AI Governance Lead

Job Description

The mission:

The AI Enablement team in our Digital Center of Excellence is looking for an AI Governance Lead. Your mission is to make responsible AI practical: helping Konecranes use and scale AI securely, compliantly and with clear accountability, without turning governance into unnecessary friction.

AI is rapidly moving from individual assistants and models to solutions that combine data, models, agents, tools and enterprise systems. This creates new opportunities, but also new operational, security, data, model and third-party risks. In this role, you will translate those risks and evolving requirements into clear decisions, proportionate controls and technical guardrails that teams can apply in practice.

This is a hands-on, cross-functional lead role. You will work across business units, IT, Security, Architecture, Data Privacy, Legal, Compliance and Internal Audit, and partner closely with AI product owners, architects and development teams. You will be part of AI Enablement and report to the Director, AI Enablement.

What you'll do:

1) Shape and run practical AI governance:

• Develop and continuously improve Konecranes-wide AI governance, including AI instructions, usage guidelines, decision rights, risk tiering, controls and accountability.
• Operate a clear, risk-based AI governance model that supports both rapid exploration and production-grade AI solutions.
• Help embed AI governance into existing enterprise risk, security, privacy, architecture, procurement and delivery processes rather than creating a separate parallel bureaucracy.

2) Lead AI triage, risk assessment and lifecycle oversight:

• Run AI triage and facilitate risk assessments for new AI features, applications, use cases and significant changes to existing solutions.
• Assess operational, security, data, model and third-party risks, including misuse, unclear accountability, data leakage, excessive permissions, prompt injection, unintended actions and reliance on external providers.
• Maintain a practical view of AI systems, owners, risk classifications, required controls and lifecycle status from idea through deployment and retirement.
• Support AI incident handling and ensure that lessons learned are translated into improved guidance and controls.

3) Turn requirements into technical and operational guardrails:

• Translate regulatory, security and risk requirements into usable technical guidance, review criteria and reusable patterns for AI teams.
• Work with architects and engineers to strengthen controls covering identity and access, data flows, tool and API/MCP permissions, logging, monitoring, evaluation, human oversight and safe failure modes.
• Review real AI solution designs and help teams identify proportionate actions that make an initiative safe and production-ready.
• Promote a pragmatic “yes, if” approach by showing teams what must change to move an initiative forward.

4) Govern third-party AI and emerging technologies:

• Support vendor, SaaS and third-party AI assessments as part of procurement and technology evaluations.
• Help define expectations for external models, AI features, agents, connectors and other composable AI components, including due diligence, access, data use, contractual safeguards and ongoing oversight.
• Monitor changes in AI technologies, threats, regulation and standards, and convert relevant developments into concrete actions for Konecranes.

5) Build capability and communicate risk clearly:

• Act as a trusted advisor for business and technology teams on responsible, secure and compliant AI use.
• Design and deliver practical training and guidance for different audiences, from AI builders and product owners to business leaders.
• Communicate AI risk posture, material decisions and improvement priorities clearly to senior stakeholders.

Qualifications

What you should bring:

You are likely a strong fit if you communicate fluently in English and recognize yourself in all or most of the following:

• Relevant experience: Approximately 7+ years of experience across areas such as AI, software engineering, information security, enterprise architecture, technology risk, governance or assurance in a complex organization.
• Practical AI understanding: Solid understanding of generative AI, AI agents, including how AI solutions are built, integrated, deployed and operated. You can reason about data, models, prompts, retrieval, agents, tools, APIs and human oversight.
• Security and architecture grounding: Good command of secure architectures, identity and access management, APIs, cloud services, logging, monitoring, software delivery and risk assessment. You do not need to be the deepest specialist in every area, but you must be able to challenge a design constructively.
• Governance and regulatory literacy: Sufficient knowledge of the EU AI Act, GDPR and relevant frameworks and standards such as NIST AI RMF, ISO 27001 and OWASP guidance for LLM and agentic applications.
• Translation into practice: Demonstrated ability to turn regulatory, risk or security requirements into proportionate controls, technical guidance and decisions that teams can actually follow.
• Clear communication: Ability to explain complex AI and security topics in plain language to engineers, business leaders and control functions alike.
• Pragmatic mindset: You think in risks, trade-offs and evidence rather than relying on checklists alone. You are comfortable taking ownership, working hands-on and improving the model as technology and regulation evolve.

Nice to have:

• Background in AI/ML engineering, software development, information security or enterprise architecture.
• Experience assessing cloud-based AI services, third-party platforms or AI-enabled SaaS products.
• Experience in a global industrial environment, including manufacturing, engineering, service, product safety or OT/IT contexts.
• Fluent in Finnish is a plus.

Additional Information

Why join us?

Many organizations are hiring for AI governance. Few offer the chance to govern AI where it connects to physical equipment, global service operations and industrial customers, and to do it while the operating model is still being built. At Konecranes, you will not inherit a finished framework to maintain. You will design it, run it and see it applied in real solutions.

• Build it, not just maintain it: Konecranes is moving AI from experiments into automated, everyday operations, and the governance that makes this possible is still being shaped. You will define the guardrails, decision rights and risk tiering that let AI scale, with real influence over how they work rather than only a mandate to enforce them.
• Visibility and influence: You will report directly to the Director, AI Enablement, and work closely with business units, IT, Security, Architecture, Data Privacy, Legal, Compliance and Internal Audit. You will present AI risk posture and key decisions to senior stakeholders, so your judgment shapes how the company makes AI decisions.
• Governance with a mandate to enable: Responsible AI at Konecranes is treated as an enabler of sustainable business value. The goal is a pragmatic “yes, if” approach, built into existing risk, security, architecture and delivery processes rather than run as a separate bureaucracy. Your role is to help good initiatives move forward safely.

Interested?

If you want to help Konecranes scale AI with practical governance, sound risk decisions and technical guardrails, we would be glad to hear from you.

Please submit your application in English via the Konecranes careers page, including your resume and a cover letter describing:

• Why you would be a good fit for this role.
• An example of an AI, security or technology risk you identified, how you assessed it and what action followed.
• An example of how you translated a regulatory, security or governance requirement into a practical control or technical solution.

We will start reviewing applications during the application period. Due to GDPR requirements, we cannot accept applications by email.

Please apply via link "Apply" -link below by 2nd of December 2026 at latest, we start to interview candidates already before this.

For additional information about the role: Niina Hagman, Director, AI Enablement, niina.hagman [at] konecranes.com.

For recruitment process questions: Mihaela Ban , Global Talent Acquisition Specialist, mihaela.ban [at] konecranes.com.

Konecranes moves what matters. We are a global leader in material handling solutions, serving a broad range of customers across multiple industries. We consistently set the industry benchmark, from everyday improvements to the breakthroughs at moments that matter most, because we know we can always find a safer, more productive and sustainable way. That's why, with 16 000+ professionals in over 50 countries, we are trusted every day to lift, handle and move what the world needs.

Konecranes is committed to ensuring that all employees and job applicants are treated fairly in an environment which is free from any form of discrimination.