About the Role

The Director, Tech & Platforms serves as the technical co-leader of the AI Center of Excellence, owning the architecture, platforms, and engineering foundations that enable AI at scale across Zain Group. This director-level role engages as a peer with Group technology directors (CTO, IT, Data, Security) and OpCo AI Office Heads to set technical strategy, enforce architecture standards, and ensure production-ready AI systems. The Director defines Zain's AI reference architecture, leads platform selection and vendor management, establishes engineering practices, and builds internal technical capability. This role requires deep AI/ML platform expertise, enterprise architecture leadership, and the executive presence to influence senior stakeholders across a federated organization.

Key Accountabilities

• Define and maintain Group AI reference architecture for GenAI, Agentic AI, ML, and intelligent automation

• Own AI platform strategy and service catalog including LLM platforms, orchestration, MLOps, and data platforms

• Lead platform evaluation, vendor selection, commercial negotiations, and implementation oversight

• Establish and enforce technical standards for AI delivery including coding practices, deployment patterns, and monitoring

• Chair Group AI Architecture Review Board with OpCo CTO/IT directors to drive alignment and manage exceptions

• Enable delivery teams with proven engineering practices, tooling, accelerators, and technical problem-solving

• Define and oversee AI production operations including SLAs, monitoring, incident management, and continuous improvement

• Partner with Group CTO, IT, Data, and Security directors on platform integration, infrastructure, and compliance

• Serve as technical peer to 6 OpCo AI Office Heads for architecture guidance and cross-OpCo alignment

• Build and develop high-performing technical team of architects and engineers

• Manage structured knowledge transfer from Strategy& and delivery partners to build internal capability

KPIs can include but are not limited to:

• Platform adoption: percentage of OpCos using shared Group AI platforms

• Time-to-production: average time from use case approval to production deployment

• Architecture compliance: percentage of initiatives aligned to reference architecture

• System reliability: uptime and performance of AI platforms meeting defined SLAs

• Internal capability: percentage of use cases delivered by internal team vs. external vendors

What We Need From You

Educational Qualifications: Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or related technical field. Master's degree in AI/ML, Data Science, or Computer Science preferred.

Experience: 15+ years in technology leadership roles with progression from engineering to architecture to leadership. Experience building and operating AI/ML platforms at enterprise scale, designing reference architectures, and leading technical teams in federated organizations. Telecom or complex regulated industry experience highly valuable.

Knowledge: Deep expertise in GenAI/Agentic AI, MLOps/LLMOps, cloud platforms (AWS/Azure/GCP), data platforms, and enterprise integration. Strong understanding of architecture governance, platform operations, and vendor management. Experience with telecom BSS/OSS systems advantageous.