AI Transformation and Governance Manager

Role Summary

The AI Transformation & Governance Manager is the project and programme manager for PASHA Financial Holding's agentic AI programme and is accountable for delivery of its full scope, while the external consultant, the platform vendor and the operating company teams execute the work. The role manages the integrated plan, milestones, dependencies, critical path, risks and change control; runs the consultant engagement through to formal deliverable acceptance; chairs the programme cadence and governance forums; and manages operational company and cross-company dependencies. It provides delivery assurance across the programme, reviewing and challenging the process taxonomies, prioritisation results, agentic roadmaps, business cases and technical deliverables produced by others before endorsement or sign-off. The role manages selection of the group agentic platform - requirements, structured evaluation, proof of concept, business case and recommendation - and manages the platform vendor together with the infrastructure provider, covering implementation milestones, delivery quality, service levels and a single consolidated requirements backlog across the companies. It defines the group agentic governance framework and agent lifecycle, runs their establishment as a managed programme, and assures implementation in each operating company. The role owns the programme budget and total cost of ownership, including unit economics, FinOps reporting, budget allocation and benefit tracking; reports programme performance to Holding leadership and company sponsors; and manages rollout of the proven approach across the remaining operating companies, transferring execution to their teams.

Duties and Responsibilities

Manage the agentic AI programme end to end: integrated plan, milestones, dependencies, critical path, risk and issue management, and change control across all workstreams and operating companies.

Manage the external consultant engagement: scope, schedule, agreed acceptance criteria, deliverable review, formal acceptance or return, escalation and commercial change requests.

Provide delivery assurance across the programme: review and challenge deliverables produced by the consultant, the platform vendor and company teams against agreed criteria before endorsement or sign-off.

Chair the programme cadence and maintain programme governance: working sessions, programme reviews, steering committees, decision log and action tracking.

Manage operational company side and cross-company dependencies: data access, system owners, information security review, business owner availability and procurement.

Manage selection of the group agentic platform: requirements definition, structured evaluation, proof of concept, business case and recommendation for leadership approval.

Manage the platform vendor together with the infrastructure provider: implementation milestones, delivery quality, release cadence, service levels, escalations, and a single consolidated requirements backlog across the operating companies.

Define the group agentic governance framework and agent lifecycle - decision rights, stage gates, evidence requirements, agent registry, identity and access standards, and AgentOps requirements - and run its establishment as a managed programme.

Assure implementation of the governance in each operating company: accountable owners appointed, agents registered, lifecycle gates operated, approvals and information security sign-off in place, review forums running.

Assure the quality of transformation deliverables produced by the companies and the consultant - process taxonomy, prioritisation results, agentic roadmaps and business cases - through structured review and challenge.

Manage the programme budget and total cost of ownership: cost model, unit economics and FinOps reporting, budget allocation across the operating companies, and spend and benefit tracking against business case.

Report programme performance to Holding leadership and company sponsors: milestone delivery, deliverable acceptance, risk exposure, cost variance, adoption and benefits realisation.

Capture delivery experience from the first implementation and manage the rollout of the same approach across the remaining operating companies, transferring execution to their teams.

Requirements

• Proven experience in complex programme delivery carried from initial scoping through to production deployment.
• Proven proficiency in delivering complex projects across multiple companies and stakeholder groups in parallel, with shared dependencies and competing priorities.
• Experience defining governance frameworks and implementing them in operating entities: control objectives, decision rights, policies, stage gates, forums and reporting lines.
• Knowledge of IT governance, ITGC, GRC, data governance and information security.
• Experience with vendor contract, service level and performance management; accountability for a delegated budget and a cost model.
• Experience on both sides of a consulting relationship: engagement delivery to clients and management of external consultants as the client.
• Senior stakeholder management across multiple legal entities without direct reporting authority.
• Delivery experience in banking, insurance or a comparable regulated sector, on work subject to risk, compliance, information security and audit review.
• Technical university degree in applied mathematics, computer science, data science, artificial intelligence or engineering.
• Working knowledge of agentic AI concepts: agent architecture, orchestration, tool calling, evaluation methods, runtime observability and production failure modes. Direct production experience with agentic systems is not required.
• Demonstrated ability to acquire a new technical domain from primary sources - standards, vendor documentation and hands-on testing - and convert it into decisions and written standards.
• Ability to work inside the delivery scope directly: review designs against the architecture, test delivered functionality, and verify workflow behaviour before sign-off.
• Professional working proficiency in English, Russian and Azerbaijani (all three required).

Preferred:

• Postgraduate qualification in a quantitative, data, IT management, transformation, governance or business discipline.
• Project or programme management certification (PMP, PRINCE2, MSP or equivalent).