Head of Data and AI Ops

Group 1001 is a consumer-centric, technology-driven family of insurance companies on a mission to deliver outstanding value and operational performance by combining financial strength and stability with deep insurance expertise and a can-do culture. Group1001’s culture emphasizes the importance of collaboration, communication, core business focus, risk management, and striving for outcomes. This goal extends to how we hire and onboard our most valuable assets – our employees.

Why This Role Matters

The Head of Data and AI Operations leads the strategic development and operational excellence of Group 1001's data infrastructure and AI readiness initiatives. This role is responsible for building and maturing a modern Data Operations organization, ensuring the stability, integrity, and performance of
critical data assets, and enabling the acceleration of AI productivity and business value through robust operational practices. The Head of Data and AI Operations drives the evolution of our data platforms,
cultivates a culture of data quality and governance, and fosters cross-functional collaboration to deliver impactful data products and solutions.

How You’ll Contribute

• Strategic Data Operations & Infrastructure Management:
• Manage a complex and diverse data infrastructure, ensuring business continuity, system stability, and high availability of data assets.
• Lead the development and maturity of incident management processes, ensuring swift response
• to outages and rapid restoration of business operations.
• Proactively address accumulated technical debt, improve data hygiene, and remediate legacyrisks within the data infrastructure.
• Establish and mature engineering practices around data, including robust change managementprocesses.
• Scale data operations across diverse data infrastructure and business units, leveragingautomation and operational tooling (e.g., Data CI/CD, monitoring, alerting) to optimizeefficiency and control costs.
• Define and implement best practices for data monitoring, data quality, and data testing to ensure the reliability and accuracy of data.

AI Readiness and Enablement:

• Enable Group 1001's adoption of modern data platforms to accelerate time to insight and time to value from existing data assets.
• Lead initiatives to build observability platforms for Machine Learning (ML) and Artificial Intelligence (AI) applications.
• Establish standardized processes for analytics development, testing, validation, and deployment across all business units.
• Ensure data readiness for deployment through ML and AI applications, contributing to unlocking AI productivity gains and business value.

Data Governance & Compliance:

• Lead the transformation from centralized IT-controlled data to business-owned, domain-specific
• data assets with clear accountability structures.
• Establish and train business data stewards who take ownership of data quality, definitions, and governance within their domains.
• Establish and mature comprehensive Data Governance practices, including the development and enforcement of technology frameworks to uphold policies.
• Collaborate cross-functionally to establish and implement company-wide data classification policies, ensuring data integrity and compliance.
• Drive extensive cross-functional collaboration with engineering, analytics, and business teams to ensure successful data product development and deployment.

What We’re Looking For

• Bachelor's or Master's degree in Computer Science, Data Science, or a related field.
• 15+ Years of progressive experience in data operations, data engineering, or a related leadership role.
• Deep expertise in managing complex data ecosystems, including experience with various data platforms, tools, and technologies.
• Proven experience in establishing and maturing data governance, data quality, and operational excellence frameworks.
• Exceptional leadership, communication, and interpersonal skills with the ability to influence and collaborate effectively across all levels of the organization.
• Demonstrated ability to drive strategic initiatives, manage projects, and deliver tangible business outcomes.
• Excellent problem-solving skills and attention to detail.
• Strong communication and leadership abilities.

Compensation

Our compensation reflects the cost of labor across several U.S. geographic markets. The base pay for this position ranges from $180,000/year in our lowest geographic market up to $260,000/year in our highest geographic market. Pay is based on factors such as market location, job-related skills, and experience.

Benefits Highlights:  

Employees who meet benefit eligibility guidelines and work 30 hours or more weekly, have the ability to enroll in Group 1001’s benefits package. Employees (and their families) are eligible to participate in the Company’s comprehensive health, dental, and vision insurance plan options.  Employees are also eligible for Basic and Supplemental Life Insurance, Short and Long-Term Disability. All employees (regardless of hours worked) have immediate access to the Company’s Employee Assistance Program and wellness programs—no enrollment is required.  Employees may also participate in the Company’s 401K plan, with matching contributions by the Company.

Group 1001, and its affiliated companies, is strongly committed to providing a supportive work environment where employee differences are valued. Diversity is an essential ingredient in making Group 1001 a welcoming place to work and is fundamental in building a high-performance team. Diversity embodies all the differences that make us unique individuals.  All employees share the responsibility for maintaining a workplace culture of dignity, respect, understanding and appreciation of individual and group differences.