SVP, Head of AI

BANC OF CALIFORNIA AND YOUR CAREER

Banc of California, Inc. (NYSE: BANC) is a bank holding company with over $34 billion in assets and the parent company of Banc of California. Banc of California is one of the nation’s premier relationship-based business banks, providing banking and treasury management services to small, middle market, and venture backed businesses. As the largest independent bank headquartered in California, the bank offers a broad range of loan and deposit products and services through a network of full-service branches and regional offices, as well as through digital and nationwide capabilities. The bank also provides full-service payment processing solutions to its clients and serves the Community Association Management industry nationwide through its technology forward platform, SmartStreet™. Banc of California is committed to supporting its local communities through the Banc of California Charitable Foundation and by partnering with organizations that promote financial literacy, job training, small business support, affordable housing, and more.

At Banc of California, our success is powered by our people and a shared commitment to delivering meaningful results. We foster an environment where entrepreneurial thinking is encouraged, and accountability and operational excellence are expected. Our team members are empowered to take ownership, make informed decisions, and make a meaningful impact as the bank continues to grow and evolve. We are dedicated to supporting your growth and wellbeing through comprehensive benefits, robust development opportunities, and inclusive programs that enable you to perform at your best. Together we win!

THE OPPORTUNITY

The SVP, Head of AI will define and lead Banc of California's enterprise AI strategy and execution, moving AI from experimentation to a governed enterprise capability focused on better recurring decisions, operational efficiency, customer experience, and risk management. Reporting to the CIO, this enterprise leadership role is responsible for translating business priorities into a disciplined AI portfolio, building and leading the Bank’s AI engineering capability, and partnering with leaders across Revenue, Credit, Risk & Compliance, Operations, and Enterprise Efficiency. The role combines hands-on fluency in modern AI, machine learning, large language models, and agentic systems with a demonstrated track record of taking AI initiatives from pilot to production in a regulated environment. This leader is accountable for delivery, governance, value realization, vendor and platform strategy, talent, and enterprise adoption. Performs all duties in accordance with the Company’s policies and procedures, all U.S. state and federal laws and regulations, wherein the Company operates.

HOW YOU’LL MAKE A DIFFERENCE

Enterprise AI Strategy & Portfolio

• Define, drive, and oversee the bank's enterprise AI strategy and roadmap, aligned to business priorities, measurable value, risk appetite, and the bank's broader technology and data strategy.
• Lead the AI Use Case Committee and own the intake, prioritization, business-case discipline, budget management, and funding recommendations for new AI use cases.
• Organize the enterprise AI portfolio around high-value recurring decisions and the five AI value factories: Revenue, Credit, Risk & Compliance, Operations, and Enterprise Efficiency.
• Establish consistent value-realization measures for AI initiatives, including financial impact, decision impact, adoption, feasibility, data readiness, risk, and strategic differentiation.
• Report AI adoption, cost, delivery progress, risk posture, and realized value to the CIO, Executive Leadership Group, and Board.

AI Delivery & Engineering

• Build and lead the AI Engineering Bench, hiring, coaching, and developing AI engineering talent and deploying that capability flexibly across priority business-unit use cases.
• Establish a delivery model in which central AI provides enterprise standards, reusable capabilities, technical expertise, and implementation support, while business units retain ownership of their processes, adoption, outcomes, and benefits realization.
• Lead business processes and decision redesign around AI, taking priority use cases from discovery and workflow mapping through pilot, production, adoption, monitoring, and measurable outcomes.
• Set engineering and delivery standards for AI, generative AI, and agentic solutions, including testing, human review, documentation, monitoring, change management, auditability, and production support.
• Own build-versus-buy-versus-configure recommendations, favoring configuration of mature vendor platforms where appropriate and proprietary development where the bank has a differentiated data or workflow advantage.
• Partner with Data Engineering and business data owners to establish controlled data paths for priority AI use cases and leverage the bank's Data Foundation as it matures.
• Create reusable agents, skills, prompts, patterns, and implementation assets that can be safely shared across use cases and business units.

Governance, Risk & Controls

• Partner with Model Risk Management, Risk, Compliance, Information Security, ITGC, Legal, and Third-Party Risk Management to keep the bank's AI governance framework current as adoption scales.
• Ensure production AI solutions follow the bank's governance path, including Security review, ITGC compliance, and Model Risk sign-off based on risk and impact.
• Operationalize responsible-AI principles including safety and soundness, ethics and fairness, transparency and explainability, human-in-the-loop review, compliance by design, security and privacy, and third-party risk management.
• Operate the end-to-end AI governance lifecycle, including use-case registration, risk tiering, testing and validation, approval, human oversight, production monitoring, incident and fallback procedures, control evidence, and retirement.
• Own enterprise AI vendor and platform strategy, including platform selection, contract renewals, cost management, concentration risk, and ongoing capability assessment.

Adoption, Education & Workforce Enablement

• Drive bank-wide AI education, adoption, and usage monitoring through role-based training, AI champions, demonstrations, and practical use-case enablement.
• Partner with HR and business leaders to incorporate AI fluency into hiring and leadership expectations, identify roles and workflows that should be redesigned, and redirect productivity gains toward higher-value work.
• Build a culture in which AI is used as a governed operating capability rather than an isolated technology experiment.
• Involved with interviewing and hiring decisions.
• Prepare and deliver employee performance evaluations, goal planning, and counseling.
• Manage, support, coach and train employees.
• Follow all established policies and procedures.
• Perform other duties and projects as assigned.

WHAT YOU’LL BRING

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, Data Science, Information Systems, Mathematics, Business, or a related technical or quantitative discipline; advanced degree a plus, not required.
• 10+ years of progressive experience in technology, data, analytics, AI/ML, or digital transformation, including significant experience leading technical teams and enterprise-scale initiatives.
• Demonstrated track record of taking AI initiatives from concept or pilot through production deployment, adoption, monitoring, and measurable value realization.
• Practical fluency with enterprise AI architectures and delivery patterns, including LLMs, retrieval-augmented generation (RAG), agentic workflows, APIs, evaluation, observability, and LLMOps/MLOps; able to set technical direction and challenge architecture decisions.
• Experience building and leading technical teams, including hiring, coaching, performance management, and development of senior engineering talent.
• Experience operating AI in a regulated environment, including model risk management, data governance, information security, privacy, change management, auditability, third-party risk, and risk-based lifecycle controls.
• Strong business judgment and portfolio-management skills, including use-case prioritization, business-case development, budget management, vendor evaluation, and build-versus-buy-versus-configure decisions.
• Ability to work across business, technology, risk, and control functions and to translate complex technical concepts into clear decisions and actions for executives and business leaders.
• Strong executive communication and presentation skills, including the ability to report strategy, progress, risk, cost, and value to the CIO, Executive Leadership Group, and Board.
• Demonstrated ability to redesign business decisions and workflows around AI and lead the associated change management while maintaining day-to-day delivery accountability.
• Banking or financial-services experience strongly preferred, particularly in a regulated bank environment; familiarity with credit, deposits, treasury, BSA/AML, fraud, operations, customer servicing, or regulatory processes.
• Experience standing up or scaling an enterprise AI function and applying AI to high-value recurring decisions, workflow automation, decision support, and productivity use cases.
• Experience with responsible-AI frameworks, enterprise AI platforms, governed AI sandboxes, cloud data environments, and AI-assisted software engineering practices.
• High school diploma or equivalent required.

HOW WE’LL SUPPORT YOU

• Financial Security: You will be eligible to participate in the company’s 401k plan which includes a company match and immediate vesting.
• Health & Well-Being: We offer comprehensive insurance options including medical, dental, vision, AD&D, supplemental life, long-term disability, pre-tax Health Savings Account with employer contributions, and pre-tax Flexible Spending Account (FSA).
• Building & Supporting Your Family: Banc of California partners with providers that offer adoption, surrogacy, and fertility assistance as well as paid parental leave and family support solutions including care options for your family.
• Paid Time Away: Eligible team members receive paid vacation days, holidays, and volunteer time off.
• Career Growth Opportunities: To support career growth of our team members, we offer tuition reimbursement, an annual mentorship program, leadership development resources, access to LinkedIn Learning, and more.

The base salary ultimately offered is determined through a review of education, industry experience, training, knowledge, skills, abilities of the applicant in alignment with market data and other factors.

Banc of California is an equal opportunity employer committed to creating a diverse workforce. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to their actual or perceived race (including traits associated with race, such as hair texture, hair type or protective hairstyles), religion or religious creed (including religious dress and grooming practices), color, sex (including pregnancy, childbirth, breastfeeding and related medical conditions), sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, gender expression, gender transitioning, citizenship status, national origin, ancestry, age, marital status, military or veteran status, medical condition, genetic information, or disability (mental or physical), requests for accommodation and any additional protected categories set forth in applicable federal, state or local laws. If you require reasonable accommodation as part of the application process, please contact Talent Acquisition.