Sr. Director, AI Finance & Legal Transformation

Sr. Director, AI Finance & Legal Transformation

The Role

You will own the strategy and execution of AI integration across SharkNinja's finance organization (FP&A, accounting, internal audit, tax, investor relations) and legal organization (contract management, IP, regulatory compliance, litigation support).

Multiple AI projects are already in flight across both functions. The challenge is not ambition -- it is that these efforts run in parallel without a single person connecting them, sequencing them, and driving them to completion. You will be that person: the dedicated, full-time owner who sits above individual projects, connects the dots, and surfaces the opportunities the teams are too close to see.

You will be measured on adoption, speed, and measurable business impact. You report directly to the VP, Chief of Staff to the CEO, with a dotted line to the CFO and CLO.

What You Will Do

Strategy & Integration

• Own the AI transformation roadmap across the full finance and legal functions, identifying overlaps, dependencies, and consolidation opportunities
• Sequence and prioritize ruthlessly: drive each initiative to completion before starting the next
• Build and lead a team of AI Fellows embedded directly into finance and legal teams

Finance

• Accelerate forecast automation, consolidating commercial forecasting across Americas, Global, and EMEA into a single AI-powered path from prototype to production
• Partner with Internal Audit to fast-track AI adoption in audit and controls, reducing remediation timelines on material weaknesses
• Activate AI opportunities across accounting -- from automating data entry and reconciliation to larger process redesign

Legal

• Accelerate AI-powered contract review, IP portfolio management, and regulatory compliance monitoring to reduce cycle times, outside counsel dependency, and manual exposure tracking
• Build legal intelligence and knowledge retrieval systems that make institutional legal knowledge accessible and actionable across the organization
• Evaluate the legal tech landscape and make build-vs-buy decisions that compound in value -- prioritizing platforms SharkNinja owns over vendor lock-in
• Drive production readiness for Legal's existing AI prototypes, moving working tools from proof-of-concept to enterprise-grade platforms

Execution

• Translate AI capabilities into practical solutions that finance and legal professionals actually use
• Drive behavioral change across teams with varying levels of AI fluency
• Establish success metrics and report measurable outcomes to executive leadership
• Coordinate with external partners (PwC, Oracle) to avoid duplication and ensure AI initiatives complement existing efforts

Who You Are

Required

• 10+ years in AI/ML, finance transformation, legal operations, or technology-driven change management
• Strong technical fluency in AI/ML, with hands-on experience deploying enterprise LLM platforms (Claude, ChatGPT): you can evaluate tools, assess platforms, and hold your own in technical discussions with engineers and data scientists
• Deep understanding of enterprise finance operations (FP&A, accounting, audit, controls, ERP systems) and working knowledge of corporate legal operations (contract lifecycle, IP, compliance)
• Proven track record leading large-scale transformation in complex, multi-stakeholder environments
• Ability to bridge technical and business: you can tell IT what to build and tell the CFO or CLO what outcome it delivers
• Decisive, action-oriented, and comfortable in ambiguity where speed matters more than perfection
• Experience productionalizing AI prototypes from proof-of-concept to enterprise-grade tools with proper back-end infrastructure, particularly in environments where customized platforms are already in flight

Strongly Preferred

• Experience deploying AI across finance or legal at scale, not just pilots
• Familiarity with SOX compliance, material weakness remediation, CLM platforms, or e-discovery tools
• Background in Legal Engineering, Forward Deployed Engineering (FDE), or comparable roles that combine production-grade software development with domain-specific legal workflow design

Additional Requirements

• Travel required (domestic and international)
• On-site at Boston HQ in Needham, MA or New York / Miami office full-time

Why This Role Matters

SharkNinja's CEO has made AI transformation a top company priority. Finance and Legal are where that transformation becomes measurable: faster forecasting cycles, fewer manual touches, stronger controls, faster contract turnaround, and capacity redirected to the work that matters most. Multiple projects are already underway. What is missing is the person who owns the full picture, drives each one to the finish line, and makes sure the pieces add up to more than the sum of their parts.