Senior Director, AI Cyber Programs & Emerging Technology

Overview

The Senior Director, AI Cyber Programs and Emerging Technology leads The Coca-Cola Company's efforts to harness artificial intelligence for cyber defense while ensuring the Company's growing use of AI across the enterprise is secure, resilient, and responsibly deployed. This is a dual-mission role: accelerating AI adoption within the cybersecurity function and serving as the hands-on technical leader who partners with AI governance, Data & AI, and business units to safeguard the Company's AI investments.

Reporting to the Senior Director, Cyber Defense, this role builds and leads a specialized team of AI security and automation professionals. The Senior Director sets the technical direction for agentic security operations, AI-driven detection and response, and adversarial AI testing, while also scanning the horizon for emerging technology risks such as quantum computing, next-generation adversary tradecraft, and novel attack surfaces introduced by rapidly evolving technology platforms. The role requires equal comfort working with senior leadership within the Company and hands-on technical environments.

Key Responsibilities

AI-Enabled Cyber Defense

• Define and execute the strategy for deploying AI and machine learning capabilities across the cybersecurity function, including agentic security operations, automated threat detection, intelligent triage, and AI-assisted vulnerability management.

• Identify, evaluate, and pilot emerging AI technologies that can measurably improve the speed, accuracy, and coverage of cyber defense operations.

• Partner with Cybersecurity Operations, Threat Intelligence, and Security Engineering teams to embed AI capabilities into existing workflows and tooling.

• Establish metrics and feedback loops to measure the effectiveness of AI-driven security capabilities and continuously improve them.

Enterprise AI Security

• Serve as the senior technical advisor on securing the Company's use of AI, including large language models, machine learning pipelines, agentic AI systems, and third-party AI-enabled products.

• Partner with AI Risk & Governance, Legal, Privacy, and Data & AI to translate governance policies into hands-on technical controls and security requirements.

• Lead technical assessments of AI systems for risks including prompt injection, data poisoning, model exfiltration, training data leakage, and adversarial manipulation.

• Develop and maintain security standards, reference architectures, and guardrails for the secure development and deployment of AI systems across the enterprise.

Adversarial AI Testing Program

• Oversee the Company's AI red team capability, ensuring systematic adversarial testing of AI models, AI-enabled applications, and AI infrastructure before and after deployment.

• Ensure testing methodologies align with industry frameworks such as NIST AI Risk Management Framework, MITRE ATLAS, and OWASP Top 10 for LLMs.

• Coordinate with external partners, consultants, and bug bounty programs for specialized AI security assessments as needed.

Emerging Technology Risk

• Monitor the technology landscape for emerging risks and opportunities, including quantum computing readiness, post-quantum cryptography, novel adversary techniques, and new attack surfaces introduced by evolving enterprise technology.

• Advise Cyber Defense leadership and the CISO on the security implications of emerging technology trends and recommend proactive measures.

• Represent the Company's cybersecurity perspective in cross-functional emerging technology forums and industry working groups.

People Leadership & Team Development

• Build, lead, and develop a high-performing team of AI security and automation professionals.

• Set clear performance expectations, provide regular coaching and feedback, and create career development paths for team members.

• Foster a culture of innovation, technical excellence, and continuous learning within the team.

• Manage goals, objectives, vendor relationships, and resource planning for the AI Cyber Programs function.

Qualifications

• Minimum 12–15 years of progressive cybersecurity experience, with at least 5 years in leadership roles and significant hands-on experience applying AI and machine learning to security operations.

• Demonstrated experience building and deploying AI-driven security capabilities in a large, complex enterprise environment, including agentic AI, automated detection and response, or AI-assisted threat analysis.

• Strong technical understanding of AI and machine learning fundamentals, including large language models, ML pipelines, agentic frameworks, prompt engineering, and adversarial AI techniques.

• Working knowledge of AI security risks, including prompt injection, data poisoning, model inversion, training data extraction, and supply chain risks in AI/ML toolchains.

• Familiarity with AI governance and risk frameworks such as NIST AI RMF, ISO/IEC 42001, MITRE ATLAS, and OWASP Top 10 for LLMs.

• Experience with emerging technology risk assessment, including quantum computing implications for cryptography and security.

• Strong executive presence with the ability to translate complex technical topics into clear, actionable language for senior leadership and cross-functional partners.

• Track record of building and leading technical teams, including hiring, mentoring, and developing talent in a fast-moving domain.

• Relevant certifications such as CISSP, CISM, GIAC (any), or AI-specific credentials (e.g., IAPP AIGP) are preferred.

Education

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Cybersecurity, Engineering, Data Science, or related technical field required.

• Master's degree in a relevant discipline, or equivalent professional experience and certifications, highly desirable.

Reporting Relationship

Reports to the Senior Director, Cyber Defense, within the Chief Information Security Office (CISO) organization.

Direct reports include the Cyber AI Automation Engineer and the AI Red Team Senior Manager, with the team expected to grow as the program matures.

Location

Atlanta, GA (Global Headquarters)
Relocation assistance available for qualified candidates.

Travel

Estimated up to 10% travel, primarily domestic, with occasional travel for industry conferences, vendor engagements, and cross-functional working sessions.