Retained executive search for Chief AI Officers, Heads of AI, Chief Data and AI Officers and the AI engineering leaders who build underneath them, across Sydney and Australia.
Executive Search
AI executive search.
We scope every search around the data foundation the business already has and the commercial outcome the AI function is expected to deliver.
Roles we cover
The roles we search
Chief AI Officer
Accountable for AI strategy, adoption and commercial application across the business, and usually part of the executive team. Where AI is core to product or revenue, the role often reports into the CEO or COO.
Chief Data and AI Officer
One leader across data and AI. In most cases this is where we would start, because a data leader with the right background will cover the AI lane in this market and the AI work depends on the data underneath it.
Head of AI
Leads the AI function and its delivery, reporting into a CTO, CDO or the CEO. The role works best with a data leader above or alongside it, so the underlying data problems have an owner.
Director and Head of AI Engineering
Own the build underneath: the AI, ML and platform engineers who take AI from proof of concept into production inside the business.
Our approach
Where we start: the data foundation
The AI capability is usually the most visible part of an AI leadership brief, and the data layer underneath it is what decides whether the investment pays back: the architecture, the governance, the data quality and the infrastructure. The models a business uses today will probably have been replaced within two years, while that foundation takes years to get right and holds its value. So the first question we work through with you is the state of your data and who needs to lead it, and the AI leadership question tends to follow from the answer.
Reporting line
Where the AI leader reports
The reporting line decides who owns the budget, the metrics and the commercial outcome when the AI work underperforms, and senior AI leaders read it closely before they take a conversation further. Where AI is core to product or revenue, a line into the CEO or COO usually serves the business better, and where it is infrastructural, sitting under a CTO or CDO is often the cleaner structure. We settle it with you before the search goes to market.
Assessment
How we separate experience from a title
A lot of AI titles in the market are recent, and a recent title proves nothing either way. We look at the chronology behind it: what someone was doing five and ten years ago, whether they stood up a data or AI function or joined one that already worked, and whether they can talk credibly about governance, architecture and platform as well as models. For regulated organisations AI governance is now a real part of the brief, and we assess for it directly. The leaders who get traction at board level can also put what the function is doing into commercial terms for a CFO or CEO, in revenue protected, cost reduced and decisions made faster, and we hold the shortlist to that standard.
Track record
Data and AI leadership appointments
Data and AI leadership appointments we have made include:
- A Chief Data and AI Officer and a Head of AI for an ASX-listed wholesale distributor, as part of six senior hires across its technology function
- A Head of Data within a complete technology leadership build-out for a PE-owned healthcare group
- A CTO and Head of Engineering for a founder-led, VC-backed AI platform
We also hire the AI engineering teams underneath these leaders through our technology recruitment practice.
Support
Frequently asked questions
Chief AI Officer or Head of AI: which does the business need?
A Chief AI Officer sits on the executive team and is accountable for AI strategy and its commercial results across the business. A Head of AI usually leads the function and its delivery, reporting into a CTO, CDO or the CEO. We start with what the role will own and where it will report, and the title follows from that.
Can you assess technical AI depth as well as leadership?
Yes. Alongside the leadership assessment we run a structured technical conversation and proper reference checks, which is where the difference between someone who has built and run AI in production and someone who has advised on it comes through.
Do you hire AI engineering teams as well as leaders?
Yes. Our technology recruitment practice covers forward deployed and applied AI engineers, ML engineers, AI engineers, data scientists and the platform teams underneath them, and it can run alongside a leadership search.
