Head of Automation & AI Enablement, Chief Administrative Office
Janus Henderson · Denver
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- Head of Automation & AI Enablement, Chief Administrative Office
- City: Denver
- Division: CAO Management
Why work for us?
A career at Janus Henderson is more than a job, it’s about investing in a brighter future together.
Our Mission at Janus Henderson is to help clients define and achieve superior financial outcomes through differentiated insights, disciplined investments, and world-class service. We will do this by protecting and growing our core business, amplifying our strengths and diversifying where we have the right.
Our Values are key to driving our success, and are at the heart of everything we do:
Clients Come First - Always | Execution Supersedes Intention | Together We Win | Diversity Improves Results | Truth Builds Trust
If our mission, values, and purpose align with your own, we would love to hear from you!
Your opportunity
The Chief Administrative Office (CAO) brings together a diverse set of corporate functions, including Legal, Strategic Sourcing and Contracts, Internal Audit, Brand and Central Marketing, Corporate Communications and Client Experience. Each team is at a different stage in using technology and AI, and the opportunity to work smarter is significant.
As Head of Automation & AI Enablement, you will report directly to the Chief Administrative Officer and General Counsel and build the CAO's automation and AI platform from the ground up. You will work closely with the CAO and with teams across the division to understand how work gets done, identify where automation and AI can add the most value, decide with the CAO where to focus, and then deliver. This is a hands-on leadership role for someone who is equally comfortable mapping a process on a whiteboard, making a judgment call on priorities, and rolling up their sleeves to get a solution live. The Legal team will be a particular focus, and you will bring the patience and understanding needed to partner with attorneys and legal professionals.
You will:
- Partner with the CAO and function leaders to understand how work is done across the division, driving or refreshing workflow and process maps where they do not yet exist.
- Identify automation and AI opportunities from those maps and run a single, transparent intake and pipeline for ideas from across CAO.
- Own a clear prioritisation method (value, effort, risk, data readiness and dependencies) and make and defend recommendations on where the team should focus.
- Translate priority opportunities into practical solutions, from quick wins with existing tools such as Microsoft 365 Copilot to agents, workflow tools and system integrations delivered with Technology partners.
- Prototype, configure, test and launch solutions yourself where practical, working with urgency alongside Technology, data and vendor teams.
- Build a reusable CAO automation platform of shared components, templates, prompt libraries, standards and documentation, so each new use case is delivered faster than the last.
- Make Legal a first-year priority: learn contract, matter, disclosure, governance and outside counsel workflows, and deliver automation that supports professional judgment and protects privilege and confidentiality.
- Meet teams where they are, from early adopters to those new to AI, building trust, coaching colleagues, and growing a network of functional champions.
- Build strong partnerships with Technology, Data, Information Security, Risk, Compliance and the firm's enterprise AI programme to align CAO work with firm standards and avoid duplication.
- Define success measures for each initiative (such as hours returned, cycle time, quality and risk reduction), and report progress and realised benefits to the CAO and CAO leadership team.
- Ensure solutions meet the firm's AI, data and model risk governance requirements, with clear human ownership of outputs.
- Carry out other duties as assigned.
- What success looks like in your first year
- A CAO-wide view of priority workflows and a ranked automation and AI pipeline agreed with the CAO.
- Multiple solutions live in the Legal team, with measured benefits.
- A repeatable intake-to-adoption delivery method in use across the division.
- Regular benefits reporting that shows CAO leadership where automation is paying off and where to invest next.
- What to expect when you join our firm
- Hybrid working and reasonable accommodations
- Generous Holiday policies
- Paid volunteer time to step away from your desk and into the community
- Support to grow through professional development courses, tuition/qualification reimbursement and more
- All-inclusive approach to Diversity, Equity and Inclusion
- Maternal/paternal leave benefits and family services
- Complimentary subscription to Headspace - the mindfulness app
- Corporate membership to ClassPass and other health and well-being benefits
- Unique employee events and programs including a 14er challenge
- Complimentary beverages, snacks and all employee Happy Hours
- Must have skills
- Significant experience, typically 10 or more years, in business operations, transformation, process excellence or legal operations, including a track record of delivering automation or AI solutions that changed how a team works.
- Hands-on experience mapping current and future state processes and redesigning them.
- Practical working knowledge of automation and AI tools (workflow automation, low-code platforms, generative AI and agents), sufficient to design solutions, make credible build-versus-buy calls and challenge vendors.
- Proven ability to prioritise a portfolio of opportunities by value and to make sound judgment calls in ambiguous situations.
- Experience driving adoption and change with experienced professionals who have varying comfort with technology.
- Excellent communication skills, with the ability to translate between business, legal and technology audiences and to influence at all l