SENIOR MANAGER, ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

Compass Group USA; San Francisco (CA); Hybrid; USD 130,000 - 170,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Medical

Vision

Life Insurance

Retirement Plan

Paid Time Off

Job summary

Compass Digital, the digital and technology arm of Compass Group North America, seeks a Manager, AI Solutions & Enablement to lead AI adoption across operations, culinary, finance, HR, and safety. This hybrid, on-site role collaborates with senior leaders to build practical tools using ChatGPT, Codex, and Power Platform.

You will design, ship, and enable repeatable AI solutions, create training curricula and prompt libraries, and establish governance guardrails.

Qualifications

• 5+ years translating operational problems into working systems.
• Hands-on AI tool building with examples you created.
• Experience driving adoption and change across teams.
• Ability to teach non-technical users clearly.
• Executive communication ready for senior leaders.

Responsibilities

• Own AI adoption across operations, culinary, finance, HR, and safety.
• Design, build, and maintain AI solutions with practical impact.
• Create curricula, documentation, and prompt libraries.
• Establish governance guardrails with IT and Legal.

Skills

Business systems analysis

Technical product management

Executive-level communication

Training non-technical users

Change management

Education

Tools

Power Platform

Power BI

Excel automation

Python scripting

ChatGPT

Codex

Job description

Reports To: SVP, Compass Digital

We are Compass Digital—the digital and technology arm of Compass Group North America. We build and scale digital products and technologies to exceed the expectations of our guests and clients. Backed by research, we create remarkable user experiences with increased choice and convenience. We offer end-to-end solutions, simultaneously boosting sales and guest satisfaction.

Compass Digital was developed from within Compass Group, focusing on driving transformation and innovation in the hospitality spaces across Business & Industry, Education, and Healthcare. We power digital in the hospitality experience, ensuring that each touchpoint is optimized for guest satisfaction while leveraging data to achieve additional outcomes.

We are fully integrated into Compass Group, proudly serving its’ various clients through scalable, cutting-edge technologies and solutions.

Role Summary

Our culinary and hospitality operations are continuing to advance in the use of AI to enhance, make efficient, and increase value outputs across our operations. We are looking for an individual to support a high level account directly to take these advancements to the next and customized level.
This is not a research role and not a traditional engineering role. It is a builder-operator role for someone who is equally comfortable writing Python, sitting in a district operations review, and running a training session for people who are skeptical of AI.

Please note, this is a hybrid position that sites on site at Bon Appettit in San Franciso, CA.

Key Responsibilities

This role owns the identification, development, and enablement of AI-driven solutions across operations, culinary, finance, HR, and safety functions.
Responsibilities span four core areas:

1. AI Adoption & Opportunity Identification

• Work directly with operations, culinary, finance, HR, and safety leaders to find where AI and automation create real leverage.
• Build and maintain a prioritized opportunity pipeline with sizing, effort, and expected impact.
• Say no to the low-value requests so the high-value ones ship.

2. Solution Development

• Design, build, and maintain solutions using ChatGPT, Codex, Power Platform, and lightweight scripting.
• Ship working tools, not decks about tools.
• Own them through iteration and adoption, not just first release.

3. Training & Enablement

• Make our operations teams self-sufficient — build the curriculum, documentation, and prompt libraries.
• Run live sessions and office hours.
• Success is measured by how much people build without you, not by how much they depend on you.

4. AI Governance & Best Practices

• Establish the practical guardrails: what data can go where, how outputs get reviewed before they reach a client, how tools get documented and handed off, when to build versus buy.
• Partner with IT, Legal, and Information Security rather than duplicating them.
• Illustrative examples of the work this role will design, ship, and own in the first 12–18 months:

Reporting & Analytics

• Automated operational reporting, labor analysis, and forecasting
• Data cleaning and standardization pipelines to make the above trustworthy
• Tools that simplify financial analysis and budget forecasting
• Labor calculators and catering profitability models

Culinary & Menu

• Assistants for recipe scaling, plate costing, nutritional analysis, and waste reduction
• Inventory tracking utilities

Communications & Client-Facing Materials

• Quarterly Business Reviews, innovation summaries, and executive presentations
• Automated routine communications and document generation
• Meeting preparation and executive summary support for senior leaders

Knowledge & Enablement

• Custom GPTs for Culinary, HR, Finance, Safety, and Operations
• SOPs, training documentation, and operational playbooks

Required Qualifications

• 5+ years in business systems analysis, technical product management, or a closely adjacent role — someone who has translated messy operational problems into working systems and owned the outcome.
• Demonstrated hands‑on AI tool building. Bring examples: custom GPTs, agents, automations, or applications you built and that other people actually used. We will ask what broke and how you fixed it.
• Process improvement and change management experience. You've rolled something out to people who didn't ask for it and gotten adoption anyway.
• Ability to teach non-technical users. Clear, patient, jargon-free, and able to hold a room.
• Executive-level communication. Your written work should be ready to put in front of a senior leader or a client without a rewrite.

Preferred Qualifications

• Microsoft Power Platform (Power Apps, Power Automate, Power BI) and advanced Excel automation
• Foodservice, hospitality, retail, or multi‑unit operations background — or genuine curiosity about how a kitchen and a P&L actually work
• Experience supporting field teams across distributed locations
• Exposure to AI governance, data classification, or responsible‑use frameworks

Core Competencies

• The Manager, AI Solutions & Enablement will be evaluated against these four competencies, which reflect what high‑performing builder‑operators demonstrate at scaled organizations operating in the AI‑native era:
• Bias Toward Shipping A working prototype this week beats a perfect plan next quarter.
• Bilingual Operator Comfortable being the most technical person in an operations meeting and the most operations‑literate person in a technical one.
• Honest About AI Skeptical of AI hype and honest about where these tools fail. You'll be asked to kill your own ideas.
• Energized by Enablement Genuinely energized by making someone else's job easier, including when that means they stop needing you.

What Success Looks Like

• Performance in this role will be assessed against clear time‑bound milestones in year one:
  Time Horizon
• What Success Looks Like
  90 Days Opportunity pipeline built and prioritized with functional leaders. Two or three quick wins shipped and in use. Relationships established with the operators who will make or break adoption.
  6 Months Three to five solutions in production with measurable time or cost savings. Enablement curriculum live. First cohort of operators building on their own. Governance guardrails documented and agreed with IT and Legal.
  12 Months A portfolio of tools the business would notice if it lost. A measurable reduction in manual reporting hours. A community of internal builders that no longer routes everything through you.

Compass Group is an equal opportunity employer. At Compass, we are committed to treating all Applicants and Associates fairly based on their abilities, achievements, and experience without regard to race, national origin, sex, age, disability, veteran status, sexual orientation, gender identity, or any other classification protected by law.

Qualified candidates must be able to perform the essential functions of this position satisfactorily with or without a reasonable accommodation. Disclaimer: this job post is not necessarily an exhaustive list of all essential responsibilities, skills, tasks, or requirements associated with this position. While this is intended to be an accurate reflection of the position posted, the Company reserves the right to modify or change the essential functions of the job based on business necessity. We will consider for employment all qualified applicants, including those with a criminal history (including relevant driving history), in a manner consistent with all applicable federal, state, and local laws, including the City of Los Angeles’ Fair Chance Initiative for Hiring Ordinance, the San Francisco Fair Chance Ordinance, and the New York Fair Chance Act.

Compass Digital maintains a drug‑free workplace.

Associates at Corporate are offered many fantastic benefits.

• Medical
• Vision
• Life Insurance/ AD
• Disability Insurance
• Retirement Plan
• Paid Time Off
• Holiday Time Off (varies by site/state)
• Associate Shopping Program
• Health and Wellness Programs
• Discount Marketplace
• Identity Theft Protection
• Pet Insurance
• Employee Assistance Program
• Flexible Spending Accounts (FSAs)
• Personal Leave

Associates may also be eligible for paid and/or unpaid time off benefits in accordance with applicable federal, state, and local laws.