AVP, AI COE Leader (Hybrid)

About Us

Selective is a midsized U.S. domestic property and casualty insurance company with a history of strong, consistent financial performance for nearly 100 years. Selective is recognized for its unique position as both a leading insurance group and an employer of choice, earning listings in Forbes Best Midsize Employers and certification as a Great Place to Work® for the sixth consecutive year. Employees are empowered to Be Uniquely You, contributing their diverse talents, experiences, and perspectives to the company's success.

Overview

Selective Insurance is seeking an AVP to lead the AI Center of Excellence (COE), operationalizing the company's enterprise AI strategy. This role involves managing a team of AI architects and engineers, engaging with business units, and ensuring AI investments align with organizational priorities.

Responsibilities

• Operationalize the enterprise AI program, set priorities, coordinate cross-functional AI activity, and report on portfolio status, value realization, and risk.

• Direct the research, design, engineering, and delivery of reusable enterprise AI capabilities, ensuring production readiness, security, and alignment to enterprise AI reference architecture.

• Monitor the external market for AI innovation and identify enterprise-level AI capability needs and patterns.

• Own the enterprise AI portfolio by operating standardized intake and evaluation processes, aggregating portfolio status and value realization data, and maintaining a comprehensive portfolio dashboard.

• Establish performance indicators and measurement methodologies, design controlled rollout approaches, and produce evidence-based recommendations to scale, refine, pause, sequence, or retire AI initiatives.

• Prepare decision-support materials for the AI Steering Committee and executive leadership.

• Manage the COE's engagement with business units through a team of Forward-Deployed AI Leads, providing senior-level engagement with business unit VPs and Product Owners, and coaching and supporting Forward Deployed AI Leads.

• Manage the collaborative relationship with IT and Application Development, ensuring clear ownership boundaries, coordinating on agent framework decisions and API development for core insurance systems, and resolving technical direction or resource contention issues.

• Coordinate AI governance in partnership with the AI & Model Governance Committee, Legal, and Compliance, ensuring AI deployments comply with the Written Artificial Intelligence System Program, meet regulatory requirements, and maintain appropriate audit trails, human oversight controls, and guardrails for AI agent actions.

• Oversee enterprise AI enablement and adoption, including engineering upskilling, role-based business training, and change management initiatives that build effective human-AI collaboration in core insurance workflows.

• Provide strategic direction for the GenAI Alliance and AI Champions network, with Forward Deployed AI Leads serving as the day-to-day leaders of business unit AI Champions cohorts.

• Incorporate feedback from Forward Deployed AI Leads on training effectiveness, gaps, and business-unit-specific needs to continuously improve enterprise enablement programs.

• Train, supervise, assign work to, evaluate, and be responsible for hiring and retention of COE staff, including Forward Deployed AI Leads embedded in business units and centrally based AI architects and engineers.

• Manage a network of formal dotted-line relationships with data organization liaisons, application development partners, and legal and regulatory contacts.

• Manage AI vendor and partner relationships, evaluating vendor-driven opportunities against COE criteria, overseeing external AI engineering partners, ensuring knowledge transfer to internal teams, and coordinating vendor engagement with procurement, legal, and IT.

Qualifications

• Knowledge of artificial intelligence and machine learning concepts, architectures, and platforms relevant to enterprise insurance operations, including large language models, retrieval-augmented generation, AI agent design patterns, and model evaluation.

• Knowledge of property and casualty insurance operations, including underwriting, pricing, claims handling, and regulatory compliance.

• Ability to plan, manage, and report on a portfolio of concurrent AI initiatives with competing priorities, constrained resources, and cross-functional dependencies.

• Ability to lead enterprise change management for AI adoption, including stakeholder engagement, communication strategy, behavioral reinforcement, and measurement of adoption and organizational readiness.

• Understanding of enterprise data strategy, data quality, metadata management, and the relationship between data foundations and AI capability, including structured data, unstructured content, and enterprise knowledge access.

• Ability to build and manage cross-functional teams across technical, governance, and business-facing disciplines, including managing through influence via dotted-line and matrixed relationships.

• College degree preferred in Computer Science, Business, or related field. Minimum of ten years of progressive experience in technology, data, analytics, or AI roles, with at least five years in a leadership capacity managing cross-functional teams and enterprise-scale programs. Minimum of three years of experience in property and casualty insurance, financial services, or a closely related regulated industry. Experience leading AI, machine learning, or advanced analytics programs with hands-on involvement in production AI deployments is preferred.

Total Rewards

Selective Insurance offers a competitive base salary, incentive plan eligibility at all levels, and a wide array of benefits designed to help you and your family stay healthy, achieve your financial goals, and balance the demands of your work and personal life. These benefits include comprehensive health care plans, retirement savings plan with company match, discounted Employee Stock Purchase Program, tuition assistance and reimbursement programs, and 20 days of paid time off. Additional details about our total rewards package can be found by visiting our benefits page.

Pay Range

USD $184,000.00 - USD $249,000.00 /Yr.

Additional Information

Selective is an Equal Employment Opportunity employer. We celebrate diversity and are committed to creating an inclusive environment for all employees. For Massachusetts Applicants, it is unlawful to require or administer a lie detector test as a condition of employment or continued employment.