Business Process and AI Product Owner

CrossCountry Consulting’s AI Innovation & Transformation practice builds the next generation of agentic AI solutions for the Office of the CFO and other enterprise functions. We design, deploy, and manage AI agents that automate and augment core enterprise workflows grounded in production-grade data foundations and domain expertise. As a Business Process & AI Product Owner on this team, you will be the bridge between what clients want to achieve and what AI can actually deliver: translating strategic finance and operational priorities into a disciplined AI product roadmap, orchestrating the cross-functional work required to bring agents from concept to production, and ensuring every deployment creates measurable, defensible enterprise value.

The Role

AI transformation at scale requires more than strong data and great engineering – it requires someone who deeply understands how finance, operations, and technology intersect within an enterprise, can diagnose process dysfunction and quantify value opportunities, and can own a product backlog with the rigor of a seasoned product manager and the credibility of a former finance leader. You will serve as the primary client-facing AI Product Owner, owning requirements, redesigning processes, sprint planning, stakeholder alignment, running training and customer success programs, and value realization from kick-off through steady-state managed outcomes.

What You'll Do:

Process discovery & value architecture: Lead structured current-state process assessments across finance and adjacent functions (accounting, FP&A, treasury, procurement, revenue operations, HR finance, legal ops); quantify value opportunities by AI and automation tier, identify high-ROI agent use cases for the enterprise, and build the business case for AI investment with CFO-ready financial models.
Process redesign & optimization: Where AI and Machine Learning solutions create value, help clients redesign roles, org structures, and operating models to capture the full value of AI/ML, working across value streams and domains; advise on workforce transition, upskilling, and governance model changes required to operate AI-augmented finance functions.
AI product roadmap ownership: Define, prioritize, and maintain a rolling AI product roadmap for each client engagement, sequencing deployments and platform build-out by value, feasibility, and data readiness; balance quick wins against strategic platform capabilities.
Requirements & user story development: Translate business requirements, inclusive of new capabilities that AI can bring, into detailed agent specifications: user stories, acceptance criteria, data input/output schemas, exception-handling logic, HITL/HOTL decision points, and success metrics.
Sprint planning & delivery governance: Lead development planning, demos, and deployments in collaboration with Forward Deployed Engineers and Data Architects; manage scope, track velocity, surface blockers, and maintain delivery confidence against committed timelines and fixed-fee budgets.
Stakeholder management & executive alignment: Build trusted relationships with client CEOs, CTOs, CHROs, CFOs, Controllers, VP FP&A, and functional leaders; facilitate executive steering committees, present sprint demos, and communicate roadmap progress and tradeoffs in business terms that resonate with finance leadership.
Change management & user adoption: Design and execute change management plans that drive user adoption of AI & ML solutions within client finance teams; develop training programs, change champions networks, and adoption KPI dashboards; address resistance with empathy and clear articulation of individual benefit.
Value realization & ROI measurement: Define outcome metrics at the start of each engagement (revenue growth, retention, spend optimization, hours recovered, error rate reduction, cycle-time compression, variance-explanation coverage, etc.); instrument agentic solution to capture those metrics and produce periodic Value Realization Reports that demonstrate ROI against the original business case.  Transform/establish processes to put clients in the position to achieve these outcomes.
AI ethics & governance in practice: Partner with the governance, AI/ML Ops & Ethics Lead to embed client-specific governance requirements into product design; ensure agent decision-rights, override protocols, and audit trails are documented and accepted by client legal, compliance, and internal audit.
GTM contribution: Contribute client learnings to agentic package refinement; author case studies, ROI benchmarks, and reusable process-assessment frameworks; support business development through proposal development, discovery workshops, and conference presentations.
Practice building & mentorship: Mentor junior delivery team members in agile product management and process analysis disciplines; contribute to AI methodology development and quality standards.

What You'll Bring:

8+ years of combined experience in finance (FP&A, accounting, or operations), management consulting, and/or enterprise technology product management; direct experience in at least two of these three domains is required.
Deep finance domain expertise: hands-on familiarity with month-end close, financial reporting, budgeting and forecasting, revenue operations, and at least one adjacent function (treasury, procurement, sales operations, revenue operations, HR, IT, or legal); CPA, CFA, or MBA is strongly preferred.
Demonstrated experience as a Product Owner or Product Manager in an enterprise software, SaaS, or digital transformation context; proficiency with agile methodologies.
Experience deploying or overseeing AI/ML or intelligent automation (RPA, NLP, or LLM-based) solutions in a finance or operations context; sufficient technical fluency to evaluate feasibility, challenge engineering assumptions, and communicate credibly with data architects and engineers.
Deep domain knowledge of at least 1-2 industries, including their business models and key performance metrics, grounding a clear view of where the AI value levers are in the industry and how to capture them
Track record of building and presenting rigorous business cases for technology investment, including NPV/IRR analysis, payback period modeling, and sensitivity analysis, tailored to CFO and board-level audiences.
Exceptional workshop facilitation and process-mapping skills.
Strong executive presence and communication skills; ability to navigate complex client politics, manage competing stakeholder priorities, and maintain delivery momentum in large, matrixed organizations.
Demonstrated change management competency; experience designing and executing change programs for technology-driven finance transformation.
Comfort operating in a startup-within-a-consulting-firm environment: building playbooks from scratch, context-switching across clients, and maintaining high quality under deadline pressure.

Qualifications:

A bachelor’s degree from an accredited university; MBA, CPA, or equivalent advanced degree or certification strongly preferred.
Certified SAFe Product Owner/Product Manager, CSPO, or equivalent agile product certification preferred.
If remote - willingness to travel domestically up to 30%–40% (varies by client engagement phase).
If hybrid - availability to work on client site or in office 3 days a week, with 2 days remote.