Director Internal AI Governance

NIQ is seeking a Director of Internal AI Governance to establish and lead the enterprise governance framework for the responsible, secure, and value-driven use of artificial intelligence across NIQ’s internal operations. Working with other departments, this role will be responsible for defining how AI is evaluated, approved, deployed, monitored, and governed across internal business functions. The Director will create the policies, decision rights, operating mechanisms, and controls required to enable AI adoption at scale while managing risk, protecting NIQ data, meeting regulatory and contractual obligations, and ensuring investments deliver measurable business value. The role will operate at the intersection of Technology, Security, Architecture, Privacy, Legal, Risk, Finance, Procurement, HR, and business leadership. It requires a leader who can balance innovation with disciplined governance and translate rapidly evolving AI capabilities and risks into practical enterprise standards.

Enterprise AI Governance

• Define and maintain NIQ’s enterprise framework for the governance of internally used AI, including generative AI, machine learning, autonomous agents, and third-party AI-enabled products.
• Establish clear policies, standards, decision rights, approval thresholds, and accountability for AI use across the enterprise.
• Define risk-based governance requirements based on factors such as data sensitivity, business criticality, autonomy, customer or employee impact, regulatory exposure, and financial risk.
• Ensure governance remains proportionate to risk and enables responsible experimentation without creating unnecessary barriers to adoption.
• Maintain an enterprise inventory of material internal AI solutions, use cases, models, vendors, and associated owners and risks.

AI Investment and Use-Case Governance

• Establish governance processes for evaluating proposed AI investments and internal AI opportunities.
• Partner with Finance and business leaders to ensure material AI initiatives have clearly defined business cases, measurable outcomes, full lifecycle costs, and accountable benefit owners.
• Define criteria for progressing, scaling, pausing, or stopping AI initiatives based on business value, adoption, performance, risk, and total cost of ownership.
• Help ensure NIQ prioritizes meaningful business opportunities rather than deploying AI solely because the technology is available.
• Establish governance mechanisms to identify overlapping tools, duplicative investments, and opportunities for enterprise reuse.

Responsible AI and Risk Management

• Develop and operationalize NIQ’s responsible AI principles and control framework for internal AI.
• Partner with Privacy, Legal, Security, Risk, Compliance, and HR to address risks including data privacy, intellectual property, cybersecurity, bias, explainability, human oversight, records retention, regulatory requirements, and inappropriate use.
• Define requirements for human review, testing, validation, monitoring, auditability, and escalation based on AI risk classification.
• Establish processes for identifying, reporting, investigating, and remediating AI-related incidents.
• Monitor emerging AI regulation, standards, and industry practices and translate them into appropriate NIQ governance requirements.

Technology and Architecture Governance

• Partner with Technology and Security leaders to establish approved AI technology patterns, platforms, models, and architectural guardrails.
• Define requirements for the use of public, private, proprietary, and open-source AI models.
• Establish governance for AI data access, model access, identity and permissions, integrations, agents, APIs, logging, monitoring, and production deployment.
• Partner with technology teams to define controls for AI development environments, experimentation, productionization, and ongoing operations.
• Support enterprise decisions regarding build-versus-buy approaches and strategic AI platforms.

Third-Party and Vendor AI Governance

• Partner with Procurement, Technology, Security, Privacy, and Legal to establish standards for evaluating AI capabilities embedded within third-party products and services.
• Define due-diligence requirements for AI vendors, including data usage, model training practices, security, intellectual property, contractual protections, service continuity, and regulatory risk.
• Help ensure the enterprise understands the full financial and operational impact of AI technology commitments, including licensing, consumption, infrastructure, integration, support, and ongoing operating costs.

Governance Operating Model

• Chair or lead appropriate enterprise AI governance forums and provide clear recommendations to senior leadership.
• Establish transparent escalation paths and decision-making processes for high-risk or high-impact AI initiatives.
• Define governance metrics and reporting that provide leadership with visibility into AI adoption, value realization, risk exposure, policy compliance, and portfolio health.
• Create practical guidance, playbooks, templates, and education that enable teams to comply with governance requirements efficiently.
• Continuously improve the governance model based on emerging technologies, organizational learning, regulatory developments, and operational experience.

Leadership and Influence

• Serve as a trusted advisor to senior Technology, functional, and business leaders on internal AI strategy, governance, and risk.
• Build alignment across functions with different objectives, risk tolerances, and levels of AI maturity.
• Develop a culture in which teams understand that responsible governance and rapid innovation are complementary rather than competing objectives.
• Lead and develop a high-performing governance capability as the organization’s needs evolve.

Qualifications

• Significant leadership experience (15+ years) in technology governance, enterprise technology, AI, risk, cybersecurity, data governance, digital transformation, or a related discipline.
• Demonstrated experience establishing or operating enterprise governance frameworks in a large, complex, global organization.
• Strong understanding of generative AI, machine learning, enterprise AI platforms, AI-enabled applications, and emerging agentic technologies.
• Working knowledge of AI-related risks including privacy, cybersecurity, intellectual property, bias, model risk, data leakage, regulatory exposure, and third-party risk.
• Experience partnering with Legal, Privacy, Security, Finance, Procurement, Technology, and senior business leadership.
• Demonstrated ability to translate complex technical and regulatory topics into practical business policies and decisions.
• Strong understanding of enterprise investment governance, business cases, total cost of ownership, and benefit realization.
• Ability to establish structure and clear decision-making in rapidly changing and ambiguous environments.
• Exceptional executive communication, influencing, and stakeholder-management skills.
• Experience leading globally distributed initiatives and operating across organizational boundaries.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience establishing an enterprise Responsible AI or AI Governance program.
• Experience governing generative AI platforms, copilots, large language models, or autonomous AI agents.
• Familiarity with emerging AI regulatory frameworks and recognized AI risk-management standards.
• Experience with large-scale enterprise cloud, data, security, and technology environments.
• Experience managing technology or transformation portfolios with measurable financial and operational outcomes.

Measures of Success

Success in this role will be measured by NIQ’s ability to:

• Scale internal AI adoption while maintaining appropriate levels of enterprise risk.
• Make AI investment and deployment decisions faster through clear standards and decision rights.
• Demonstrate measurable productivity, cost, revenue, or operational benefits from material AI investments.
• Reduce unmanaged, duplicative, or non-compliant AI usage.
• Maintain clear ownership and visibility of material AI solutions across the enterprise.
• Identify and mitigate AI risks before they result in material business impact.
• Create governance that business and technology teams view as practical, predictable, and enabling

Our Benefits

• Flexible working environment
• Volunteer time off
• LinkedIn Learning
• Employee-Assistance-Program (EAP)

NIQ may utilize artificial intelligence (AI) tools at various stages of the recruitment process, including résumé screening, candidate assessments, interview scheduling, job matching, communication support, and certain administrative tasks that help streamline workflows. These tools are intended to improve efficiency and support fair and consistent evaluation based on job-related criteria. All use of AI is governed by NIQ’s principles of fairness, transparency, human oversight, and inclusion. Final hiring decisions are made exclusively by humans. NIQ regularly reviews its AI tools to help mitigate bias and ensure compliance with applicable laws and regulations. If you have questions, require accommodations, or wish to request human review were permitted by law, please contact your local HR representative. For more information, please visit NIQ’s AI Safety Policies and Guiding Principles: https://nielseniq.com/global/en/info/niqs-ai-safety-policies/

About NIQ

NIQ is the world’s leading consumer intelligence company, delivering the most complete understanding of consumer buying behavior and revealing new pathways to growth. In 2023, NIQ combined with GfK, bringing together the two industry leaders with unparalleled global reach. With a holistic retail read and the most comprehensive consumer insights-delivered with advanced analytics through state-of-the-art platforms-NIQ delivers the Full View™. NIQ is an Advent International portfolio company with operations in 100+ markets, covering more than 90% of the world’s population.

For more information, visit NIQ.com

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Our commitment to Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion

At NIQ, we are steadfast in our commitment to fostering an inclusive workplace that mirrors the rich diversity of the communities and markets we serve. We believe that embracing a wide range of perspectives drives innovation and excellence. All employment decisions at NIQ are made without regard to race, color, religion, sex (including pregnancy, sexual orientation, or gender identity), national origin, age, disability, genetic information, marital status, veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by applicable laws. We invite individuals who share our dedication to inclusivity and equity to join us in making a meaningful impact. To learn more about our ongoing efforts in diversity and inclusion, please visit the https://nielseniq.com/global/en/news-center/diversity-inclusion