Senior Director, Artificial Intelligence and Automation

HealthPartners is hiring a Senior Director, Artificial Intelligence and Automation. The Senior Director of AI and Automation drives the enterprise-wide strategy, development, and deployment of artificial intelligence (AI) and automation solutions across the organization's health insurance, care delivery, and research domains. This leader champions integrated technologies that enhance member and patient outcomes, streamline operations, accelerate scientific discovery, and uphold responsible AI governance. Reporting to the Data & Analytics executive, the Senior Director serves as a strategic connector-linking executive leadership, operational and clinical teams, and research stakeholders. This role bridges system-wide priorities while delivering scalable, ethical, and high-impact AI and automation capabilities.

Required Qualifications:

• Bachelor's degree in health management, statistics, mathematics, finance, business, and science or other relevant program or equivalent experience.
• Ten (10) years of leadership experience in AI, machine learning (ML), data science, or automation, with demonstrated success in complex organizations.
• Experience deploying conversational or agentic AI solutions; Proven record of deploying enterprise-scale AI/automation solutions.
• Knowledge of cloud and data platforms (Azure, Databricks, AWS, GCP) and AI/ML toolkits (TensorFlow, PyTorch, HuggingFace, etc.).
• Experience with automation platforms (UiPath, Blue Prism, Power Automate).
• Expertise in data governance, privacy, and compliance frameworks across payer, provider, and research domains.
• Exceptional communication and change leadership skills, with the ability to bridge executive, clinician, and researcher perspectives.

Preferred Qualifications:

• Advanced degree in Computer Science, Data Science, Engineering, or related field.
• Prior experience in an integrated health system or highly regulated entity.
• Familiarity and experience working within Microsoft Azure and /or Data Bricks
• Familiarity with Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources (FHIR) standards, EMR data (Epic), payer datasets, and research data platforms.
• Demonstrated ability to deliver measurable impact on cost, quality, and innovation outcomes.

Hours/Location:

• Monday - Friday; core business hours
• This position is primarily on-site at our Bloomington corporate office, with an expectation of being in the office at least four days per week-typically Monday through Thursday.
• The role includes occasional travel to regional sites (e.g., St. Paul, St. Louis Park) for training sessions and presentations.

Responsibilities:

Execution & Delivery (25%)

• Oversee the design, development, purchase, and/or deployment of AI models (agentic, predictive, generative, NLP, multimodal) and automation solutions across insurance, clinical, and research workflows.
• Ensure seamless integration of AI/automation into enterprise systems, including EHR (Epic), claims platforms, member portals, research databases, and enterprise data lakes.
• Lead efforts in robotic process automation (RPA), intelligent document processing, and clinical workflow optimization.
• Champion re-use of AI models across domains (e.g., member risk stratification models leveraged for both care management and clinical trial recruitment).
• Lead a team that will function as an enterprise center of excellence in AI and automation (assisting various technical scrum teams with build vs. buy decisions, implementations, and ongoing monitoring).

Governance, Compliance & Ethics (25%)

• Enforce and maintain standards for responsible AI, ensuring transparency, fairness, explainability, and bias mitigation.
• Partner with compliance, privacy, and security teams to ensure adherence to HIPAA, CMS, ONC, FDA, and research ethics requirements.
• Provide education and training across clinical, insurance, and research teams on safe use of AI, including PHI handling and liability risks.

Innovation & External Engagement (25%)

• Support translational research by bringing innovative AI into clinical practice and payer operations.
• Build and measure enterprise AI/automation ROI frameworks, quantifying improvements in patient outcomes, affordability, research productivity, and member satisfaction.
• Function as a visible champion for innovation, balancing experimentation with responsible scaling of proven solutions.
• Foster partnerships with affinity groups, academic institutions, technology vendors, and consortia to advance AI innovation.

Enterprise Strategy & Leadership (25%)

• Iterate and drive a unified AI and automation strategy that supports all three organizational domains:

  • Health Plan Financing - affordability, risk adjustment, claims automation, customer service, fraud/waste/abuse detection.

  • Care Delivery - clinical decision support, patient engagement, operational efficiency, workforce augmentation.

  • Research - natural language processing for clinical notes, predictive modeling, data enrichment for trials, and research automation.

• Build and lead a multidisciplinary "center of excellence" team of data scientists, machine learning engineers, automation specialists, and applied researchers; inspire a culture of collaboration and support.
• Serve as a system-wide thought leader on AI adoption, ensuring alignment with strategic priorities of the plan, care group, and institute.
• Support and consult on our technology teams' AI deployments to ensure safe, equitable, and compliant adoption of AI across the enterprise.

*Job description rankings/percentages are intended to reflect normal averages over an extended period of time and are subject to daily variances. Quality and efficiency standards should at no time be compromised to meet the average expectations expressed above. Job descriptions are subject to change to accommodate organization or department needs.