Sr. Director, AI Center of Excellence

Lincoln Electric is a high-performance industrial machinery and technology leader who helps customers manufacture and maintain vital equipment and infrastructure. Lincoln Electric’s innovative solutions enable higher quality and productivity across a variety of processes including welding, cutting, brazing, machining, process automation, and field repair. The Company leverages proprietary technologies and expertise in materials science, power electronics, automation, and intelligent software to help customers build better and achieve resilience in their operations. Headquartered in Cleveland, Ohio, Lincoln Electric is the essential ‘Linc’ that keeps the economy running. The Company operates 71 manufacturing and automation facilities across 20 countries and serves customers in over 160 countries. For more information about Lincoln Electric and its products and services, visit the Company’s website at https://www.lincolnelectric.com .   Location: Remote - Ohio   Req ID:  30023     ​ Position Summary

Senior Director, AI Center of Excellence is responsible for leading the company's enterprise AI strategy, governance, adoption, and capability development efforts. This leader will establish and scale a centralized AI Center of Excellence that accelerates responsible workforce adoption of approved AI tools, embeds governance-by-design into everyday work, creates reusable enterprise assets, and prepares the organization to build differentiated AI capabilities powered by proprietary data, institutional knowledge, and manufacturing expertise.

As the enterprise AI leader, this individual serves as the connective tissue between business strategy, technology, data, security, legal, privacy, HR, and workforce transformation. The Head of AI CoE will drive measurable business value from AI while ensuring secure, ethical, compliant, and scalable implementation across the enterprise.

The ideal candidate is a pragmatic enterprise AI leader who has successfully built or scaled AI adoption in a complex organization, can engage credibly with executives and technical stakeholders alike, and can translate AI opportunities into governed, measurable business outcomes. Key Responsibilities

Enterprise AI Strategy & Leadership

Define and operationalize the AI Center of Excellence charter, operating model, governance structure, executive reporting cadence, and enterprise engagement model. Establish and communicate the enterprise AI vision, purpose, and North Star, ensuring AI initiatives directly support strategic business priorities and measurable outcomes. Develop and maintain a multi-year enterprise AI roadmap focused on productivity, innovation, operational excellence, customer value, and competitive differentiation. Serve as the enterprise advisor to executive leadership on AI opportunities, risks, investments, capabilities, and emerging trends. Lead enterprise AI maturity planning and readiness initiatives, including workforce, data, technology, and governance capabilities.

AI Governance & Responsible AI

Design and implement governance-by-design principles that integrate responsible AI practices into everyday business processes, workflows, and decision-making. Partner with Security, Legal, Privacy, HR, IT, Data & Analytics, Risk, Compliance, and business leaders to establish enterprise AI policies, standards, controls, and approval processes. Create scalable frameworks for AI use-case evaluation, risk assessment, solution review, deployment, monitoring, and lifecycle management. Ensure compliance with evolving AI regulations, privacy requirements, intellectual property protections, and responsible AI standards. Establish monitoring and oversight mechanisms to manage risks associated with AI, including data leakage, hallucinations, bias, transparency, model drift, and regulatory exposure. Lead enterprise governance councils and decision forums to balance innovation, speed, risk management, and