Operating in the UAE for over 50 years, CBD manages the financial requirements of some of the largest corporates and businesses operating in the country, driving the UAE economy. Over the years, CBD has transformed into a progressive and modern banking institution, winning multiple awards for its digital initiatives, credit cards, bank accounts, mobile app features, and services. CBD has been recognized as the number one bank in the UAE on the Forbes list of The World’s Best Banks 2022.
Commercial Bank of Dubai (CBD) has an ambition to redefine how AI is embedded, governed, and scaled within a modern bank. CBD is recognized as a regional leader in enterprise AI adoption, having been featured by Microsoft as a global transformation success story for its structured, value‑led approach to AI. With a strong foundation already in place, the Bank is now entering its next phase of AI maturity: industrialization at scale.
The Head of AI Enablement is accountable for defining and executing the enterprise‑wide AI strategy to drive sustained business value, ROI, competitive differentiation, and industrialization at scale. The role sets the vision, operating and execution model, and investment priorities for AI across the organization, ensuring AI is systematically embedded into core business strategies, products, and operating processes.
With direct C-level reporting, the role owns the establishment and performance of the enterprise AI ecosystem, including platforms, solutions, governance, talent, and strategic partnerships and acts as the executive authority responsible for accelerating AI adoption while ensuring regulatory compliance, ethical use, and resilience. As a senior level member of the bank, the role partners closely with business, technology, data, risk, and external stakeholders to translate strategic intent into measurable outcomes and position CBD as a leader in AI‑driven transformation.
Principal Accountabilities:
- Product Strategy and Roadmap: Define product vision, roadmap and growth opportunities. Develop and maintain a clear and actionable product strategy and roadmap that aligns with the overall business strategy and objectives of the bank. Own the product requirements and roadmap, prioritize and manage the product backlog, ensuring that it reflects user needs, business priorities, and aligns with the overall bank strategy.
- Value creation: Assess value, develop cases, and prioritize stories, epics and themes to ensure the bank focuses on those with maximum value / ROI and optimum customer experience. · Requirement Gathering: Collaborate closely with stakeholders, including customers, internal teams (such as products, contract centre, IT engineering and technology, compliance, operations and governance), and external partners, to gather and prioritize requirements.
- Backlog Management: Prioritize and maintain the product backlog, ensuring that it reflects the priorities and needs of various stakeholders and is groomed and refined regularly.
- Feature Definition: Define clear and concise user stories and acceptance criteria based on business requirements and user feedback, ensuring that the development team understands the scope and goals of the product features.
- Release Planning and Coordination: Plan and coordinate product releases, including defining release goals, coordinating with cross-functional teams, and ensuring timely delivery of features and enhancements.
- Product Development Oversight: Act as the primary point of contact for the development team, providing guidance, clarification, and support throughout the development lifecycle to ensure successful delivery of product features.
- Market and Competitive Analysis: Conduct market research and competitive analysis to identify opportunities for product innovation and differentiation, staying informed about industry trends and best practices.
- User Experience and Quality Assurance: Collaborate with UX/UI designers and QA analysts to ensure that the product meets high standards of usability, accessibility, and quality.
- Performance Monitoring and Optimization: Monitor product performance and KPIs, conduct data analysis to identify areas for improvement, and drive continuous optimization and iteration of products based on user feedback and data insights.
- Stakeholder Management and Communication: Work closely with stakeholders, customers, and development teams to define and communicate detailed product requirements, user stories, and acceptance criteria. Lead and manage business analysts, assigning tasks, providing guidance, and ensuring effective communication within the team. Communicate product updates, progress, and strategy effectively to stakeholders at all levels of the organization, including senior leadership.
Requirements
Education and Experience:
- Proven experience (10 - 15 years) in Digital Banking, Digital Transformation, FinTech, Mobile and Online Banking, Financial Services as a Product Owner or similar role in a Financial Services environment, with a track record of successfully delivering digital products and services.
- Experience in delivering wealth, liabilities and investment related products and services.
- Minimum of Bachelor’s degree in Business, Information Technology, Computer Science, or a related field; MBA or relevant certifications preferred.
- Experience in services delivery on digital channels, serving customers on digital channels.
- Experience in delivering wealth, liabilities and investment related products and services.
- Highly Proficient with mobile banking apps, online banking platforms, payments systems, or other fintech solutions.
- Proven experience in services delivery on digital channels.
- Proven experience in delivering wealth, liabilities and investment related products and services.
- Solid understanding of banking concepts, products, procedures and operation
- Solid understanding of agile methodologies, including Scrum or Kanban, and experience with agile tools such as JIRA or Azure DevOps.
- Strong knowledge of regulatory landscape, requirements and compliance standards in the financial services industry in UAE, including investments and wealth management regulations.