Chief AI Officer (CAIO) / Head of AI-ML

CONFIDENTIAL RETAINED SEARCH

Search Reference: TNF-LS-CAIO-2026 | Enterprise AI Leadership Mandate, Life Sciences

CHIEF AI OFFICER (CIAO) / HEAD OF AI-ML

ABOUT THIS SEARCH

Top Notch Finders has been retained on an exclusive and strictly confidential basis to identify a Chief AI Officer for a client in the San Diego / CaliBaja life sciences corridor. To protect the interests of our client and of every candidate who engages with us, the identity of the company is disclosed only to qualified candidates under a confidentiality agreement. All inquiries and applications are received and managed solely by Top Notch Finders.

POSITION SNAPSHOT

• Company profile: AI-driven drug discovery, digital health, or life sciences technology company.
• Reports to: CEO or CSO.
• Location: San Diego / CaliBaja region; specifics disclosed to qualified candidates.

THE OPPORTUNITY

The Chief AI Officer defines and executes enterprise AI strategy across R&D, discovery, and clinical operations, an emerging C-suite function created in response to accelerating AI investment and a persistent execution gap in scaling AI beyond pilots.

KEY RESPONSIBILITIES

• Define enterprise-wide AI/ML strategy spanning drug discovery, clinical development, and operations.
• Lead multidisciplinary teams across AI/ML engineering, data science, and life sciences domain experts.
• Evaluate and deploy transformer-based architectures, generative AI, and multi-modal data platforms.
• Partner with the CSO/CMO to embed AI tools into discovery and clinical decision-making workflows.
• Ensure responsible AI governance, data privacy, and regulatory compliance for AI-driven tools.
• Represent AI strategy and platform capability to investors, partners, and the board.
• Build internal upskilling programs to close organizational AI capability gaps.

REQUIRED QUALIFICATIONS

• Advanced degree in computer science, AI/ML, biomedical informatics, or a related field.
• Deep technical expertise in machine learning, generative AI, and multi-modal data architectures.
• Experience deploying AI systems within a regulated industry (life sciences, healthcare, or pharma).
• Track record of leading multidisciplinary technical teams.
• Ability to translate technical AI capability into business and clinical value for non-technical stakeholders.
• Candidates from Director through full C-suite level will be considered depending on company stage.

CONFIDENTIALITY AND HOW TO APPLY

This is a discreet, retained engagement. Your candidacy will never be presented to any organization without your explicit prior authorization, and no application will be visible to the hiring company at this stage. Accomplished AI and data science leaders are invited to submit a resume in confidence through the Top Notch Finders website. Please reference search code TNF-LS-CAIO-2026 in your submission. Do not include patient-identifiable, trial-blinded, or other confidential clinical information of any kind in your application materials. Only candidates whose backgrounds align closely with the mandate will be contacted.