Description
Job description / Role
Job Type
Full Time
Job Location
Dubai, UAE
Nationality
Any Nationality
Salary
Not Specified
Gender
Not Specified
Arabic Fluency
Not Specified
Job Function
Finance, Business Analysis & Consulting
Company Industry
Banking & Financial Services
About the Bank
Operating in the UAE for over 50 years, CBD manages the financial requirements of some of the largest corporates and businesses operating in the country, driving the UAE economy. Over the years, CBD has transformed into a progressive and modern banking institution, winning multiple awards for its digital initiatives, credit cards, bank accounts, mobile app features, and services. CBD has been recognized as the number one bank in the UAE on the Forbes list of The World’s Best Banks 2022.
AI Ambition
Commercial Bank of Dubai (CBD) has an ambition to redefine how AI is embedded, governed, and scaled within a modern bank. CBD is recognized as a regional leader in enterprise AI adoption, having been featured by Microsoft as a global transformation success story for its structured, value-led approach to AI. With a strong foundation already in place, the bank is now entering its next phase of AI maturity: industrialization at scale.
Role Overview
The Head of AI Enablement is accountable for defining and executing the enterprise-wide AI strategy to drive sustained business value, ROI, competitive differentiation, and industrialization at scale. The role sets the vision, operating and execution model, and investment priorities for AI across the organization, ensuring AI is systematically embedded into core business strategies, products, and operating processes.
With direct C-level reporting, the role owns the establishment and performance of the enterprise AI ecosystem, including platforms, solutions, governance, talent, and strategic partnerships and acts as the executive authority responsible for accelerating AI adoption while ensuring regulatory compliance, ethical use, and resilience. As a senior level member of the bank, the role partners closely with business, technology, data, risk, and external stakeholders to translate strategic intent into measurable outcomes and position CBD as a leader in AI-driven transformation.
Principal Accountabilities
Define and own the enterprise AI vision and strategy, with a clear enablement mandate to ensure AI capabilities are systematically embedded across the organization.
Transform vision and strategy into a practical playbook that provides organizations with a roadmap, enabling CBD to enhance their teams through agents that drive performance and efficiency.
Operate AI as a factory model. Utilize specialized partners to establish a dedicated organization that can deliver AI solutions at scale, handling all phases from identifying use cases to deployment, optimization, monitoring, and continuous agent supervision and updates.
Take responsibility for overseeing the entire AI lifecycle throughout the enterprise—from prioritizing use cases and designing solutions to deployment, scaling, and realizing value—while empowering business units to be accountable for their results.
Shift the organization from centrally driven pilots to federated, business-owned AI delivery supported by strong central enablement.
Establish and govern the enterprise AI operating model (e.g., AI CoE, AI Factory, agent squads), clarifying roles, decision rights, and hand-offs between central teams and business units.
Build reusable AI platforms, tooling, standards, and accelerators that reduce dependency on specialist teams and increase delivery velocity across the enterprise.
Enable senior business leaders to identify, prioritize, and operationalize AI use cases by providing clear frameworks, delivery support models, and value measurement approaches.
Drive enterprise adoption by embedding AI into day-to-day decision-making, operating processes, and customer journeys, supported by change and capability uplift.
Own the enterprise AI portfolio, prioritization, and investment decisions, ensuring funding is directed toward scalable capabilities and high-value use cases.
Establish enablement-focused performance metrics that track not only outcomes, but adoption, reuse, maturity, and independence of business teams.
Build and mature enterprise AI capability by enabling skills development across leadership, business, technology, and data communities.
Raise AI literacy at executive and board levels, ensuring informed decision-making and effective sponsorship of AI-led initiatives.
Define and manage strategic partnerships with system integrators, technology providers, and ecosystem partners to accelerate capability build-up while avoiding vendor lock-in.
Ensure partners contribute to internal capability uplift, knowledge transfer, and long-term self-sufficiency.
Serve as the principal advisor to the bank’s executive leadership on AI strategy, enterprise capability maturity, enablement effectiveness, and emerging risks.
Provide clear, outcome-focused reporting to executive committees and the board on AI progress, adoption, and value realization.
Partner with Technology and Data leadership to shape AI platform, data, and architecture choices, ensuring they enable scalable, secure, and repeatable AI delivery aligned to business priorities.
Define AI-specific requirements and design principles, and ensure these are embedded into enterprise architecture standards, while advocating for interoperability, reuse, and vendor neutrality.
Partner with Risk, Compliance, Legal, and Security to operationalize responsible AI, translating regulatory and ethical requirements into practical delivery standards and controls.
Ensure risk and compliance considerations are embedded into AI operating models and enablement frameworks, supporting rapid adoption while maintaining trust and regulatory confidence.
About the Company
In 1969, when we at Commercial Bank of Dubai started out little did we know that sheer grit and determination would get us where we are today. An Emiri Decree issued by His Highness the Late Sheikh Rashid Bin Saeed Al Maktoum, the founder of modern Dubai, laid the cornerstone of Commercial Bank of Dubai. We started out as a joint venture of Commerzbank, Chase Manhattan Bank and Commercial Bank of Kuwait. A minority stake was held by a few UAE businessmen.
By 1982, little more than a decade later, we evolved into a National Public Shareholding company. A feat complimented by an exponential increase in the capital base and mammoth restructuring of our operations. The feather in the cap came when the Government of Dubai became a key shareholder.
Over the decades, we have transformed ourselves into a progressive and modern banking institution. We are supported by a sturdy financial base and reigned by a strong and stable management. The proof of which lies with our customers who have stood by us over the years.
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