Applied AI Lead, Executive Director, Enterprise Technology Services

PowerToFly; Hong Kong; On-site; HKD 2,200,000 - 2,800,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Comprehensive employee benefits

Diversity and inclusion programs

Job summary

Morgan Stanley is looking for a highly experienced Executive Director to lead the Generative AI strategy across its Asia business units, including Institutional Securities Technology, Investment Management, and Private Wealth Management.

The successful candidate will drive AI adoption, manage diverse stakeholders, and ensure regulatory compliance across various jurisdictions. The role demands strong technical acumen in software engineering and program management, with exceptional communication skills to convey technical concepts to non-technical leaders.

Qualifications

• 12+ years in technology strategy or product management within financial services.
• Minimum 5 years in a senior leadership role at a global financial institution.
• Exceptional written and verbal communication skills.

Responsibilities

• Drive rollout and optimize AI-powered coding assistants adoption.
• Develop training programs for general-purpose GenAI tools.
• Champion the firm’s AI Development Platform in Asia.
• Collaborate on AI-native analytics platforms.
• Maintain an up-to-date registry of GenAI use cases across Asia.

Skills

Technical product management

Program management

Stakeholder management

Communication skills

Software engineering

Job description

We are seeking a highly experienced and technically grounded Executive Director to lead Generative AI strategy, adoption, and enablement across Morgan Stanley's Asia business units – spanning Institutional Securities Technology (IST), Investment Management (IM), and Private Wealth Management (PWM).

The successful candidate will operate at the intersection of technology delivery and business strategy, driving adoption of AI‑powered tools across the full stack – from developer‑facing coding agents to end‑user productivity tools to AI‑native analytics platforms – while maintaining a rigorous, up‑to‑date view of all GenAI use cases in flight and in the pipeline. The role requires program management discipline, stakeholder influence at the senior‑most levels, regulatory awareness across multiple Asia‑Pacific jurisdictions, and the technical depth to engage on architecture, implementation, and rapid prototyping when required.

Required Qualifications

• Experience: 12+ years of progressive experience in technology strategy, program management, or technical product management within financial services, with at least 5 years in a senior leadership capacity (VP or above) at a global financial institution.
• Stakeholder Management: Demonstrated track record of building trusted relationships and influencing outcomes with senior stakeholders (MD/ED level and above) across technology, business, risk, legal, and compliance functions – without direct reporting authority. Proven ability to navigate matrixed organizations and drive consensus across competing priorities.
• Communication: Exceptional written and verbal communication skills, with proven ability to translate highly technical AI/ML concepts into clear, actionable narratives for non‑technical business leaders and regulators. Comfortable presenting to senior leadership forums, regional management committees, and global strategy councils.
• Program Management: Strong program management discipline, including experience managing multi‑workstream initiatives with cross‑functional dependencies, competing priorities, and ambiguous ownership. Proficiency in structured intake processes, portfolio‑level reporting, executive status communication, and risk/issue escalation frameworks.
• Technical Foundations: Demonstrated technical roots in software engineering, data engineering, or applied AI/ML – with sufficient depth to engage credibly on LLM architecture (transformer models, ...)

Key Responsibilities

• Drive regional rollout, adoption tracking, and optimization of AI‑powered coding assistants – including Amp, Claude Code, GitHub Copilot (including Agent Mode) – partnering with engineering leads across IST, IM, and PWM to measure developer productivity gains and resolve adoption blockers. Coordinate with ETS platform teams to ensure licensing, model versioning, and configurations remain current and compliant.
• Own the regional enablement strategy for general‑purpose GenAI productivity tools – including ChatGPT Enterprise, Claude for Financial Services, Grok Enterprise – developing training programs, adoption playbooks, and use‑case libraries tailored to each business unit. Track and report adoption metrics and ROI to regional and global leadership.
• Serve as the Asia champion for the firm’s AI Development Platform (AIDP / AI Gateway), driving adoption of capabilities such as model serving endpoints, prompt management, RAG patterns, guardrails enforcement, and API governance. Surface Asia‑specific requirements (e.g., in‑region model availability, latency optimization, CJK language support) and support team onboarding and architectural review.
• Drive adoption of AI‑native analytics platforms including Snowflake Cortex and Databricks Mosaic AI, partnering with data engineering and analytics teams to identify high‑value use cases such as automated report generation, natural language querying, anomaly detection, and intelligent document processing.
• Build and maintain an authoritative, continuously updated registry of all GenAI use cases across Asia – categorized by business unit, development stage, technology stack, and business owner. Establish a structured intake and prioritization process and produce regular portfolio‑level reporting including pipeline health dashboards and velocity metrics.
• Ensure that Asia’s highest‑impact GenAI initiatives receive the specialized engineering and advisory resources they require – including Forward Deployed Engineers from vendor partners, dedicated ETS capacity, and other scarce technical resources – by building data‑driven business cases and advocating in firm‑wide allocation discussions. Own end‑to‑end coordination of allocated resources through delivery.
• Work in close coordination with global Applied AI counterparts to ensure consistency in enablement approaches, share best practices, and represent Asia in global prioritization and roadmap planning – adapting global strategies to regional needs and constraints.
• Serve as the regional liaison between technology, legal, compliance, and regulatory affairs on GenAI use across Asia jurisdictions (Hong Kong, Japan, Singapore, Australia, India, Mainland China). Maintain a jurisdictional restrictions matrix mapping each tool, model, and data flow to applicable regulatory requirements.
• Maintain hands‑on technical currency by facilitating rapid prototyping and feasibility assessments of new GenAI capabilities using tools such as new models, new SDKs (LangChain/LangGraph), Streamlit, etc. Serve as a technical sounding board for senior engineers and architects on architecture patterns, model selection, and implementation trade‑offs.
• Establish trusted advisory relationships with senior leaders across IST, IM, and PWM. Coordinate cross‑BU forums and knowledge‑sharing sessions. Define and track KPIs – adoption rates, pipeline velocity, developer productivity impact, cost‑per‑use‑case, and compliance posture – producing executive‑ready reporting on a monthly and quarterly cadence.

WHAT YOU CAN EXPECT FROM MORGAN STANLEY:

At Morgan Stanley, we raise, manage and allocate capital for our clients – helping them reach their goals. We do it in a way that’s differentiated – and we’ve done that for 90 years. Our values – putting clients first, doing the right thing, leading with exceptional ideas, committing to diversity and inclusion, and giving back – guide the decisions we make every day. At Morgan Stanley, you’ll find an opportunity to work alongside the best and brightest, in an environment where you are supported and empowered. Our teams are relentless collaborators and creative thinkers, fueled by their diverse backgrounds and experiences. We are proud to support our employees and their families at every point along their work‑life journey, offering some of the most attractive and comprehensive employee benefits and perks in the industry. There’s also ample opportunity to move about the business for those who show passion and grit in their work.

Morgan Stanley is an equal opportunity employer committed to building and maintaining a workforce that is diverse in experience and background. Our recruiting efforts reflect our strong commitment to a culture of inclusion, where individuals are hired, developed, and advanced based on their skills and talents.

Our workforce reflects a broad cross‑section of the global communities in which we operate, bringing a variety of backgrounds, talents, perspectives, and experiences.