below marketmost similar roles pay hereabove market
This role pays more than
65%
of similar roles. Most pay
$162,150–$242,131
— the blue band above.
At the midpoint, this role pays about
$221k
versus about
$202k
for comparable roles.
Based on 240 similar postings.
Employer
About Citi
Citi is one of the world’s most trusted financial institutions, proudly serving millions of customers across the United States.
Citi currently has
268 open roles
on FindRole.
Listed pay typically runs
$125,760–$188,640
across 251 roles with salary data.
The AI Strategic Partnerships Lead, SVP sits within the Head of AI Organization to serve as a business leader and execution-driven orchestrator for external AI technology partnerships. This role is responsible for scouting, evaluating, and driving external AI technologies across the full partnership lifecycle, from initial ecosystem discovery and PoC validation to compliant, enterprise-scale production rollout. The successful candidate will manage vendor relationships, navigate the venture capital and startup landscape, and collaborate with project managers to move technologies through technical and governance milestones. Key requirements include AI product management discipline or Generative AI engineering fluency, specifically regarding LLM architectures, RAG, agentic frameworks, and vector stores. The role solves the business problem of operationalizing high-value AI solutions across global business lines while meeting strict regulatory and risk standards.
Scout and evaluate emerging AI startups, foundation model providers, and specialized tooling to identify high-potential solutions.
Manage the end-to-end partnership lifecycle from initial market mapping and commercial assessment to contractual alignment and vendor management.
Translate overarching AI strategic priorities into structured, time-bound execution plans to advance target business outcomes.
Design and oversee structured sandbox evaluations, proof-of-concepts, and competitive bake-offs using performance and security benchmarks.
Shepherd validated partner technologies from successful PoC completion through full deployment and operationalization in production environments.
Act as the primary engagement partner for Business Unit leadership to align partner solutions with operational workflows and commercial targets.
Facilitate cross-functional governance across Risk, Compliance, Information Security, Legal, and Procurement to navigate Third-Party Risk Management requirements.
Develop non-technical business cases and ROI models for senior leadership to articulate the value and scaling pathway for each partnership.
What we're looking for
10+ years of experience in technology strategic partnerships, AI product management, or technology delivery within top-tier financial institutions.
Experience in corporate venture capital, innovation labs, accelerators, or high-growth AI startups.
Demonstrated expertise executing partnership lifecycles including scouting, technical evaluations, commercial structuring, and scaling third-party software into production.
Strong background in either AI Product Management or Generative AI Engineering.
Working knowledge of LLMs, RAG architectures, agentic frameworks, fine-tuning, and model evaluation metrics.
Exceptional ability to synthesize complex technical, commercial, and operational findings into actionable executive recommendations.
Bachelor’s degree or University degree or equivalent experience.
Generative AI
LLMs
RAG
AWS
Azure
Google Cloud Platform
Vector Databases
Microservices
Distributed Systems
API Architecture
CI/CD
DevSecOps
Platform Engineering
Model Serving
Prompt Orchestration
Agentic AI
IAM
Observability
GitLab
DevSecOps
CI/CD
AWS
Microsoft Azure
FinOps
LLM
APIs
Model Context Protocol
Cloud Architecture
Software Development Lifecycle
AI Model Evaluation
Agent Frameworks