AI Chief of Staff

Job Description:  

Our client — a leading French company operating at European scale — has reached the inflection point. The AI budget is committed. The vendors are circling. Early use cases are live in some BUs. What's missing is the operator who pulls it all into a single, defensible, business-grade trajectory.

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We are looking for a senior partner to the CEO. Not a consultant. Not an engineer. An operator who turns AI from a board-deck promise into a measured line in the P&L.

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What you will own.

Shape the AI operating model.  

• Partner with business units, IT and senior leadership to define how AI is selected, deployed and governed across the company.  
• Establish reusable patterns and clear decision frameworks — what we build, what we buy, what we kill.  
• Ensure long-term consistency, vendor leverage and total cost discipline.  

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Build for scale and trust.  

• Design AI deployments with embedded security, compliance and EU AI Act readiness from day one.  
• Make AI initiatives auditable, traceable and defensible — to the board, to regulators, to customers.  
• Work cross-functionally to meet enterprise-grade expectations on data, privacy and ethics.  

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Operationalize AI in real workflows.  

• Integrate AI capabilities into actual business processes — sales, operations, customer support, finance, HR.  
• Define the guardrails, the failure modes, the human-in-the-loop checkpoints that make AI safe to ship.  
• Continuously optimize for impact, cost and reliability. Measure ROI in euros, not in slides.  

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Be the executive partner on AI.  

• Act as a senior advisor to the CEO and the leadership team on every AI-adjacent decision.  
• Communicate trade-offs clearly to non-technical stakeholders, board members and investors.  
• Lay the groundwork for the next phase: team build-out, organizational design, long-term strategy.

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What we are looking for.

• 9+ years of experience, with at least one C-suite-adjacent operating role (Chief of Staff, COO, VP Strategy, or equivalent).  
• Tier 1 strategy consulting background or top-tier scaleup operator pedigree.  
• Has actually shipped AI use cases into production — not written about them.  
• Sharp business judgment. Reads a P&L. Knows when a use case is worth pursuing and when it is theatre.  
• Executive presence and political instinct. Can challenge a CFO or a Head of Sales without breaking the relationship.  
• Bilingual French / English. Comfortable in board rooms in either language.

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What will get you screened out.

• Pure consulting career, never ran anything operationally. "AI enthusiast" with no shipped projects. Big-company only background. Self-styled AI thought leader.

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The setup.

Paris-based, with regular travel across Europe. Direct reporting to the CEO. Executive committee seat. Competitive package with meaningful variable and long-term incentives, calibrated to the candidate's seniority. Full details shared with shortlisted candidates.  

Client identity disclosed under NDA at shortlist stage.

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To enter the process.

CV + a note on how you read the AI Chief of Staff role today.  

Strict confidentiality guaranteed. Direct outreach welcome.