Director – AI Vendor Integrations & Standards

Position Purpose: Leads Centene's vendor AI review and integration standards function, accountable for ensuring that third-party and vendor-supplied AI capability entering the enterprise is properly assessed, architecturally suitable for Centene's AI Control Plane, and held to defined integration and interoperability standards over the life of the relationship. Directs vendor AI intake review and technical assessment in coordination with AI Intake, Enterprise AI Governance, Security Risk Management/TPRM, Procurement, and Legal, ensuring AI functionality is disclosed, evaluated, and routed through the required review paths before contract execution or deployment. Determines and documents each vendor solution's suitability to the AI Control Plane across the defined integration points — intake assessment, control adherence, vendor agents running on Centene's agentic framework, vendor agents interacting with LLMs through the Centene AI Gateway, and network-level AI observability. Ensures compliance with Centene's standards for vendor AI integration, including open-standard and protocol expectations such as MCP, model routing and gateway use, telemetry and observability schemas, agent registration, and cost attribution. Owns ongoing vendor AI control plane adherence — monitoring conformance, managing model-change notification, and driving remediation when vendor solutions drift from approved patterns. Leads a team and serves as the enterprise's AI voice in vendor AI evaluations, bake-offs, relationship management, and contract negotiations.

Key Details: Centene is going through our biggest transformation in our history to become the market leader, and AI is the key tool to enable the transformation.  This is an exciting opportunity to use AI to transform a Fortune 20 company, and to change healthcare for the better! This is a remote role within the United States, requiring business travel 2-3 times per quarter. Candidates must be authorized to work in the U.S. without the need for employment-based visa sponsorship now or in the future. Sponsorship and future sponsorship are not available for this opportunity, including employment-based visa types H-1B, L-1, O-1, H-1B1, F-1, J-1, OPT, or CPT.

• Provides leadership and management oversight for vendor AI assessment, integration architecture, and standards conformance across the enterprise AI portfolio. Defines the evaluation methodology and standards, leads the team performing assessments, partners across governance and risk functions, and is accountable for the technical suitability, interoperability, and ongoing control adherence of vendor-supplied AI at Centene.
• Leads intake review and assessment of vendor AI solutions, including new vendor AI, AI functionality being activated within existing vendor platforms, and scope changes to current vendor offerings — coordinating with AI Intake and Security Risk Management so the third-party intake and vendor risk assessment are engaged at the right point.
• Administers the vendor AI due diligence process, including the Vendor AI Questionnaires covering model identification, agentic behavior, AI lifecycle governance, testing and evaluation for accuracy and bias, data use and training, lineage, orchestration and data flow, retention, subprocessor chains, PHI/PII handling, MCP server inventory, and incident response.
• Determines and documents each vendor solution's suitability to Centene's AI Control Plane, selecting and validating the applicable integration pattern — agents on Centene's agentic framework, vendor-hosted agents routing model calls through the Centene AI Gateway, network-level observability, or a combination — and identifying gaps requiring remediation or exception.
• Assures compliance with Centene's vendor AI integration and interoperability standards, including open-standard and protocol expectations (MCP, open APIs), model routing, prompt and agent versioning and change approval, telemetry and trace schemas, and cost attribution and budget controls.
• Establishes the evaluation framework used in vendor AI bake-offs and competitive assessments, including scoring criteria, reference architecture fit, evidence quality expectations, and documented recommendations to business and technology sponsors.
• Conducts documentation review for vendor AI, assessing architecture, security, data flow, AI governance, and operational support materials for evidence-based claims, disclosed limitations, and explainability rather than marketing assertions.
• Partners with Procurement and Legal to define AI-specific contractual requirements, including AI governance and risk management clauses, incident response and SLA expectations, audit rights, restrictions on training against Centene data and context, and mandatory model-change notification.
• Owns ongoing vendor AI control plane adherence, including periodic conformance review, processing of vendor model and capability change notifications, re-assessment triggers when scope changes, and escalation and remediation when a vendor solution falls outside approved patterns.
• Ensures vendor AI systems and vendor-supplied agents are registered in the enterprise AI Inventory and Agent Registry with required metadata, risk tier, ownership, and lifecycle state, and that control evidence is available to support regulator, market conduct, and contractual evidence requests.
• Serves as the designated technical reviewer and escalation point for AI functionality identified during third-party intake, reducing returned intakes caused by undisclosed AI capability.
• Maintains and publishes vendor AI standards, reference integration patterns, required evidence lists, and routing guidance so business sponsors and vendors understand expectations before engagement begins.
• Recruits, develops, and leads a team of staff performing vendor AI assessment and integration design; sets technical standards and quality expectations for assessment work products.
• Partners across AI Enablement, Enterprise AI Governance, Security, Data & AI platform teams, Procurement, Legal, and business sponsors, representing Centene's technical position in vendor discussions and negotiations.
• Partners across AI Enablement, Enterprise AI Governance, Security, Data & AI platform teams, Procurement, Legal, and business sponsors, representing Centene's technical position in vendor discussions and negotiations.
• Performs other duties as assigned.
• Complies with all policies and standards.

Education/Experience:

• Requires a Bachelor's degree and 7+ years of related experience, including prior management experience.
• Or equivalent experience acquired through accomplishments of applicable knowledge, duties, scope and skill reflective of the level of this position.

Preferred:

• Experience vetting and implementing vendor solutions, preferably AI solutions. 
• Proven track record partnering across a large organization to build an effective vetting and evaluation process. 

Pay Range: $146,000.00 - $269,600.00 per year

At Centene, we connect people to the care they need to live healthier lives — and the work you do here makes that impact real every day. You’ll take on meaningful challenges that directly support individuals, families, and communities, building your skills while making healthcare more accessible and effective. It’s work with a purpose you can see, backed by a team committed to improving lives well beyond the workday.
 

Centene offers a comprehensive benefits package including: competitive pay, health insurance, 401K and stock purchase plans, tuition reimbursement, paid time off plus holidays, and a flexible approach to work with remote, hybrid, field or office work schedules.  Actual pay will be adjusted based on an individual's skills, experience, education, and other job-related factors permitted by law, including full-time or part-time status.  Total compensation may also include additional forms of incentives. Benefits may be subject to program eligibility.

Centene is an equal opportunity employer that is committed to diversity, and values the ways in which we are different. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability, veteran status, or other characteristic protected by applicable law.

Qualified applicants with arrest or conviction records will be considered in accordance with the LA County Ordinance and the California Fair Chance Act