Head of AI Strategy

About us

We’re the team behind digital retailer Very.

Our purpose, helping families get more out of life, powers everything we do.

And we want our people to get more out of life too! If you’re high-performing, ambitious and make the most of every opportunity, we want to hear from you. In return, you’ll enjoy heaps of flexibility, great perks and benefits, and the freedom to be yourself, keep learning and take your career wherever you want it to go.

If you love making a difference, you’ll love making it sparkle for millions of Very customers.

About the role

As The Very Group accelerates the adoption of AI across the organisation, the Head of AI Strategy will be responsible for translating opportunity into measurable business value.

Working closely with senior leaders across the Group, the role will identify where AI can create the greatest impact, prioritise investment and ensure opportunities are translated into practical solutions that improve how we serve customers, support colleagues and operate the business. The role will help ensure AI becomes a driver of business performance, supported by the right changes to technology, processes, capabilities and ways of working.

AI is not an end in itself. The focus of this role is ensuring AI is applied where it genuinely improves customer outcomes, colleague experience and business performance.

This is a highly visible role at the centre of the organisation, combining strategic thinking, commercial judgement and hands-on delivery leadership to accelerate AI adoption, embed new ways of working and help the organisation realise the full value of AI through changes to technology, processes and capabilities.

What you'll be doing:

Own the AI strategy and roadmap

• Own and lead the Group’s AI strategy and multi-year roadmap, translating the organisation’s strategic ambitions into clear priorities, initiatives and investment decisions
• Identify, evaluate and prioritise AI opportunities across the Group, focusing on initiatives that create meaningful customer, colleague and commercial value.
• Develop and maintain a clear roadmap for AI adoption, balancing immediate opportunities with longer-term strategic priorities.
• Partner with senior leaders to ensure AI investment remains aligned to business priorities and value creation objectives.

Turn opportunity into impact

• Translate business challenges into clearly defined AI use cases and implementation plans.
• Work across business and technology teams to ensure solutions are practical, scalable and focused on delivering outcomes.
• Ensure AI opportunities are supported by the right changes to processes, ways of working, operating models, capabilities and technology so that benefits are fully realised across the organisation.

Drive adoption and value realisation

• Define and maintain clear success metrics for AI initiatives, ensuring progress, value realisation and impact are consistently measured and reported.
• Champion a test-and-learn approach that encourages experimentation, learning and the scaling of successful use cases.
• Build organisational capability, engagement and confidence in AI, helping leaders and teams adopt new ways of working and embed AI into day-to-day decision making.
• Ensure AI remains visible and actively discussed across the organisation through regular communication, leadership engagement and colleague participation.

About you

• Experience leading large-scale strategic, transformation or innovation programmes in a complex organisation.
• Strong commercial acumen with a track record of delivering measurable business outcomes.
• Experience leading organisation-wide change, embedding new ways of working and driving adoption across complex stakeholder groups
• Ability to identify opportunities, build business cases and prioritise investment.
• Excellent stakeholder management skills, with experience working with senior leaders.
• Strong problem-solving and structured-thinking capability, with the ability to simplify complexity and create clarity
• Experience bringing together business, technology and delivery teams to achieve common goals.
• Comfortable engaging with AI technologies and technical teams, while remaining focused on business outcomes rather than technical implementation.
• Passion for helping organisations adopt new ways of working and realise value from change.

Most importantly, you'll be someone who combines strategic thinking with a bias for action - equally shaping the roadmap, influencing senior stakeholders and rolling up your sleeves to turn AI opportunities into real business outcomes.

Some of our benefits

• Flexible, hybrid working model
• Inclusive culture and environment, check out our Glassdoor reviews
• £10,000 flexible benefits allowance to suit your needs
• 30 days holiday + bank holidays
• LinkedIn learning access
• Bonus potential (performance and business-related)
• Up to 25% discount on Very.co.uk

• Matched pension up to 6%
• More benefits can be found on our career site

How to apply

Please note that the talent acquisition team are managing this vacancy directly, and if successful in securing this role, you will be required to undertake a credit, CIFAS, Right to Work checks and if a specific requirement of your role a DBS (criminal records) check. Should your application progress we require you to let the team know if there is anything you need to disclose in relation to any of these checks prior to them being undertaken, including any unspent criminal convictions.

What happens next?

Our talent acquisition team will be in touch if you’re successful so keep an eye on your emails! We’ll arrange a short call to learn more about you, as well as answer any questions you have. If it feels like we’re a good match, we’ll share your CV with the hiring manager to review. Our interview process is tailored to each role and can be in-person or held remotely.

You can expect a two stage interview process for this position:

1st stage - A 1 hour video call with the hiring team to discuss your skills and relevant experience. This is a great opportunity to find out more about the role and to ask any questions you may have.

2nd stage - A one-hour formal face-to-face interview where you can expect a task and both competency/technical skills based questions.

As an inclusive employer please do let us know if you require any reasonable adjustments.

If you'd like to know more about our interviews, you can find out here.

Diversity, inclusion and equal opportunities

We’re building a culture of everyday inclusion, and welcome applications from anyone who believes they can do the job. We don’t discriminate based on age, disability, gender reassignment, marriage or civil partnership, pregnancy or maternity, race, religion or belief, sex, or sexual orientation.

We want our recruitment process to be accessible to everyone. If you need reasonable adjustments to apply, interview, or perform a role, let us know via [email protected]. We’ll be happy to support you.

We’re proud to be a Disability Confident Committed Employer and have nine brilliant colleague networks - including DAWN (Disability Awareness at Very) and Think (Neurodiversity at Very) - that are helping us make Very an even more inclusive place to work.