Introduction: A Career at HARMAN Automotive
We’re a global, multi-disciplinary team that’s putting the innovative power of technology to work and transforming tomorrow. At HARMAN Automotive, we give you the keys to fast-track your career.
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Engineer audio systems and integrated technology platforms that augment the driving experience
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Combine ingenuity, in-depth research, and a spirit of collaboration with design and engineering excellence
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Advance in-vehicle infotainment, safety, efficiency, and enjoyment
About the Role
The AI Portfolio Lead is a senior individual contributor responsible for driving operational excellence, portfolio governance, and execution cadence across a divisional AI portfolio. The role owns the management rhythms that keep AI initiatives aligned, transparent, and moving from demand intake through adoption and value realization, including portfolio dashboards, governance forums, decision logs, action tracking, duplicate-project reviews, risk and dependency tracking, and leadership-ready reporting. This role requires strong program management, analytical, stakeholder management, and communication skills to provide leaders with clear visibility into portfolio health, priorities, decisions, outcomes, and risks while partnering across business, product, technology, finance, change, delivery, and governance teams.
What You Will Do
Portfolio Governance and Operating Cadence
Establish and maintain the divisional AI portfolio operating cadence, including intake reviews, governance forums, leadership reviews, planning cycles, and performance review rhythms.
Manage the divisional AI backlog, including demand intake, prioritization support, cohort planning, readiness tracking, and alignment to business priorities.
Own risk, issue, action, decision, and dependency tracking, including decision logs, action registers, milestone visibility, and follow-through routines so commitments and escalations are visible and addressed.
Lead duplicate-project reviews and portfolio rationalization efforts to identify overlap, improve resource utilization, and align AI investments to the highest-value opportunities.
Executive Reporting, Analytics, and Portfolio Transparency
Develop and maintain executive dashboards, KPIs, scorecards, and portfolio analytics that provide clear visibility into initiative health, performance, risks, decisions, and outcomes.
Prepare leadership-ready portfolio materials that synthesize complex information into concise insights, decision points, and recommended actions.
Drive reporting consistency, data quality, and governance standards across the divisional AI portfolio.
Maintain project hygiene and portfolio transparency across intake, prioritization, delivery, adoption, and value-realization stages.
Change, Adoption, and Enablement
Own business-specific adoption planning, including impacted roles, stakeholder engagement, enablement needs, communications, and reinforcement approach.
Coordinate training reinforcement, leadership talking points, adoption communications, and feedback loops after launch.
Identify adoption risks, resistance patterns, readiness gaps, and operational blockers; recommend practical actions to improve uptake and sustainability.
Facilitate alignment across business, product, technology, finance, delivery, and operational teams to resolve conflicts and optimize portfolio outcomes.
Finance, Value, and Benefits Realization
Partner with business finance and controllership stakeholders to validate baselines, benefit formulas, assumptions, and realized impact.
Support KPI design, including direct and indirect benefit definitions, operational metrics, expected value, and value tracking cadence.
Track expected versus realized value and surface variance drivers when benefits are unclear, delayed, or at risk.
Connect portfolio prioritization and rationalization decisions to business value, resource utilization, and measurable outcomes.
Governance, Risk, and Continuous Improvement
Ensure AI Hub intake submissions are complete, clear, and ready for governance review.
Support risk-tier pre-checks, documentation quality, human oversight planning, controls alignment, and reassessment trigger tracking.
Help business stakeholders understand responsible AI governance requirements and complete them efficiently without slowing responsible innovation.
Continuously improve portfolio management processes, tools, reporting frameworks, and governance practices.
What You Need To Be Successful
Bachelor's degree in Business, Information Systems, Engineering, Project Management, or a related field, or equivalent practical experience, with 6+ years of experience in PMO, program management, portfolio governance, business operations, or transformation.
Experience establishing operating cadence, governance forums, leadership reviews, planning cycles, performance routines, or portfolio management rhythms.
Strong background in stakeholder management, prioritization, issue tracking, dependency management, action tracking, decision logs, and leadership-ready reporting.
Proven ability to create executive dashboards, KPIs, scorecards, portfolio analytics, and data-driven insights that support strategic decision making.
Experience preparing senior-leadership materials and synthesizing complex portfolio information into concise, actionable recommendations.
Experience supporting change management, adoption planning, communications, training reinforcement, or role-based enablement.
Working knowledge of benefit tracking, KPI design, baseline validation, assumptions, realized impact, and controllership review.
Exposure to Digital, AI, technology, enterprise transformation, governance, risk, compliance, documentation, controls, or responsible AI operating processes.
Ability to work independently in ambiguity, create structure, influence cross-functional teams, and drive follow-through without direct authority.
Critical Skills
Program governance, PMO discipline, operating cadence design, prioritization, and portfolio management hygiene.
Executive reporting, portfolio analytics, dashboard design, KPI design, scorecards, and data quality management.
Risk, issue, action, decision, and dependency tracking, escalation management, and follow-through discipline.
Stakeholder management, executive communication, concise storytelling, and cross-functional alignment.
Change management, communication planning, training reinforcement, role-based enablement, and behavioral adoption.
Finance partnership, benefit formulas, baseline validation, direct and indirect value tracking, and realized impact measurement.
Governance operations, documentation quality, risk awareness, intake readiness, human oversight planning, and reassessment triggers.
Portfolio and reporting tool proficiency, such as Power BI, Jira, Azure DevOps, Smartsheet, Microsoft Power Platform, or similar tools.
Success Measures
The divisional AI operating cadence is established, consistently maintained, and useful to leadership decision making.
The AI backlog is current, prioritized, rationalized, and tied to clear business ownership, value hypotheses, and resource considerations.
Executive dashboards, KPIs, scorecards, and portfolio materials provide trusted visibility into status, risks, dependencies, actions, decisions, and outcomes.
Duplicate-project reviews and portfolio rationalization efforts reduce overlap and improve alignment of AI investments to business priorities.
AI initiatives are prepared with complete intake, visible dependencies, validated assumptions, adoption readiness, and clear next steps.
Adoption plans are reinforced after launch, value tracking is finance-aligned, and governance documentation stays current.
Ideal Candidate Profile
The ideal candidate is a structured, business-oriented operator who can bring order, transparency, and momentum to a fast-moving AI portfolio without adding unnecessary bureaucracy. They combine PMO rigor, executive communication, analytical judgment, change-management discipline, financial fluency, and practical responsible-AI awareness to help the business adopt AI in ways that are measurable, sustainable, and well controlled.
What Makes You Eligible
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Ability to work from an office in Novi, MI, 3+ days per week (hybrid)
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Successfully complete a background investigation and drug screen as a condition of employment
What We Offer
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Access to employee discounts on world-class products (JBL, HARMAN Kardon, AKG, and more)
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Extensive training opportunities through our own HARMAN University
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Competitive wellness benefits
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Tuition reimbursement
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“Be Brilliant” employee recognition and rewards program
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An inclusive and diverse work environment that fosters and encourages professional and personal development
