Director of IT Innovation & AI

About the role

This senior leadership role is central to advancing Ethos Life's technology landscape by integrating new tools and artificial intelligence across enterprise IT. You will cultivate a forward-thinking environment, ensuring our IT systems are modern, well-managed, and prepared for AI integration.

Key facts

What you'll do

• Develop and manage the IT innovation strategy, establishing a process for generating ideas, testing them, and implementing successful solutions.
• Spearhead AI-driven projects in IT operations, such as intelligent automation for IT support, infrastructure management, and enhancing engineer productivity.
• Identify opportunities to automate IT tasks and service delivery, creating guidelines for responsible AI use, model supervision, and data management.
• Lead initiatives to update IT platforms, consolidate systems, improve IT service management, and enable self-service IT capabilities.
• Define technology standards and architectural guidelines for Corporate IT, and represent IT in company-wide technology governance discussions.
• Oversee security measures for IT systems, including endpoints, email, productivity tools, and network infrastructure, ensuring they meet security standards and are monitored.
• Manage IT General Controls for access, changes, and operations, maintaining documentation for audits and addressing any control weaknesses.
• Ensure IT systems are prepared for audits (SOC 1, SOC 2, SOX), supporting audit processes and resolving any identified issues.
• Collaborate with IT, finance, legal, and business units to align innovation efforts with compliance requirements.
• Present IT's innovation plans and progress in executive meetings and steering committees, and build business cases with return on investment and key performance indicators.

Requirements

• A minimum of 10 years of experience in IT, with at least 4 years in a senior technology leadership role focused on innovation.
• Proven experience implementing AI, machine learning, or intelligent automation within IT operations or corporate IT environments.
• Comprehensive knowledge of corporate IT areas, including infrastructure, cloud services, IT service management, security operations, and end-user computing.
• Demonstrated success in building and guiding effective technical teams.
• Excellent communication abilities, capable of explaining complex technology to both technical and executive audiences.
• Experience managing vendor relationships, evaluating technologies, and running pilot programs.
• Familiarity with AIOps platforms, generative AI tools, or enterprise automation solutions.

Nice to have

• Experience with modernizing cloud infrastructure with a focus on innovation.
• Understanding of IT governance frameworks like ITIL or COBIT, and how innovation fits into process maturity.
• An engineering or advanced technical degree is beneficial but not mandatory.

Skills & tools

• AI and Machine Learning
• AIOps
• Generative AI
• Enterprise Automation
• Cloud Infrastructure
• IT Service Management (ITSM)
• IT Governance Frameworks (e.g., ITIL, COBIT)
• Security Controls
• Audit Management (SOC 1, SOC 2, SOX)

Practical notes

• The US national base salary range for this position is $149,000 to $262,000. Compensation is determined by role, level, and location, and may also consider skills, experience, and education.
• This salary range reflects base pay only and does not include bonuses, equity, or benefits.
• US benefits details can be found at ethoslife.com/careers.
• Ethos Life is an equal opportunity employer.
• All official communication from Ethos Life will come from email addresses ending in @ethos.com or @getethos.com. Be aware of recruitment scams; the company will never ask for payment or sensitive personal information during the hiring process.