Position Title:                  Director of Artificial Intelligence (AI) Systems
Organization:                   Alcon
Division:                            Medical Digital Solutions, Alcon R&D
Reports To:                        Digital Solutions Head of Data Science
Location:                          Fort Worth, TX

About Alcon:

Alcon is the global leader in eye care, dedicated to helping people see brilliantly. With an over 75-year heritage, Alcon is the largest eye care device company in the world, with complementary businesses in Surgical and Vision Care. Being a truly global company, Alcon works in 60 countries and serves patients in more than 140 countries. The organization has a long history of industry firsts, and each year Alcon commits a substantial amount in Research and Development to meet customer needs and patient demands.

Alcon leadership is grounded in cutting-edge innovation and breakthrough technology, transforming the way we treat eye diseases and eye conditions.  Alcon is leading in eye care innovation and is well positioned for growth in an expanding global marketplace. The organization’s strong pipeline includes more than 100 projects in process and more than 1,400 associates worldwide researching and developing treatments for vision conditions and eye diseases.

Alcon is proud to be certified as a Great Place to Work in the U.S. and a Top Employer in Europe for 2022.

Position Purpose:

As a Director, AI Systems supporting Medical Development Product team, you will be trusted to serve as a senior AI leader to drive all aspects of AI/ML development within R&D project teams developing innovative AI/ML based digital systems and solutions. More specifically, this role may involve being responsible for algorithm development, ML engineering, digital product requirements definitions and testing, agile development, design-control activities to enable deployment, stakeholder management for product launch, and post-launch life cycle management in this Remote position. This is an ideal opportunity for individuals passionate about AI/ML powered innovation in the medical device industry, and in bringing digital solutions to market in collaboration with appropriate R&D / Commercial functional partners!

In summary … you:

  • Are a highly motivated AI/ML “thinker” who can action on problem solving vs waiting to be directed to action.
  • Are strategic … your lens isn’t one month out but you assess the business state of affairs beyond the horizon and action toward success.
  • Are a leader who mentors and encourages others … you look for the “how” to solve the problem better and don’t buy into the “it’s always been done this way” mantra.
  • Are a thought leader … a visionary who has a forward-looking dashboard.

Key Responsibilities:

  • Drive the productization of AI/ML based Digital Solutions for Alcon R&D
  • Communicating with R&D partners and business customers (e.g. Ophthalmologist, Clinician, Eye Care Specialist, Eye Surgeons) to understand unmet need and designing appropriate digital solutions
  • Provide guidance on latest AI/ML algorithms, best practices, tools, and tradeoffs to support variety of medical use cases
  • Establish medical AI/ML development processes, continuous deployment and maintenance (e.g. ML Ops, training, and testing) in an agile but regulated environment
  • Help define products architecture roadmap for AI/ML implementation in partnership with technology leaders
  • Partner with subject matters experts (SMEs) and data scientists to drive solutions and research into products and applications within Software as Medical Device (SaMD) and Software in Medical Device (SiMD)
  • Partner with IT Digital Technology to develop and operationalize Medical Data Hub, AI infrastructure and end-to end data pipeline and warehousing
  • Partner with QA function to create AI/ML quality assurance strategy and standards
  • Serving as AI technical lead on R&D project teams
  • Providing project management support in an agile framework to achieve targeted Digital Solution deliverables for R&D

What you’ll bring to Alcon:

  • Bachelor’s Degree or equivalent years of directly related experience (or high school +18 yrs; Assoc.+14 yrs; M.S.+7 yrs; PhD+6 yrs)
  • 10 years of relevant experience
  • 6 years of demonstrated leadership experience
  • Experience in developing medical application and/or Software-as-Medical Device (SaMD) application for Ophthalmology or in other related fields is preferred.
  • The ability to fluently read, write, understand and communicate in English
  • Project management experience is preferred

About Pender & Howe:

Alcon has retained Pender & Howe to lead the recruitment initiative for the Director of AI Systems position. Pender & Howe is a boutique retained executive search firm specializing in collaborating with human capital leaders, governing boards and CxOs in identifying exceptional leaders.

The Director, AI Systems search is led by Glenn Lesko. For consideration, please email a copy of your CV in confidence to:

Glenn Lesko (Co-Founder & Principal) –  [email protected]

We thank all applicants in advance. Only those candidates selected for an interview will be contacted.