AI Governance Practice Lead in Chelmsford, Essex

Everything you build here has your name on it. At EY, KPMG, Deloitte, or PwC, the AI governance frameworks you spend months building get filed under the firm's brand with a liability disclaimer. The partner signs the letter. The client remembers the firm's name. You move on to the next engagement. Norven Group is different. We are a sovereign expert institute — not a consultancy — whose Founding Fellows sign governance Verdicts that carry legal consequence for regulated institutions deploying AI. The assessment methodology underneath every Verdict is built by the person in this role. That person gets founding equity, a clear title trajectory, and the chance to define how institutional AI governance actually works.

ABOUT THE ROLE

This is the first operational hire. You sit between Norven's Founding Fellows — former FCA Directors, practising King's Counsel, AI safety researchers, Lloyd's underwriters — and the organisations that require their authority. You design the assessment framework. You run the analysis. You produce the draft Verdict the Fellow reviews and signs. You manage the client relationship end to end. You are not executing someone else's playbook. You are writing it.

Our clients span regulated financial institutions, enterprises, governments, sovereign bodies, and AI labs across the UK and EU — with GCC expansion underway. The right person brings deep expertise in one or more of these domains and the curiosity to develop across all of them.

WHO WE ARE LOOKING FOR

Two paths lead here.

• Path A — The Technical Governance Practitioner. You came from the technical side — ML engineer or data scientist who moved into AI governance delivery at a Big 4 AI Centre of Excellence. Forward-deployed at regulated institutions building governance frameworks as an external practitioner. You can read a model architecture and translate it into a specific SM&CR, EU AI Act, or sector regulatory compliance argument. Reference firms: EY AI, KPMG Lighthouse, Deloitte AI & Data, Accenture Applied Intelligence.
• Path B — The Regulatory Advisory Practitioner. Senior Manager at a Big 4 Responsible AI or AI Governance practice. You have delivered EU AI Act, SM&CR, FCA Consumer Duty, or equivalent frameworks to regulated institutions as the lead practitioner — in the room with the client, presenting findings, owning the engagement. Reference firms: Deloitte, EY, KPMG, PwC. Also: specialist AI governance firms, regulatory consultancies, or government AI advisory roles.

In both cases: you have personally built and delivered an AI governance assessment to an external organisation as the lead practitioner. Not contributed to one. Built it and delivered it.

ESSENTIAL

• 4–7 years at the intersection of AI governance and regulated sectors — Manager or Senior Manager level in a Big 4 AI practice, specialist AI governance firm, regulatory consultancy, or government AI body
• Has personally delivered a governance framework to an external organisation as lead practitioner
• Deep working knowledge of at least two of: EU AI Act, UK SM&CR, FCA Consumer Duty, GDPR, ISO42001, or equivalent sovereign AI frameworks
• Has managed client relationships at senior level — CRO, General Counsel, Chief Compliance Officer, or government equivalent
• Can produce structured assessment findings without direction on format or content — you write the rubric, not just apply one
• London-based

HIGHLY VALUED

• Cross-domain experience: financial services, enterprise, government, or AI lab governance
• GCC regulatory awareness: SDAIA, UAE AI Governance, ADGM frameworks
• ISO42001 Lead Implementer, IAPP AIGP, or equivalent credential
• Technical ML/AI background enabling deeper assessment at the model level
• Background in technology or regulatory law
• Published work in AI governance, AI policy, or regulatory compliance
• Experience with AI labs, sovereign AI programmes, or national AI strategy

WHAT WE OFFER

• Attractive base salary
• Revenue share on every Verdict you personally deliver — additive from month one
• Founding equity: milestone-vested share options reflecting your contribution to the institution
• Title trajectory: AI Governance Practice Lead → Director of AI Governance → VP / Chief Governance Officer
• Direct working access to ten Founding Fellows — named authorities across financial regulation, technology law, AI safety, insurance, and sovereign AI
• Work that carries real authority: Verdicts signed by named experts, not reports with disclaimers
• Expensed travel across UK, EU, and GCC for client and Fellow engagements

THE PROFILE WE RECOGNISE

You are technically sharp, regulation-literate, and operationally capable. Your work is good. But it carries someone else's brand and a firm's liability disclaimer — not a named authority's signature. You can see that the partner track has closed or is closing. You are asking whether there is a more meaningful way to apply what you have spent the last five years building. You want your output to mean something — across financial services, government, enterprise, or the AI labs that need independent governance credibility. You are comfortable with genuine ambiguity. Nothing here is fully built. The playbook is being written in parallel with the work. That is a feature, not a risk, if you are the right person.

HOW TO APPLY

Email with your CV and one paragraph answering this: "Describe one AI governance framework you built and delivered to an external organisation as the lead practitioner — what the institution was, what the framework covered, and what changed as a result." No cover letter. That one paragraph tells us everything. All applications reviewed personally by the Founder & Group CEO, Norven Group.