Head of AI

D24 Fintech Group; Dubai; On-site; AED 600,000 - 1,200,000; Full time

Job summary

D24 Fintech seeks a Head of AI to define and execute the company’s AI strategy across product, engineering, risk, and operations. You will build the function from the ground up, set the direction, and deliver measurable AI-driven value for a regulated crypto infrastructure business.

The role is hands-on and strategic: you’ll roadmap, review architectures, and unblock early delivery while shaping governance, security, and SDLC practices. 7+ yrs AI/ML and 3+ yrs leadership are expected.

Qualifications

• 7+ years of AI/ML with production impact, not research-only.
• 3+ years in a leadership role building/scaling AI/data science teams.
• Experience in fintech/crypto or highly regulated sectors.
• Deep understanding of modern AI infra, deployment at scale, and governance.

Responsibilities

• Define and own the AI strategy and roadmap across product and risk.
• Make build-vs-buy decisions on tooling and infrastructure.
• Establish AI governance, data handling, and model risk management.
• Lead the AI function from scratch and hire the initial team.
• Partner with security to address AI-specific risks and SDLC gaps.
• Deliver measurable AI value in production within 6–12 months.

Skills

AI/ML leadership

Production experience

Regulated industry knowledge

Stakeholder communication

Strategic roadmap

Build-vs-buy decisions

Governance & risk mgmt

Tools

LLMs

RAG

Vector databases

MLOps

Job description

This is a newly created leadership role responsible for defining and executing the company’s AI strategy across product, engineering, risk, and operations. As the first Head of AI, you will build the function from the ground up: setting direction, making build-vs-buy decisions, establishing governance appropriate for a regulated crypto infrastructure business, and delivering measurable AI-driven value across the platform and the organization.

This is a hands-on strategic role: you’ll set the roadmap, but you’ll also be close enough to the work to evaluate models, review architecture, and unblock delivery in the early stages before the function has scaled.

Key Responsibilities

• Define and own the company’s AI strategy and roadmap, aligned to business priorities across trading infrastructure, risk, and customer-facing products
• Identify and prioritize high-value AI use cases across the organization; not just product features, but internal engineering productivity, risk detection, and operational efficiency
• Make build-vs-buy decisions on AI tooling and infrastructure (proprietary vs. open-source models, in-house vs. vendor platforms)

Crypto/Exchange-Specific Applications

• Lead AI initiatives for market surveillance and anomaly detection (relevant given prior market-making/bot exploitation incidents)
• Explore AI-driven fraud detection and risk monitoring across trading and custody operations
• Evaluate AI applications for KYC/AML workflows, transaction monitoring, and compliance reporting, in coordination with the compliance/legal function
• Support AI-assisted customer support and operational tooling
• Lead Agentic developments for trading, surveillance, monitoring, chatbots, and other opportunities
• Define governance for AI-assisted software development (AI coding tools, MCP adoption) across the engineering organization, including guardrails appropriate for a company that has previously had gaps in its secure SDLC
• Partner with security/InfoSec leadership on AI-specific risks: model security, data leakage through AI tools, and secure use of AI in the development pipeline
• Evaluate and potentially champion agentic security workflows (automated threat modeling, agent-driven design review) as part of closing existing SDLC gaps

Infrastructure & Delivery

• Own AI/ML infrastructure decisions: MLOps, data pipelines, cloud/model-hosting architecture
• Work with engineering and product teams to move AI initiatives from prototype to production reliably
• Establish technical standards for model evaluation, testing, and deployment

Governance, Risk, & Compliance

• Establish AI governance policy appropriate for a regulated entity: model risk management, data handling, auditability of AI-driven decisions
• Ensure AI initiatives account for the company’s regulatory obligations (e.g., VARA outsourcing and technology governance requirements, applicable data protection law)
• Own AI-related risk disclosures and documentation for regulatory or client due diligence processes

Team & Organizational Leadership

• Build and lead the AI function from scratch: define team structure, hire AI/ML engineers and data scientists as the function scales
• Foster a culture of responsible experimentation, balancing speed with the risk discipline appropriate to a fintech/crypto business
• Act as the internal evangelist and educator for AI capability across non-technical stakeholders and leadership

Requirements

• 7+ years of experience in AI/ML, with demonstrated impact in production environments, not research-only
• 3+ years in a leadership/management capacity, having built or scaled an AI or data science function
• Direct experience in fintech, crypto, or another highly regulated industry: understands the difference between “ship fast” and “ship fast within a regulatory perimeter”
• Strong grasp of modern AI infrastructure: LLMs, RAG, vector databases, MLOps, model deployment at scale
• Experience translating complex technical concepts for non-technical executives and board-level stakeholders
• Track record of making pragmatic build-vs-buy calls rather than over-engineering from day one

Strongly Preferred

• Experience with fraud detection, transaction monitoring, or market surveillance systems
• Familiarity with AI governance frameworks and model risk management in a regulated context
• Experience with AI-assisted software engineering tooling and associated security considerations (relevant given the org’s recent security incident and SDLC gaps)
• Exposure to blockchain/crypto-native data (on-chain analytics, wallet/transaction pattern analysis)

What Success Looks Like (First 6–12 months)

• AI roadmap defined and aligned with leadership, with 2–3 flagship use cases delivered to production
• AI governance policy established and reviewed by compliance/legal
• Initial team structure in place (even if small: first 1–3 hires)
• Demonstrated, measurable impact on at least one of: fraud/risk detection, engineering velocity, or operational cost

About D24 Fintech

D24 Fintech is a global technology provider building secure, scalable, and future-ready digital solutions for modern financial operations. We partner with clients to simplify payments and platforms, strengthen risk controls, and bring greater transparency to how finances move, delivering solutions engineered to the highest standards of security, reliability, and compliance.

At D24 Fintech, the bar is clear: we deliver, and we do it in cohesion.

We win together; no silos, no politics, just a team aligned on outcomes and stepping in where it matters. We own it, taking responsibility end-to-end and driving things forward. We lead with integrity first, being direct and transparent, and holding high standards in everything we do. We move at pace and with agility, focused on what matters, quick to adapt, and comfortable operating in a changing world. And we innovate by default, constantly finding better ways to build, deliver, and improve.

If you take pride in ownership, thrive in high-performance teams, and want to build alongside people who show up and pull their weight, you’ll feel at home here.

D24 Fintech is a global technology solutions provider, delivering scalable, compliant, and innovative solutions and services tailored for diverse digital and traditional asset ecosystems.