AI Solutions Lead (Forward Deployed)

Description

This role reports directly to the CFO and works in close partnership with Operations, IT, and Executive Leadership.

Why Columbia, Why Construction, and Why Now?

At Columbia, this is a chance to step into something real: executive support, actual budget, and the opportunity to help build an

AI program from the ground up. As AI Solutions Lead, you’ll help shape how AI gets used inside a $500M general contractor that competes successfully against firms much larger than we are.

Construction management is a great industry for this kind of work—it’s complex, collaborative, and full of practical, day-to-day decisions where better tools can make a real difference. It’s also still early in its digital and AI journey. And even with broader economic uncertainty, the industry is still busy, with strong demand across multiple business sectors including Manufacturing, Technology, Healthcare, Corporate, Academic, and Hospitality.

This is a great time to apply AI in ways that can have a clear, practical impact on how projects are pursued, managed, and delivered. You’ll work directly with leaders who have spent decades building this company and who genuinely want to get this right. If you’re excited by the idea of building something meaningful in a new industry, this is a chance to leave a real mark.

Who We Are

At Columbia Construction, we don’t just build buildings—we build relationships, trust, and excellence into every square foot. For over 100 years, we’ve redefined what it means to be a construction partner by leading with integrity, collaboration, and a hands-on approach.

Position Summary

As AI Solutions Lead, you’ll help shape and drive Columbia’s AI strategy at a defining moment for our company and our industry. This is a new role, created to bring deliberate focus to how we adopt, govern, and get value from AI across every part of the business—from the project site to the back office.

You'll help set the vision, build the program, and make AI genuinely useful to the people doing the work: project managers, estimators, superintendents, and the teams supporting them. You'll learn and develop a deep understanding of Columbia's construction operations, project lifecycle, workflows, and business processes in order to identify practical opportunities for AI adoption.

This role is deliberately forward-deployed. You’ll spend your time embedded with the teams doing the work, in the office and on project sites, watching how work actually happens and building solutions alongside the people who will use them.

You’ll start as a department of one, with executive sponsorship, real budget, and the runway to grow the function as the work justifies it.

This role is ideal for a motivated, passionate leader with a track record of driving meaningful change and implementing solutions in new industry environments—someone who can quickly learn how a business operates, translate that understanding into practical solutions, and bring the entrepreneurial drive to put their fingerprints on something meaningful.

This is a player-coach role. You will personally build prototype solutions while also establishing the strategy, governance, and roadmap that guide Columbia’s AI program.

Key Responsibilities

Develop and own Columbia’s AI strategy in close partnership with executive leadership, grounded in what the business actually needs rather than what is trending, and make confident recommendations about where to invest, what to pilot, what to scale, and what to set aside.

Stand up and run a citizen development program that gives our people sanctioned tools, clear guardrails, and the support to build solutions that fit their workflows.

Identify, evaluate, and prioritize AI, automation, reporting, and analytics opportunities that can create measurable value across the business, spanning both construction-specific tools and broader enterprise platforms.

Build hands-on prototypes (custom GPTs, automations, light integrations) when that is the fastest path to value, and partner with IT, developers, data teams, and external technology partners to take what works from prototype to production.

Lead the implementation of AI initiatives from pilot through adoption, ensuring solutions are embraced by end users and deliver measurable business impact.

Bring understanding of data structure, quality, and governance to every AI initiative, with a willingness to partner with IT and Data Governance to understand Columbia’s current data foundation and how it can support AI development.

Establish the policies, training, and governance that let people use AI confidently without putting client data, contractual obligations, or the company at risk.

Build company-wide AI fluency through communication, training, and direct support, so staff at every level—field, office, and leadership—feel comfortable, curious, and confident in how AI fits into their work.

Partner with department leaders across operations, finance, preconstruction, estimating, project management, accounting, marketing, business development, and safety to identify where AI can move the needle, surface and scale the strongest ideas, and translate fluently between the technical and the operational.

What Success Looks Like

Project teams spend less time on administrative work and more on decisions that move projects forward.

Ideas move from problem to working solution in weeks rather than quarters, with real users testing real tools early and often.

Measurable improvement in turnaround times, accuracy, and quality in the workflows where AI has been applied—RFIs, submittals, estimating support, lessons-learned capture, and others.

Improved win rates on pursuits where AI-enabled tools and processes have been deployed.

Staff at every level—field, office, and leadership—describe themselves as comfortable, curious, and confident in how AI fits into their work, and active contributors to how it evolves.

A culture of practical AI use where good ideas surface from project teams, get refined and supported, and scale across the company.

Columbia is recognized by clients, partners, and prospective hires as a firm that uses AI thoughtfully and effectively—a differentiator in pursuits and recruiting.

A clear, evidence-based view of where to invest next, grounded in what has actually worked.

Requirements

5+ years in technology, product, consulting, data, or operations roles, with meaningful time spent building and implementing solutions rather than only managing them.

Demonstrated success leading technology or AI initiatives in environments where you had to learn a new industry, operating model, or workflow quickly and turn that understanding into measurable business impact.

Significant familiarity with modern AI tools, including LLMs, enterprise AI platforms, automation tools, and the integrations required to embed them into day-to-day business processes.

Working understanding of data structure, quality, and governance, and what it takes to make data usable for AI.

A track record of leading change across an organization—building alignment, influencing stakeholders, and helping teams adopt new tools and ways of working.

An entrepreneurial mindset; you are energized by the chance to build something rather than maintain it, and you are comfortable making decisions with incomplete information.

Excellent communication and presentation skills—written, verbal, and visual—with the credibility to be the face of AI at Columbia.

Sound judgment about risk, confidentiality, and the obligations we carry to our clients.

A collaborative, proactive leadership style that embodies Columbia’s core values.

Prior construction experience is not required. Success in this role requires curiosity, humility, and a willingness to learn how construction teams actually work.

Preferred Qualifications

A strong foundation in AI and technology, built through formal education, professi