• Provide regular delivery updates to the CIO and prepare materials for executive and Board reporting; present to leadership as needed.
• Translate technical progress into clear business outcomes for non-technical stakeholders across functions and regions.

Qualifications:

• Bachelor's or Master's degree in Computer Science, Data Science, AI, or a related field.
• 8–12 years of progressive technology experience, including 4+ years leading AI/ML delivery teams.
• Demonstrated track record shipping AI and GenAI solutions into production at scale, with quantifiable business outcomes.
• Hands-on expertise in machine learning, NLP, and Generative AI - including LLMs, RAG, prompt engineering, AI agents, model evaluation, AI workflow orchestration, and responsible AI.
• Direct experience with major cloud platforms (AWS, Azure, GCP); comfort using AI tools, copilots, and agentic workflows to accelerate delivery.
• Experience leading distributed delivery teams in matrixed, multi-region organizations.
• Working knowledge of AI governance, ethics, and regulatory frameworks (EU AI Act, GDPR, and emerging US/APAC regulations).

Preferred Skills and Experience

• Global retail, consumer goods, fashion, or omnichannel environments - ideally in a multi-brand portfolio.
• Building or scaling consumer-facing AI experiences (conversational assistants, agentic commerce, personalization, recommendation systems).
• AI-driven marketing capabilities - content/creative generation, AI-led advertising, and AI-driven discovery and search optimization.
• Activating enterprise AI tooling and copilots at scale across a global workforce.
• Operating within or alongside large-scale ERP or digital transformation programs (e.g., SAP S/4HANA migrations).
• Thinks like a product leader, delivers like an engineering leader, and communicates like a transformation lead.
• Is deeply curious about AI but pragmatic about deploying it in real enterprise workflows.
• Is comfortable with ambiguity and creates structure where none exists.
• Has strong judgment about when to use AI, when not to use AI, and how to evaluate AI responsibly.
• Influences without authority and aligns stakeholders across business, IT, compliance, and operations.