Head of AI & Advanced Analytics
About AXA:
AXA is a global leader in insurance and financial services, dedicated to helping customers protect what matters most to them. As the sixth-largest insurance company in the world, we provide a wide range of services, including health, car, home, and business insurance. We support millions of customers worldwide, helping them navigate life's uncertainties with confidence.
AXA Global Healthcare offers global healthcare support and protection to individuals and businesses in more than 200 countries, building on over 55 years of experience through its international hubs.
Job overview:
The Head of AI will establish the foundational capabilities and deliver high-impact AI and GenAI solutions that drive AXA Health International's strategic objectives. This role is responsible for translating business priorities into a practical AI roadmap, building core AI/ML capabilities-including people, processes, and platforms-and demonstrating measurable value through prioritised use cases. You'll will lead data scientists and ML/GenAI engineers, oversee solution delivery-whether in-house or through partnerships with internal teams and external vendors-and ensure robust governance, safety, and compliance across the entire AI lifecycle.
Key responsibilities:
• Develop and maintain the AI/GenAI strategy and roadmap, aligned with business objectives and data strategy, including establishing foundational standards, playbooks, and best practices for model lifecycle, MLOps, evaluation, and reuse.
• Drive end-to-end AI/GenAI use case delivery, from problem framing and experimentation to deployment, scaling, and adoption, prioritising high-value applications like fraud detection, customer service, and claims automation, with a focus on measurable business impact.
• Build, lead, and nurture a high-performing AI team, fostering a culture of experimentation, responsible AI, and continuous learning; upskill stakeholders on AI literacy and responsible adoption.
• Partner with platform, engineering, and data teams to ensure secure, reliable, scalable AI infrastructure; implement CI/CD pipelines, automated testing, and monitoring, including GenAI-specific capabilities and optimisation.
• Oversee vendor engagement, partnerships, and delivery models, leading vendor selection, technical due diligence, scope negotiation, knowledge transfer, and ensuring IP protection and flexibility to avoid vendor lock-in.
• Embed responsible AI practices and governance, ensuring compliance with data privacy/security policies across jurisdictions, and implementing risk management, human-in-the-loop controls, explainability, and auditability.
• Support AI tooling adoption (e.g., Secure GPT) and democratise AI usage across the organisation, enabling teams to leverage AI capabilities effectively and responsibly.
• Collaborate with business and analytics leaders to identify strategic use cases, define KPIs and ROI, track impact, and communicate results transparently, championing AI adoption across units and geographies.
• Align with data and analytics teams to ensure data readiness, product alignment, and integration of AI solutions into business processes, promoting a culture of responsible experimentation and continuous improvement.
Work arrangements:
At AXA we work smart, empowering our people to balance their time between home and the office in a way that works best for them, their team and our customers. You'll work at least two days a week (40%) away from home, moving to three days a week (60%) in the future. Away from home means attending the office, visiting clients or attending industry events.
We're also happy to consider flexible working arrangements, which you can discuss with Talent Acquisition.
We know that some candidates may be discouraged from applying if they don't meet every requirement. If you're excited by this job and the prospect of working at AXA but you're not sure you tick every box, we'd still encourage you to apply.
Your skills & experience:
• Advanced degree in Computer Science, Data Science, Actuarial Science, ML, Engineering, or equivalent practical experience.
• Extensive leadership of AI/ML and GenAI initiatives from concept to scalable, regulated deployment, delivering measurable business value.
• Deep technical expertise in supervised/unsupervised learning, NLP, LLMs, prompt engineering, fine-tuning, RAG, vector databases, MLOps (CI/CD, monitoring, model registry), APIs, and microservices.
• Practical knowledge of major cloud platforms (Databricks, Dataiku), data platform integration, security, and cost optimisation.
• Strong understanding of responsible AI, model risk management, privacy-by-design, security, and explainability.
• Proven track record managing internal teams and external vendors to deliver impactful AI solutions.
• Excellent stakeholder engagement and communication skills across technical and non-technical audiences globally.
• Strategic yet pragmatic in prioritising and delivering outcomes aligned with organisational goals.
As a precondition of employment for this role, you must be eligible and authorised to work in the United Kingdom.
How to apply:
To apply, click on the 'apply now' button, you'll then need to log in or create a profile to submit your CV. We're proud to be an Equal Opportunities Employer and don't discriminate against employees or potential employees based on protected characteristics. If you have a long-term condition or disability and require adjustments during the application or interview process, we're proud to offer access to the AXA Accessibility Concierge. For our support, please send an email to Bessie.Norris@axa-uk.co.uk.
We encourage you to apply for this opportunity as soon as possible, as we may close this advert earlier than the listed closing date.
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