AVP AI Governance and Standards

Assistant Vice-President, AI Governance and Standards 

Canada Life has an ambition to apply human-led AI to innovate, elevate customer service, and accelerate growth across the organization. To succeed, we believe there is a need to scale AI responsibly across the enterprise, ensuring strong governance, robust technical controls, and alignment with regulatory and risk expectations while enabling innovation. 

The role of the AVP, AI Governance and Standards is to provide leadership across both enterprise AI governance and technical responsible AI controls, ensuring AI solutions are developed, deployed, and operated in a safe, compliant, and scalable manner. This role is accountable for defining and operationalizing AI governance frameworks, partnering with business and technology teams to embed controls across the AI lifecycle, and enabling a clear, efficient path for AI adoption through structured intake and oversight processes. 

What you will do 

• Establish and lead the AI Governance and Standards function, providing enterprise-wide leadership on responsible AI practices, governance, and control frameworks 

• Define and implement AI governance frameworks, policies, and standards covering the full lifecycle (intake, development, validation, deployment, monitoring, and retirement) 

• Partner with engineering teams to design and operationalize technical controls, including model registry and inventory management, model observability, monitoring, and risk classification and auditability 

• Define and maintain enterprise standards for LLM and model usage, including model selection, approved platforms, usage patterns (API vs. UI), and guardrails aligned to risk, privacy, and security requirements 

• Collaborate with business and technology stakeholders to define and enhance the AI intake, triage, and approval process 

• Work closely with Risk, Compliance, Legal, and Privacy teams to align AI governance practices with regulatory expectations 

• Establish standards and guardrails for responsible AI including bias mitigation, transparency, data usage, and human oversight 

• Define governance reporting, metrics, and dashboards to provide visibility into AI portfolio risks and performance 

• Enable a scalable operating model for AI governance embedded into platforms and processes 

• Act as a trusted advisor to senior leadership on AI governance and emerging risks 

• Build and mentor a high-performing team focused on governance and responsible AI 

What you will bring 

• University degree in Computer Science, Data Science, Engineering, or equivalent 

• 10+ years of experience in AI, data, or technology roles with exposure to governance, risk, or controls 

• Strong understanding of AI governance, model risk management, and regulatory considerations 

• Experience designing and implementing technical controls for AI systems such as lifecycle management and monitoring 

• Experience working in large, regulated organizations with cross-functional stakeholders 

• Ability to bridge technology and governance, translating risk requirements into practical controls 

• Strong stakeholder management and influencing skills 

• Experience establishing operating models and scalable processes 

• Strategic mindset with the ability to balance enablement and control 

• Commitment to continuous learning in AI governance and emerging technologies