Senior Director, AI Operational Governance

Senior Director, AI Operations Governance 

Overview 

The Senior Director, AI Operations Governance leads the operational engine that governs how The Coca-Cola Company designs, reviews, approves, deploys, and retires Artificial Intelligence across the enterprise. The role establishes and runs the intake, review, and approval process for AI use cases across every function and Operating Unit worldwide — enabling the business to move at speed while ensuring every AI solution is safe, secure, standardized, and compliant with Company policy and applicable law. 

Reporting to the Senior Vice President & Chief Information Security Officer (CISO), this role serves as the CISO organization's senior operating leader on AI Governance and as a member of the Company's AI Risk Governance Council. Under delegated authority, the Senior Director holds tiered decision rights — approving lower-risk use cases within defined guardrails, requiring corrections on cases that don't meet standard, and escalating high-risk, novel, or regulated use cases to the Council or CISO for final decision. 

This is a people-leader role. The Senior Director builds and leads a global team of governance professionals and partners closely with Legal, Privacy, the Data & AI organization, Cyber Risk, Cyber Defense, Internal Audit, and business leaders across Operating Units — bringing the enterprise one clear, consistent, and credible AI governance experience from idea to production and beyond. 

Key Responsibilities 

AI Operational Governance Program Ownership 

• Own the Company's enterprise AI operations governance model — the process, standards, roles, decision rights, and tools that govern AI use cases at Coca-Cola. 

• Ensure the program enables rapid, safe, and operationally aligned AI adoption across every function and Operating Unit worldwide. 

• Set the operating cadence — intake reviews, tiered risk boards, exception forums, and escalation paths to the AI Risk Governance Council. 

• Continuously improve the program so governance keeps pace with the Company's AI strategy, ambitions and the evolving external landscape. 

Use-Case Intake, Review & Approval 

• Operate a single, well-known intake process for AI use cases and tools across all functions and Operating Units, from ideation through deployment. 

• Classify each use case (including tools and products) by risk tier using clear, published criteria that reflect strategic alignment, business impact, return on investment, data sensitivity, model type, autonomy, and regulatory exposure. 

• Under delegated authority, approve, require corrections on, or deny lower- and medium-risk use cases within defined guardrails. 

• Escalate high-risk, novel, or regulated use cases with clear recommendations to the AI Risk Governance Council or CISO for final decision. 

• Ensure every decision is documented with rationale, conditions, and auditable evidence. 

AI Solution Lifecycle Governance 

• Embed governance into the full AI solution lifecycle — ideation, design, data sourcing, build, validation, deployment, ongoing monitoring, re-validation, and retirement. 

• Define lifecycle gates and evidence requirements appropriate to each risk tier (e.g., human oversight, bias and fairness testing, security review, privacy review, model documentation, monitoring plan). 

• Ensure retired or replaced AI systems are formally decommissioned, with data and access appropriately closed out. 

• Oversee operations of model provisioning and approval, agent build approval, agent publishing approval, and approval of models and tools to be used Company-wide.  

Policies, Standards & Guardrails 

• Own the Company's AI operating standards, and operating guardrails, keeping them clear, current, and workable for the business with oversight from the AI Risk Governance Council. 

• Coordinate with Legal, Privacy, Cyber Risk Management, Data & AI, and Ethics & Compliance so guardrails reflect legal, regulatory, ethical, security, and business realities. 

• Communicate requirements and guardrails to the Company through clear guidance, training, and self-service tooling that helps business teams do the right thing by default. 

Cross-Functional Partnership & Council Engagement 

• Serve as a working member of the AI Risk Governance Council (Chair: CISO; Vice-Chair: Senior Director Cyber Risk Management), bringing forward operational insight, decision papers, and escalations. 

• Partner day-to-day with Legal, Privacy, the Data & AI organization, Ethics & Compliance, Internal Audit, and Cyber leadership to ensure a single, coherent enterprise governance experience. 

• Build durable relationships with Operating Unit & functional leaders and Bottling System partners so governance is understood, respected, and used. 

• Champion consensus-building across functions with different priorities and operating models. 

Regulatory & Standards Alignment 

• Ensure the operating program aligns to leading standards — including NIST AI Risk Management Framework and ISO/IEC 42001 — and to the global body of AI regulation, including the EU AI Act, Chinese AI rules, U.S. state AI laws, and emerging frameworks in other Coca-Cola markets. 

• Work with the Senior Director Cyber Risk Management and Legal counsel to translate regulatory obligations into practical governance requirements. 

• Adjust the operating program as regulations evolve, so the Company stays ahead rather than reacting to change. 

AI Inventory, Reporting & Assurance 

• Maintain an accurate, enterprise-wide inventory of AI systems, their risk tiers, owners, decisions, and lifecycle status. 

• Produce clear, executive-framed reporting to the CISO, Cyber Risk Management, the Council, and senior management on AI operational governance posture, throughput, risk trends, and material decisions. 

• Develop and maintain a regular cadence with Cyber Risk Management (Senior Director, Cyber Risk) on AI Policy adherence, AI risk and issues trends, data feeds for Cyber GRC risk reporting and metrics for AI, challenges in execution of AI controls, and AI Council escalations.  

• Support Internal Audit, external auditors, and regulator engagements with defensible narratives, decision records, and evidence. 

• Partner with Cyber Defense on assurance activities that test whether guardrails hold in the real world (e.g., AI red teaming, shadow-AI discovery). 

People Leader 

• Build and lead a global AI Operations Governance team, sized to the Company's AI ambitions and risk posture. 

• Set a clear vision, hire strong talent, and develop a deep bench of AI operations professionals, both global/corporate and at the operating unit level. 

• Hold the team accountable for outcomes — throughput, decision quality, evidence rigor, and business enablement. 

• Foster an inclusive, mission-oriented, high-performance culture across a networked, global team. 

• Manage budget, vendor relationships, and platform investments with discipline. 

Qualifications 

• Minimum 15+ years of progressive experience in AI governance, technology risk, data governance, privacy, or regulatory compliance in large, global organizations, with a meaningful portion focused on AI or emerging technology. 

• Demonstrated experience building or running a technology governance program with intake, review, and approval authority. 

• Strong working command of leading AI governance frameworks (NIST AI RMF, ISO/IEC 42001) and the global AI regulatory landscape (EU AI Act, Chinese AI rules, U.S. state AI laws). 

• Working knowledge of AI technology fundamentals — machine learning, large language models, agentic AI, third-party AI — enough to engage credibly with technical and business teams. 

• Proven ability to operate across a networked, matrixed, global organization and partner ecosystem (Operating Units, bottling system, or analogous complex networks). 

• Strong people-leadership experience, including hiring, developing, and leading multi-disciplinary global teams. 

• Exceptional executive communication and influence skills; able to translate complex governance and regulatory topics into clear choices for senior business and technology leaders. 

• Experience partnering closely with Legal, Privacy, Data, Cyber, Ethics & Compliance, and Internal Audit on cross-functional governance. 

• Relevant certifications such as IAPP AIGP, CIPP/E, CIPM, CDPSE, CISM, or CRISC are strongly preferred. 

Education 

• Bachelor's degree in Law, Public Policy, Information Systems, Computer Science, Data Science, Risk Management, or related field required. 

• Master's degree, JD, MBA, or advanced credential (AIGP, CIPP/E, CISSP, CISM, or equivalent) highly desirable.