Senior Vice President, Digital and AI (Path to Chief Digital and AI Officer)
Salas O’Brien is seeking an accomplished Senior Vice President, Digital and AI to lead and scale enterprise-wide digital, automation, and AI capabilities across our engineering and consulting business. This senior leader will shape and execute a multi-year strategy to modernize engineering delivery, strengthen data-driven decision-making, and unlock next-generation value for clients and team members. This is a newly created role in a fast-growing environment. The right person will thrive in ambiguity by bringing structure, aligning stakeholders, making smart tradeoffs, and delivering progress even when the path isn’t fully defined. Initially reporting to the CEO, the role is designed with a clear evolution path to Chief Digital and AI Officer based on demonstrated enterprise impact and leadership influence.
Key Responsibilities
What you will lead and influence
- Align leaders on the enterprise Digital and AI strategy, roadmap, and outcomes
• Run portfolio governance, including intake, prioritization, standards, and scaling recommendations
• Drive firmwide standards and guide consolidation to reduce duplication
• Shape investment recommendations for platforms, partners, adoption support, and capability building
What you will do
Set strategy and build a scalable operating model
- Build the multi-year strategy and near-term roadmap with clear outcomes in partnership with the leadership team
• Establish governance and a decision cadence to scale across business and functional groups without slowing execution
• Lead an intake and prioritization process grounded in return on investment and impact
Modernize engineering delivery
- Standardize templates, quality workflows, and shared content libraries
- Identify, pilot, and scale use cases that produce measurable results and are sustainable in day-to-day operations (not one-off pilots)
- Embed tools into delivery with engineering and operations leaders to drive adoption
Lead automation and AI execution
- Deliver automation integrated into day-to-day workflow using low-code platforms, automation tools, and scripting
• Partner with IT on data foundations and performance dashboards for decision-making
• Deploy practical AI workflows with responsible AI practices and appropriate client transparency as needed
Measure results and strengthen client differentiation
- Define success metrics and provide regular progress updates to senior leadership
• Translate internal wins into client-facing accelerators where appropriate - Build and manage strategic vendor and solution provider partnerships for outcomes, risk management, and scalability
How work will get done
- Lead through influence and partnership, setting standards and enabling scale through shared ownership with business leaders
• Execute delivery via cross-functional teams that include business leaders, IT, and digital champions embedded in teams
• Establish governance cadence, playbooks, and success measures to prioritize, scale, and sustain solutions
What you bring
- 10+ years leading digital transformation in AEC or similarly complex technical environments, with strong fluency in engineering delivery workflows, including BIM and VDC (model-based design and coordination)
• Proven outcomes across automation, data and analytics, and applied AI - Strong understanding of engineering delivery workflows and where digital/AI can materially improve speed, quality, and coordination.
- Ability to lead through influence and scale adoption across multiple business lines
- Strong executive presence and judgment balancing innovation with governance, privacy and security, and responsible AI practices
- Track record of developing internal capability and scaling solutions beyond pilots
Success targets (Year 1)
- Improve delivery timelines in selected priority workflows, targeting 10 to 15 percent in focus areas
• Increase adoption of standardized BIM and VDC templates and reusable automations
• Deliver performance dashboards and improve data quality and access
• Implement responsible AI governance and client transparency practices, as needed
• Maintain a consistent cadence for prioritization, scaling, adoption support, and measurement
Location: Remote – U.S. or Canada based
Travel: 25 - 30%
Compensation & Benefits:
The expected base salary range for this role is $225,000 - $300,000 USD per year. Actual compensation will be determined based on a number of factors including skills, experience, qualifications, and location.
This role is also eligible for an annual performance based bonus and a comprehensive U.S. based benefits package, including:
- Medical, dental, and vision insurance
- 401(k) with company match
- Paid time off and company holidays
- Wellness programs and employee assistance resources
- Professional development support
For more information, visit our full benefits overview here.
Equal Opportunity Employment Statement
Salas O’Brien provides equal employment opportunities to all employees and applicants for employment and prohibits discrimination and harassment of any type without regard to race, colour, religion, age, sex, national origin, disability status, genetics, protected veteran status, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, or any other characteristic protected by federal, state/provincial, or local laws. Salas O’Brien will accommodate the disability-related needs of applicants as required by law.
Third-Party Agency Notice
Salas O’Brien does not accept unsolicited resumes from external recruiters or agencies. We only work with approved partners engaged directly by our Talent Acquisition team for specific searches. Unsolicited submissions will not be eligible for placement fees.
This employer is required to notify all applicants of their rights pursuant to federal employment laws. For further information, please review the Know Your Rights notice from the Department of Labor.
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What We Do
Salas O’Brien is an employee-owned engineering and technical services firm focused on advancing the human experience through the built environment. Our team is engineered for impact™, helping clients achieve critical goals, advancing our team members through growth and opportunity, and operating at the center of important global issues, including sustainability and decarbonization. We are a top firm as ranked by Engineering News-Record and Consulting-Specifying Engineer, and we have appeared for over a decade on the Inc. 5000 list of North America’s fastest-growing private companies.
