Director of Artificial Intelligence (Integration & Optimization)

Director, Artificial Intelligence - Integration & Optimization

Impact On Business
Bealls, Inc. is seeking a hands-on, technically deep Director of AI Integration & Optimization to help design, operationalize, and scale the company’s enterprise AI strategy. This role is a hands-on/managerial role that will need to pair real-world AI/ML engineering expertise with the managerial presence to influence stakeholders and drive adoption across a multi-billion-dollar retail organization.

As Bealls’ AI pioneer, this leader will implement the company’s AI operating model, deliver high-impact use cases in the first year, and enhance the governance, evaluation, and adoption frameworks needed to convert experimentation into measurable business outcomes. The role will help build and lead a dedicated AI team as organizational maturity scales.

Partnering across Enterprise retail environment, the Director will embed AI capabilities into the fabric of the business, accelerating decision-making, efficiency, and growth.

Role Overview

We are seeking a technically strong AI leader to:

• Execute the enterprise AI strategy.
• Evolve AI governance, evaluation, adoption, and activation frameworks.
• Deliver measurable, high-ROI AI use cases.
• Guide senior leaders and cross-functional teams in leveraging AI responsibly and effectively.

Key Responsibilities

Immediate (First 6–12 Months)

• Create and configure the AI environment framework.
• Deliver 3–5 scalable AI use cases (e.g., forecasting, service optimization, pricing, inventory).
• Create evaluation frameworks for LLM and ML performance, including safety and bias controls.
• Establish dashboards and KPI tracking for AI adoption, productivity, and value realization.
• Educate within the communities of practice and provide hands-on functional training programs.

Ongoing Leadership

• Drive enterprise-wide change enablement and adoption.
• Lead cross-functional alignment with Security, Legal, Procurement, Data, and Technology.
• Build and scale an AI team as organizational readiness expands.

Required Qualifications

• 5+ years in AI/ML, Data Science, or advanced analytics roles.
• Experience with both Microsoft and Snowflake AI toolsets. (Snowflake Cortex and Relational AI)
• ML and Knowledge Graph is a must.
• Proven ability to build and scale AI systems with hands-on engineering expertise.
• Demonstrated ability to debug, evaluate, and optimize LLMs and ML models.
• Experience deploying AI use cases in operational environments (not just POCs).
• Strong understanding of AI governance, explainability, risk frameworks, and model monitoring.
• Comfortable operating in a small team environment.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience with agentic AI systems and emerging AI technologies.
• Hands-on experience with MLOps, vector databases, retrieval systems, and evaluation pipelines.
• Background integrating AI into legacy environments while transitioning to modern architecture.
• Bachelor’s or advance degree in AI, computer science, data science, engineering, or related fields.
• Experience building AI literacy and enablement programs.