Sr. Director, AI Strategy and Operations

At DICK’S Sporting Goods, we believe in how positively sports can change lives. On our team, everyone plays a critical role in creating confidence and excitement by personally equipping all athletes to achieve their dreams. We are committed to creating an inclusive and diverse workforce, reflecting the communities we serve.

If you are ready to make a difference as part of the world’s greatest sports team, apply to join our team today!

OVERVIEW:

Senior Director, AI Strategy & Operations is accountable for translating AI strategy into scaled business impact by designing AI-powered products, agentic workflows, and human centered experiences that transform how the enterprise operates. This role bridges business strategy and AI execution while partnering with functional leaders, technology leaders, data science and analytics teams, and operational stakeholders to deliver measurable business value.

Enterprise AI Product Strategy

• Define and lead the enterprise AI product portfolio across business functions, corporate services, media, and athlete performance businesses.

• Partner with strategy and functional executives to identify, prioritize, and deliver high-value AI opportunities.

• Establish product roadmaps for AI-powered experiences, copilots, intelligent applications, and autonomous agents.

• Align AI investments to enterprise strategy, governance requirements, and measurable business outcomes.

• Develop product success metrics, adoption targets, and value realization frameworks.

Agentic Operations & Workflow Transformation

• Lead the design of next-generation operating models that integrate AI agents into business processes and workflows.

• Partner with business leaders to redesign workflows for human-AI collaboration, including agentic operating processes that augment or automate work through intelligent agents.

• Establish standards and methodologies for agent orchestration and human-agent interaction models.

AI Product Management & Design

• Build and lead a team of AI Product Managers responsible for translating business opportunities into scalable AI solutions.

• Establish product management practices tailored to AI and agentic systems.

• Partner with product prioritization, roadmap management, requirement definition, and stakeholder alignment.

• Partner with AI engineering, data science, platform, security, and architecture teams to deliver products from concept through deployment.

• Lead multidisciplinary design work for intuitive AI experiences, conversational experiences, agent interactions, and AI-enabled workflows.

• Create repeatable design patterns for copilots, agents, and human-AI workflow integration.

Adoption, Change Management & Cross-Functional Leadership

• Establish frameworks to measure utilization, engagement, productivity gains, business outcomes, and financial returns.

• Partner with HR, Communications, Learning, and functional leadership teams to drive organizational adoption.

• Build feedback mechanisms to continuously improve AI products and experiences.

• Serve as the primary liaison between business leaders and AI delivery teams.

• Facilitate alignment across strategy, technology, operations, data, governance, risk, and change management functions.

• Support executive steering committees and portfolio governance processes.

QUALIFICATIONS:

• 15+ years of leadership experience spanning product management, operations, strategy, digital transformation, consulting, analytics, or technology leadership.
• Demonstrated success driving enterprise-scale transformation and AI-enabled business outcomes.
• Experience leading AI, Generative AI, Machine Learning, Agentic AI, Automation, or Digital Product organizations.
• Experience designing enterprise workflows and operating models, and building or scaling AI-enabled products and services.
• Experience in retail, media, consumer, technology, sports, healthcare, financial services, or similarly complex enterprises preferred.
• Familiarity with Responsible AI, governance frameworks, and AI risk management.
• AI, Generative AI, Machine Learning, Agentic AI, Automation, and Digital Product leadership.
• AI-powered products, copilots, intelligent applications, autonomous agents, and agentic business workflows.
• Knowledge fabric, AI models, AI-enabled workflows, agent orchestration, and human-agent interaction models.
• Ability to partner with AI engineering, data science, platform, security, and architecture teams from concept through deployment.
• Standards for conversational experiences, agent interactions, AI-enabled workflows, and repeatable design patterns for human-AI workflow integration.
• Frameworks to measure AI utilization, engagement, productivity gains, business outcomes, financial returns, user satisfaction, operational efficiency, and time-to-value.
• Strategic thinking with the ability to connect AI opportunities to enterprise value creation and long-term business strategy.
• Systems thinking with the ability to redesign end-to-end workflows that combine people, process, technology, and AI agents.
• Product leadership with the ability to build and scale AI product portfolios that drive measurable outcomes.
• Human-centered design with the ability to design trusted and impactful experiences that maximize human and AI collaboration.
• Organizational influence and change leadership with the ability to drive alignment across diverse stakeholders, competing priorities, and transformative initiatives.

VIRTUAL REQUIREMENTS:

At DICK’S, we thrive on innovation and authenticity. That said, to protect the integrity and security of our hiring process, we ask that candidates do not use AI tools (like ChatGPT or others) during interviews or assessments.

To ensure a smooth and secure experience, please note the following:

• Cameras must be on during all virtual interviews.
• AI tools are not permitted to be used by the candidateduring any part of the interview process.
• Offers are contingent upon a satisfactory background check which may include ID verification.

If you have any questions or need accommodations, we’re here to help. Thanks for helping us keep the process fair and secure for everyone!

Originally posted on Himalayas