Senior Director – IT Business Partner, Legal & Compliance

We are seeking a senior, enterprise-level technology leader to partner with the Legal and Compliance leadership teams and lead AI and technology-driven transformation of how AstraZeneca protects, governs and advises the business at global scale and in a highly regulated environment.  This role sits at the intersection of legal and regulatory strategy, technology innovation and executive leadership. You will be a trusted advisor to the General Counsel organisation and the Chief Compliance Officer organisation, shaping how AI, agents, data and modern platforms transform legal operations, contract and matter management, e-discovery, governance, risk and compliance, and ethics and assurance.  This is not a traditional IT delivery role. It is a business-embedded, outcome-led leadership position for someone who can influence at the top table, translate legal and compliance priorities into action, and scale AI and digital transformation with pace, discipline and trust; building and leading a high-calibre, product-centric Legal & Compliance IT team that orchestrates a world-class partner ecosystem, and proving in partnership with the business on how technology value is unlocked.  You will bring deep legal technology expertise and a genuine AI-first mindset: someone who starts from what AI makes possible rather than from today’s process, thinks innovatively about how the function can be fundamentally transformed, and earns influence through domain credibility with lawyers, compliance professionals and technologists alike.  Key Responsibilities: Executive Partnership & Influence  • Serve as the primary technology and transformation partner to the General Counsel, Chief Compliance Officer and their leadership teams.  • Act as a credible thought partner at executive level, shaping priorities and influencing investment decisions.  • Translate complex legal, regulatory and risk challenges into clear, outcome-driven technology strategies and multi-year roadmaps.  AI-First Transformation & Innovation  • Champion an AI-first mindset across Legal and Compliance and IT: default to AI-enabled and agentic approaches when redesigning work, and challenge teams to reimagine processes rather than digitise existing ones.  • Bring innovative, original thinking to how the function operates from AI-assisted lawyering and autonomous compliance monitoring to intelligent self-service for the business and turn ideas into pilots, products and scaled capabilities.  • Use domain expertise to influence and inspire Legal and Compliance leaders, earning credibility by speaking their language, understanding professional, ethical and regulatory constraints, and showing what is practically possible.  • Track the legal tech and AI market, including start-ups, incumbents and emerging regulation, and translate it into differentiated advantage for AstraZeneca.    AI & Technology Transformation at Scale  • Lead enterprise-grade AI and digital initiatives across Legal and Compliance from experimentation to sustained value, driving the shift from proof of concept to proof of value with measurable outcomes.  • Identify and scale high-impact AI, agentic automation and analytics use cases; for example contract analysis and generation, legal research, matter and spend intelligence, regulatory change monitoring, continuous controls monitoring and investigations support.  • Redesign legal and compliance processes around AI-enabled ways of working, so that expert time moves from administration to judgement, advice and insight.  Legal Tech & Platform Strategy  • Set the strategy and evolution path for the Legal and Compliance technology estate including GRC, e-discovery, contract lifecycle, matter and document management, policy, ethics and case management platforms;