Director, AI & Data Transformation

TKO; New York (NY); On-site; USD 150,000 - 200,000; Full time

Job summary

A leading media holding company located in New York is seeking a Director to drive its Data & AI strategy. This role mandates the establishment of governance mechanisms and operational processes to streamline intake systems and ensure accountability across initiatives. The ideal candidate will possess strong experience in management consulting and corporate strategy. You will effectively communicate with diverse stakeholders and lead through influence rather than authority, fostering a culture of transparency and collaboration across all business units.

Qualifications

• 5+ years of experience in management consulting or corporate strategy.
• Demonstrated ability to drive decisions in complex organizations.
• Exceptional written and verbal communication skills.

Responsibilities

• Own operational infrastructure for Data & AI governance.
• Establish high-quality standards for decision-making processes.
• Manage enterprise intake and triage mechanism for data/AI requests.

Skills

Management consulting

Corporate strategy

Transformation leadership

Executive communication

Stakeholder influence

Tools

Jira

Confluence

BI dashboards

Job description

TKO Group Holdings - the parent company of WWE, UFC, IMG, PBR, and On Location - is building the operating muscle to turn its Data & AI strategy into measurable business outcomes across five distinct, high-profile business units. This Director role sits at the center of that build: designing and running the governance mechanisms, intake systems, and portfolio discipline that determine which AI initiatives get resourced, how they're tracked, and whether they deliver.

The Director will establish and continuously improve key governance, operational, and management processes needed to accelerate TKO's Data & AI transformation agenda, including a robust “front door” intake and prioritization mechanism, streamlined interfaces with adjacent corporate governance processes, and mechanisms for providing portfolio transparency and value realization discipline (ROI + adoption).

This is not a caretaker PMO role - it requires someone who can move between strategy and execution, shape how the organization makes decisions about AI, and hold senior stakeholders accountable to outcomes. The role reports into the SVP of AI & Data Transformation and operates with direct visibility to executive and BU leadership.

Responsibilities

1) DTC Operations

• The Data & Technology Council (DTC) is TKO's enterprise governance forum for Data & AI — the body through which initiatives are reviewed, prioritized, and tracked to outcome. The Director owns the operational infrastructure that makes the DTC effective
• Own the end-to-end DTC operating rhythm (monthly/quarterly cadences, sub-forums as needed), ensuring each forum produces clear decisions, accountable owners, and measurable follow-through.
• Partner with the DTC Chairs and enterprise leadership to shape agendas that are outcomes-forward (value, adoption, risk, dependencies, resourcing), not informational updates.
• Establish high-quality standards for pre-reads, decision memos, and meeting outputs; maintain action and decision logs with rigorous closure discipline.
• Serve as the “control tower” for escalation: surface tradeoffs, unresolved risks, and cross-BU dependencies early with clear options and recommendation.
• Act as the connective tissue between executive leadership, shared services, business unit leadership, and operational teams, ensuring effective communication and flow of information between stakeholder groups to accelerate data & AI transformation across the business.
• Help foster a culture of transparency, accountability, and collaboration across the organization when it comes to data & AI initiatives.
• Institutionalize a value-based prioritization approach grounded in business strategy alignment, impact, feasibility, and adoption; ensure every priority initiative has explicit success metrics and an outcome owner.
• Own and continuously improve the enterprise intake and triage mechanism for data/AI requests (the “front door”), including categorization, routing, prioritization readiness, and throughput management.
• Build a single, coherent view of the data/AI portfolio -including pipeline, in-flight initiatives, and delivery health -across business units and shared services.
• Provide standardized framework for intake artifacts - problem statement, strategic alignment with business goals, scope, dependencies, KPI outcomes, governance checkpoints) so proposals are comparable and decision-ready.
• Drive stakeholder alignment across BU sponsors, delivery teams, and functional partners to avoid duplicated effort and ensure coordinated execution.
• Partner with Finance and initiative owners to improve business case quality and ensure benefits assumptions are defensible and measurable.
• Track initiative financials at a high level in partnership with Finance and initiative owners (budget, forecast, actuals; CapEx/OpEx; vendor spend), and surface variances, risks, and decision points early.
• Establish a lightweight standard set of portfolio metrics (schedule/throughput, scope stability, resourcing, risk/compliance checkpoints) so delivery health is comparable across initiatives and BUs.

3) Strategic Enablement and Continuous Improvement

• Drive continuous improvement of the transformation operating model through retrospectives, process automation, and tooling modernization.
• Help shape use-case roadmaps and sequencing (quick wins vs. foundations), ensuring the portfolio reflects enterprise priorities and transformation dependencies.
• Support executive narrative development for leadership updates, SteerCo materials, and board-ready progress reporting where required.
• Identify opportunities to apply enterprise AI capabilities to improve governance throughput (e.g., automated intake enrichment, pre-read synthesis, action tracking, and insight generation) while maintaining appropriate controls and auditability.
• Collaborate with internal teams to ensure alignment and effective interfaces with relevant corporate governance processes (e.g., procurement, investment approval, etc.)

Required Qualifications

• 5+ years of experience in management consulting, corporate strategy, transformation office/PMO leadership, or enterprise portfolio management roles with measurable outcomes delivered.
• Demonstrated track record running executive governance cadences that drive decisions, accountability, and cross-functional execution in complex matrixed organizations.
• Proven ability to lead portfolio prioritization and value realization, including KPI definition, benefits tracking, and adoption measurement (not just project milestone tracking).
• Exceptional written and verbal communication skills; able to produce concise pre-reads, decision memos, and executive narratives with clear recommendations.
• Ability to communicate effectively with a diverse stakeholder group, incl. both business and technical audiences.
• High interpersonal effectiveness and “earned authority”—able to influence senior stakeholders and drive follow-through without relying on direct reporting lines.
• Tool fluency across modern work management and reporting platforms (e.g., Jira/Confluence or equivalent; BI dashboards); comfort operating in data-literate environments.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience supporting Data, Analytics, AI, or Technology transformations, including governance, operating model design, or platform rollout enablement.
• Strong understanding of data, analytics, AI/ML, and enterprise technologies.
• Tool fluency across Enterprise AI and / or data & knowledge management platforms (e.g., Sana, Glean, Microsoft Copilot, or equivalent).

Leadership Attributes

• High standards and strong judgment; balances urgency with rigor.
• Comfortable operating with ambiguity; can move from strategy to execution quickly.
• Bias for outcomes and accountability; uses data to drive performance conversations.
• Collaborative, low-ego operator who builds durable mechanisms, not heroics.