Chief of Staff & AI Operations Manager, AI Operating Group

Chief of Staff & AI Operations Manager, AI Operating Group 

Reports To: SVP / Practice Lead, AI Operating Group 
Supports: SVP / Practice Lead, Pod Leads, and AI Operating Group leadership 
Location: Remote, United States 
Employment Type: Full-Time 
Experience Level: 5+ years preferred 

Role Overview 

The Chief of Staff & AI Operations Manager serves as the operating partner to the SVP / Practice Lead of the AI Operating Group and supports the Pod Leads responsible for execution across the group’s strategic priorities. This role helps translate leadership priorities into a disciplined operating system across people, operations, talent, intake, delivery coordination, reporting, internal communications, finance, and governance. 

This is a high-leverage coordination role embedded in a fast-growing AI practice. The person in this role is not expected to architect or build client-facing AI solutions. Instead, they create the structure, visibility, cadence, and follow-through required for builders, Pod Leads, and senior leaders to execute effectively. 

The ideal candidate is highly organized, operationally rigorous, comfortable supporting senior leadership, and able to work across HR, Finance, Legal, IT, Security, technical delivery teams, and business stakeholders. They should be AI-minded, personally use AI tools to improve productivity, and be comfortable creating lightweight workflows, dashboards, trackers, automations, or operating systems that help the AI Operating Group scale. 

Key Responsibilities 

Chief of Staff and Leadership Support 

• Serve as a central operating partner to the SVP / Practice Lead and Pod Leads. 

• Translate leadership priorities into action plans, operating cadences, trackers, dashboards, and follow-up mechanisms. 

• Prepare leadership materials, briefing documents, decision logs, status updates, and executive-ready summaries. 

• Track commitments, risks, dependencies, decisions, and action items across the AI Operating Group. 

• Help maintain visibility into team priorities, resource constraints, delivery risks, and operating issues. 

• Act as a connective layer between AI leadership and enabling functions including HR, Finance, Legal, IT, Security, and Operations. 

HR, People Operations, and Talent Pipeline 

• Coordinate HR-related processes including onboarding, role changes, internal transfers, contractor coordination, and offboarding support. 

• Maintain team rosters, reporting lines, pod assignments, role documentation, and operating group organizational materials. 

• Partner with HR and recruiting on job descriptions, hiring workflows, interview coordination, offer status, start dates, and onboarding logistics. 

• Track candidate funnel status by role, including resumes under review, interviews scheduled, offers extended, accepted offers, start dates, and remaining vacancies. 

• Support people development activities, including onboarding check-ins, training coordination, skills-gap tracking, and internal enablement sessions. 

Intake, Build Operations, and PMO 

• Manage intake tracking for new AI-related requests, opportunities, internal asks, client needs, and leadership-directed initiatives. 

• Help triage incoming requests based on urgency, strategic fit, required capabilities, pod ownership, capacity, and delivery complexity. 

• Maintain visibility into intake volume, request status, bottlenecks, aging items, and escalation needs. 

• Support build operations across AI pods through project trackers, milestone reporting, risk logs, dependency tracking, and status updates. 

• Coordinate with Pod Leads to ensure work has clear ownership, documented next steps, and visible blockers. 

• Support sprint planning, demo logistics, architecture review coordination, stakeholder readouts, and delivery retrospectives where applicable. 

Global Coordination, Cadence, and Communications 

• Manage operating rhythms across leadership syncs, Pod Lead meetings, all-hands meetings, training sessions, and monthly operating reviews. 

• Prepare agendas, materials, pre-reads, notes, recaps, action items, and follow-up communications. 

• Support coordination across distributed and global team members, including scheduling, documentation, handoffs, and access to key materials. 

• Maintain internal communication channels, announcements, process updates, training reminders, and reusable communication templates. 

• Help ensure decisions are documented, communicated, and translated into clear follow-up actions. 

Finance, Reporting, and Operational Visibility 

• Track AI Operating Group costs across people, contractors, vendors, tools, licenses, subscriptions, infrastructure, and project-level spend. 

• Maintain budget-versus-actual reporting and prepare monthly financial summaries for AI leadership. 

• Conduct variance analysis and explain key drivers of overages, savings, or changes in spend. 

• Coordinate with Finance on reporting requirements, budget planning, forecasting inputs, and cost allocation. 

• Maintain inventory of AI-related tools, subscriptions, vendor commitments, license usage, and renewal timelines. 

• Prepare recurring dashboards that provide visibility into spend, staffing, utilization, intake, delivery, hiring, and operational health. 

Governance, Technical Standards, and Compliance Coordination 

• Facilitate compliance with AI Operating Group technical standards, infrastructure protocols, and internal governance expectations. 

• Coordinate with Pod Leads, technical leaders, IT, Security, Legal, and Compliance to ensure required processes are documented and followed. 

• Help maintain documentation for model usage guidelines, data-handling expectations, infrastructure protocols, security review processes, vendor requirements, and technical operating standards. 

• Track required reviews, approvals, renewals, risk assessments, and compliance-related action items. 

• Support vendor governance activities, including due diligence, contract routing, renewal tracking, security reviews, and documentation. 

• Serve as an operational facilitator for technical governance, while architecture decisions and technical approvals remain with the appropriate technical owners. 

AI-Enabled Operations 

• Use AI tools to improve the speed, quality, and scalability of operational work. 

• Build lightweight internal tools, dashboards, trackers, workflows, automations, and reporting templates where appropriate. 

• Identify repetitive operational tasks that can be streamlined or automated. 

• Support better knowledge management by organizing documents, meeting notes, decisions, policies, onboarding materials, and reusable templates. 

• Stay current enough on AI concepts, tools, and delivery practices to be a credible operating partner to AI builders and technical leaders. 

Required Qualifications 

• 5+ years of experience in operations, chief-of-staff support, business operations, consulting operations, program management, finance operations, or practice management. 

• Experience supporting senior leaders and coordinating across multiple teams or workstreams. 

• Strong project management, PMO, operating cadence, and follow-through capabilities. 

• Experience with budget tracking, reporting, financial analysis, cost management, or operational metrics. 

• Strong organizational skills and exceptional attention to detail. 

• Excellent written and verbal communication skills, including the ability to create executive-ready materials. 

• Comfort operating in a fast-changing environment with ambiguity and shifting priorities. 

• Ability to handle confidential information with discretion. 

• Genuine interest in AI and regular use of AI tools to improve productivity. 

• Ability to work effectively with technical and non-technical stakeholders. 

Preferred Qualifications 

• Experience in consulting, professional services, technology, AI, data, product, or software delivery environments. 

• Prior chief-of-staff, business operations, strategy operations, or practice management experience. 

• Exposure to HR operations, recruiting coordination, onboarding, training, or people development. 

• Familiarity with technical delivery practices such as sprints, demos, architecture reviews, backlogs, roadmaps, or utilization tracking. 

• Experience supporting distributed or global teams. 

• Familiarity with vendor governance, software subscriptions, license management, security reviews, or compliance coordination. 

• Comfort creating dashboards, workflow automations, or AI-assisted reporting tools. 

Success in This Role Looks Like 

• The SVP / Practice Lead and Pod Leads have clear visibility into priorities, risks, staffing, intake, delivery status, financials, and operational health. 

• The AI Operating Group has a consistent operating rhythm with clear agendas, materials, owners, decisions, and follow-up. 

• Hiring, onboarding, training, and people development processes are organized, repeatable, and visible to leadership. 

• Intake is tracked, triaged, routed, and escalated through a clear process. 

• Build operations and PMO reporting provide useful visibility without creating unnecessary administrative burden for technical teams. 

• Financial reporting is accurate, timely, and actionable. 

• Technical standards, infrastructure protocols, vendor governance, and compliance processes are documented and coordinated effectively. 

• Builders and Pod Leads are able to spend more time on delivery because operational coordination is handled proactively. 

Equal Employment Opportunity 

MGT Consulting Group is an equal opportunity employer. We celebrate diversity and are committed to creating an inclusive environment for all employees. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, age, disability, genetic information, veteran status, or any other protected characteristic. MGT complies with all applicable federal, state, and local pay-transparency requirements.