Sr. AI Product Owner

Sphera is a leading global provider of enterprise software and services that enables companies to manage and optimize their environmental, health, safety and sustainability. Our mission is to create a safer, more sustainable and productive world.

Sphera is a portfolio company of Blackstone, a U.S.-based alternative asset investment company that focuses on private equity, technology and innovation, and more. Blackstone businesses succeed through strong partnerships, a personalized approach and a commitment to exceptional performance with uncompromising integrity. Sphera and Blackstone are leaders in the Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) space.

We are guided by our core values of Customer Centricity, Accountability, Bias to Action, Innovation, and Collaboration. These values help us recruit the right talent to join our rapidly expanding team around the globe. It is important to us that each and every Spherion is not only eager to challenge themselves and knows how to get work done but is an awesome addition to our company culture.

You'll be part of the Sphera AI Center of Excellence team, owning the AI CoE roadmap — what the CoE builds, in what order, for which part of the business, and at what cost. You will run the intake and prioritization of AI opportunities across the enterprise, sequence them into a delivery roadmap, and hold the program accountable for value delivered.

This is a senior, highly visible role. You will present the roadmap, portfolio status, and business value directly to Sphera's Executive Leadership Team, and you'll do it with numbers you can defend. Day to day you work across product, IT, engineering, InfoSec, Legal, L&D, and every business function, with the authority of the program and not much else — influence is the primary tool.

Key Responsibilities

• Own the AI CoE roadmap end to end: intake, evaluation, prioritization, sequencing, and delivery milestones across all AI initiatives and pods.

• Run the AI opportunity intake process — capture requests from across the business, assess feasibility, impact, effort, and risk, and make transparent prioritization calls that stakeholders understand even when the answer is no.

• Own the portfolio view: solution status, cost, and return, tracked consistently across initiatives and refreshed on a predictable cadence.

• Act as product owner for AI CoE deliverables — backlog, requirements, acceptance criteria, release sequencing — for agents, enablement assets, internal tooling, and shared AI capabilities.

• Present roadmap, portfolio health, adoption, and business value to the Executive Leadership Team and program sponsors; quantify cautiously, surface risks early, and bring decisions rather than status.

• Define and own the measurement framework across activity, capability, and business-outcome tiers, including cost-per-outcome and ROI for delivered solutions, and hold the line against vanity and surveillance metrics.

• Manage delivery partners and vendors against an explicit ownership map — scope and SOW, named points of contact, communications cadence, content-review turnaround, milestone gates, and off-ramp terms.

• Protect the transition from vendor-delivered to Sphera-owned: ensure every partner-delivered component has a named internal owner shadowing it from the start, so nothing stalls when an engagement ends.

• Tie the roadmap to corporate OKRs and departmental needs, and work with each function to define what success looks like in their terms.

• Own the governance interface with InfoSec, Legal, and Compliance — acceptable use, risk classification, access model, and audit requirements — and keep the governed path the fastest path.

• Run the program's operating rhythm: steering meetings, status, risk and dependency management, budget and license forecasting, and the decision log.

• Maintain the feedback loop from field signal, usage data, surveys, and champion input into roadmap and prioritization changes.

• Partner with the Senior AI Enablement Lead, who owns curriculum and delivery, and with AI CoE architects and Platform Engineering on technical dependencies and sequencing.

Required Skills and Experience

Roadmap and Program Ownership

• 8-10 years in product ownership, program management, or transformation delivery, including 2+ years owning a technology or AI portfolio roadmap at enterprise scale.

• Demonstrated ownership of an initiative roadmap from intake through delivery — prioritization under constraint, transparent trade-off decisions, and dependency and risk management across workstreams.

• Product-owner discipline: backlog management, clear requirements and acceptance criteria, release sequencing, and saying no with a reason.

• Experience building and defending business cases — cost modeling, ROI, and value realization tracking for technology investments.

• Vendor and partner management: scoping, SOW support, milestone-based performance management, and clean handoff or exit.

• Experience designing measurement frameworks for programs where the outcome is behavioral change and business value, not a shipped feature.

• Track record influencing across functions without direct authority, including with InfoSec, Legal, HR, and senior business leadership.

AI Fluency

• Strong working fluency with the enterprise AI landscape — Claude, Microsoft Copilot, OpenAI, Azure AI Foundry, and AI embedded in SaaS applications — enough to make informed scope, sequencing, and build-vs-buy calls.

• Hands-on personal use of AI in your own work; credibility in this role comes from doing, not from briefing.

• Understanding of AI governance and risk in an enterprise setting — acceptable use, data handling, access tiering, and auditability.

• Comfort with AI cost mechanics — license and consumption models, token and agent-execution economics, and cost-per-outcome analysis.

Professional

• Executive presence and communication: able to compress a complex portfolio into a decision-ready ELT readout, and to deliver unwelcome news early and plainly.

• Sound judgment on what to measure and what to leave alone, and the integrity to underclaim rather than inflate.

• Change-management instinct — reads organizational resistance accurately and sequences around it.

• Experience working in an agile AIDLC (AI-driven software development lifecycle) in a fast-paced environment with high demand and high standards.

• Bachelor's degree in a related field, or equivalent practical experience.

Preferred Experience

• Running a Center of Excellence, transformation office, or similar enterprise shared-services function.

• Company-wide platform migration or tooling rollout across multiple regions.

• Familiarity with AI governance frameworks — EU AI Act, NIST AI RMF, or ISO 42001.

• Portfolio and roadmap tooling, and building executive-facing dashboards and reporting.

• Agile certification (CSPO, SAFe PO/PM) or program management credentials (PMP, PgMP).

• Domain exposure to EHS, sustainability, ESG, or industrial risk.

Pay:

$127,000.00 - $203,000.00 + Eligible for Variable Compensation Plan

Commensurate with relevant qualifications and experience

Benefits:

• Medical, Dental, and Vision Insurance

• Health Savings Account

• Flexible Spending Account

• 401(k) Retirement Plan with Company Match

• Life and Disability Insurance

• Critical Illness Insurance

• Accident Insurance

• Hospital Indemnity Insurance

• Paid Time Off and Holidays

• Flexible Working Schedule

Sphera is proud to be an Equal Opportunity Employer. We celebrate diversity and are committed to creating an inclusive environment for all colleagues. We provide equal employment opportunities to all individuals regardless of race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, national origin, disability, age, veteran status, marital status, or any other legally protected status.

If you require a reasonable accommodation for a disability during the application or recruiting process, please email us at [email protected] to make your request. To help us best respond, please include your name and the position you are applying for in your message.

This job description is intended to convey information essential to understanding the scope of the job and the general nature and level of work performed by job holders within this job. This job description is not intended to be an exhaustive list of qualifications, skills, efforts, duties, responsibilities or working conditions associated with the position.