Ellucian
Senior Director, CPTO AI Transformation
🇺🇸 Hybrid - Reston, VA
🕑 Full-Time
💰 TBD
💻 Product Development
🗓️ July 31st, 2025
SaaS
Edtech.com's Summary
Ellucian is hiring a Senior Director, CPTO AI Transformation to lead the strategy and execution of AI adoption enterprise-wide within their Product & Cloud organizations. This role involves driving AI integration in product features, operational processes, and governance frameworks to enhance innovation, efficiency, and compliance in higher education technology.
Highlights
- Lead AI adoption strategy aligned with business priorities and customer value in Product & Cloud organizations.
- Drive evaluation, prioritization, and rollout of AI use cases across functions.
- Embed AI into product features for personalization, automation, and enhanced insights.
- Apply AI to optimize software development lifecycle, quality assurance, support, and delivery processes.
- Define AI governance, policies, and risk management standards ensuring ethical and regulatory compliance.
- Monitor AI and adjacent technology trends to evolve strategies and identify new opportunities.
- Communicate AI plans and outcomes to executive leadership.
- Require 12+ years in product, engineering, or technology leadership with at least 5 years leading AI or advanced analytics initiatives.
- Demand strong skills in AI governance, business-technology alignment, and cross-functional program leadership.
- Employee benefits include comprehensive health coverage, flexible time off, 401k with match, wellness programs, and professional development opportunities.
Senior Director, CPTO AI Transformation Full Description
Senior Director, CPTO AI Transformation | Hybrid - Reston, VA
- 2003 Edmund Halley Drive, Reston, Virginia, US, 20191
- Product Management
- 6080
- Up to 25%
About Ellucian
Ellucian is a global market leader in education technology. We power innovation for higher education, partnering with more than 2,900 customers across 50 countries and serving over 20 million students. Ellucian's AI-powered platform, trained on the richest dataset available in higher education, drives efficiency, personalized experiences, and strengthened engagement for all students, faculty and staff. Fueled by decades of experience with a singular focus on the unique needs of learning institutions, the Ellucian platform features best-in-class SaaS capabilities and delivers insights needed now and into the future. These solutions and services span the entire student lifecycle, from student recruitment, enrollment, and retention to workforce analytics, fundraising, and alumni engagement. Ellucian's innovative solutions, vast ecosystem of partners, and user community of more than 45,000 provide best practices leading to greater institutional success and achieving better student outcomes.
Values Rooted in Purpose
We embrace the power to lead, the courage to innovate, and the determination to grow. At our core, we believe in humanizing our approach, recognizing that our people are our greatest strength. With a shared vision of transformation, we endeavor to shape a brighter future for higher education.
About the Opportunity
As the Senior Director, CPTO AI Transformation at Ellucian, you will lead the strategy and execution of responsible, enterprise-wide AI adoption within the Product & Cloud organizations. This cross-functional leadership role is designed to accelerate the integration of artificial intelligence across our product portfolio, development lifecycle, and internal operations—unlocking new opportunities for innovation, efficiency, and impact in higher education technology.
Reporting to the SVP, Product & Cloud Operations, you will oversee a company-wide AI task force and drive initiatives across three core dimensions:
Ellucian is a global market leader in education technology. We power innovation for higher education, partnering with more than 2,900 customers across 50 countries and serving over 20 million students. Ellucian's AI-powered platform, trained on the richest dataset available in higher education, drives efficiency, personalized experiences, and strengthened engagement for all students, faculty and staff. Fueled by decades of experience with a singular focus on the unique needs of learning institutions, the Ellucian platform features best-in-class SaaS capabilities and delivers insights needed now and into the future. These solutions and services span the entire student lifecycle, from student recruitment, enrollment, and retention to workforce analytics, fundraising, and alumni engagement. Ellucian's innovative solutions, vast ecosystem of partners, and user community of more than 45,000 provide best practices leading to greater institutional success and achieving better student outcomes.
Values Rooted in Purpose
We embrace the power to lead, the courage to innovate, and the determination to grow. At our core, we believe in humanizing our approach, recognizing that our people are our greatest strength. With a shared vision of transformation, we endeavor to shape a brighter future for higher education.
About the Opportunity
As the Senior Director, CPTO AI Transformation at Ellucian, you will lead the strategy and execution of responsible, enterprise-wide AI adoption within the Product & Cloud organizations. This cross-functional leadership role is designed to accelerate the integration of artificial intelligence across our product portfolio, development lifecycle, and internal operations—unlocking new opportunities for innovation, efficiency, and impact in higher education technology.
Reporting to the SVP, Product & Cloud Operations, you will oversee a company-wide AI task force and drive initiatives across three core dimensions:
- Product Features – Embedding AI into customer-facing solutions to enhance personalization, automation, functionality, and insights
- Operational Excellence – Applying AI to streamline processes within the SDLC, QA, support, documentation, and delivery
- Governance & Risk Management – Defining frameworks, policies, and standards to promote transparency, ethical use, and regulatory compliance
You will serve as the primary coordinator across participating teams, ensuring AI strategy is aligned to business goals and executed with discipline, clarity, and measurable impact.
Where You Will Make an Impact
- Lead the development and delivery of Product & Cloud’s AI adoption strategy, aligned to business priorities and customer value
- Drive the intake, evaluation, prioritization, and rollout of AI use cases across functional areas
- Define and maintain the AI adoption roadmap, as well as track and report on progress and performance to the broader organization
- Operationalize AI capabilities across the software development lifecycle to drive efficiencies and improve customer outcomes
- Promote AI fluency through training and enablement plans tailored to both technical and non-technical audiences
- Establish and uphold policies and governance structures for responsible, ethical, and compliant AI use within
- Product & Cloud organizations
- Monitor trends in AI and adjacent technologies to evolve our strategy and identify emerging opportunities
- Represent AI adoption plans, risks, and outcomes to executive leadership and sponsors
What You Will Bring
- 12+ years of experience in product, engineering, innovation, or technology leadership roles, including 5+ years leading AI, machine learning, or advanced analytics initiatives
- Proven success driving cross-functional programs and aligning technical innovation with business strategy
- Strong understanding of how AI can be applied to both product design and internal operational processes
- Familiarity with AI governance, responsible AI frameworks, and regulatory considerations
- Exceptional communication and influence skills, with the ability to build alignment across diverse stakeholders
- Track record of managing through ambiguity, launching initiatives from the ground up, and delivering measurable outcomes
- A commitment to ethical, human-centered innovation and a passion for improving access and outcomes in higher education
What makes #Ellucianlife
- Comprehensive health coverage: medical, dental, and vision
- Flexible time off
- Thrive Flex Lifestyle Account (LSA) that allows you to contribute towards your health, financial or learning interests
- 401k w/ match & BrightPlan - to help you save for the future
- Parental Leave
- 5 charitable days to support the community that supports us
- Telemedicine
- Wellness
- Headspace Care (mental health)
- Wellbeats (virtual fitness classes)
- RethinkCare & Wellthy– caregiver supporq
- Diversity and inclusion programs which provide access to internal employee resource groups
- Employee referral bonuses to encourage the addition of great new people to the team
- We Foster a learning culture with:
- Education Assistance Program
- Professional development opportunities
#LI-AC1
#LI-HYBRID
At Ellucian, we believe in the “power of together.” We embrace an inclusive workplace, and believe that our differences help inspire a culture of acceptance that makes our company more collaborative and innovative. We’re proud to provide equal employment opportunities for job applicants and for our employees, and we are committed to providing a process and an environment that is free from discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, sex (including pregnancy, gender identity, and sexual orientation), parental status, national origin, age, disability, genetic information (including family medical history), and other legally protected classifications. These protections extend to all management practices and decisions, including recruitment and hiring, appraisal systems, promotions, training, and career development programs. To enable employees to perform essential functions of their positions and to offer applicants a meaningful opportunity to be considered for positions, we also provide reasonable accommodations to qualified employees and applicants with disabilities and for sincerely held religious beliefs, observances, and practices. This job posting is intended to comply with all applicable laws. If we learn during the course of our recruitment process that, due to an applicant’s location, further information about the position is required, including certain salary information, the information in this posting will be supplemented accordingly. Additionally, we are aware of fake applicant schemes and have rigorous internal processes in place to mitigate such risk and inform proper authorities of any such instances that arise.
