Director, AI & Technology Systems Foresight

Research & Policy Center

CFA Institute's Research & Policy Center has established a Macro Systems & Foresight function to help the investment profession navigate a future shaped by disruption and uncertainty.

Foresight is not forecasting. Rather than predicting a single outcome, the team examines material structural changes already reshaping finance while developing multiple plausible futures across 5-, 10-, and 20-plus-year horizons. It maps the mechanisms through which change may propagate and considers what alternative trajectories could mean for finance. That work helps frame RPC’s research, standards, advocacy, and thought leadership priorities and supports continued readiness as external conditions evolve.

As the team’s Senior AI and technology specialist, you’ll assess how artificial intelligence and other material technologies could structurally reshape global finance, including market and institutional structures, investment practice, professional roles, and standards.

This is about AI as a force of disruption to the financial system, not technology for its own sake. You’ll bring technical realism to the team’s thinking, challenging hype-driven narratives as readily as assumptions that underestimate the pace or significance of change, and translate technological developments into clear structural questions, hypotheses, scenarios, and implications for RPC to investigate and test.

A core purpose of the role is internal enablement. You’ll partner with research, standards, advocacy, and other RPC teams to stress-test assumptions, assess the future relevance of existing work, and understand how AI and other technological developments may affect their areas. You’ll contribute specialist technical expertise while ownership of broader strategy and substantive work remains with the relevant functional leaders.

You’ll also translate the team’s technical analysis into high-quality external thought leadership and contribute to senior industry discussions on AI, technology, and finance. External publication and representation are extensions of the underlying foresight work, not standalone objectives.

This is a senior individual-contributor role reporting to the Head, Macro Systems & Foresight and working as part of a small, multidisciplinary team of specialists.

• Provide deep technical analysis of AI and other material technological developments, prioritizing changes already affecting finance while maintaining disciplined awareness of emerging capabilities and technologies.

• Assess AI capability trajectories, architectures, model behavior, scaling dynamics, compute and data constraints, autonomy, control challenges, and institutional feasibility, distinguishing technically plausible developments from speculation or hype.

• Map how technological change could transmit through investment workflows, portfolio construction, risk management, financial institutions, market structure, professional roles, and standards.

• Translate technical developments into clear structural questions, hypotheses, critical uncertainties, and plausible future states that can inform shared foresight priorities and subsequent RPC research, standards, advocacy, and other work

• Contribute technical expertise to scenario development and stress-testing, ensuring assumptions about AI capability, adoption, governance, and institutional response remain credible and appropriately conditional.

• Identify relevant technical constraints, failure modes, governance challenges, and systemic risks, and assess what they may mean for finance, investment practice, and professional expectations.

• Partner with RPC functional teams to stress-test existing research, standards, guidance, advocacy positions, and other assets where AI or technological change may affect their continued relevance or fitness for purpose.

• Support RPC’s living-readiness discipline by identifying material changes in technology, capabilities, or adoption that should trigger reassessment of existing assumptions, positions, or assets

• Produce clear technical landscape assessments, executive briefings, and contributions to broader foresight outputs, and develop external thought leadership that translates complex technological change into accessible, decision-relevant implications for finance and the investment profession.

• Engage researchers, technologists, practitioners, governance experts, and institutional stakeholders to challenge assumptions, maintain current technical understanding, and strengthen the team’s analysis

• Deep expertise in artificial intelligence, AI systems, architectures, and evolving capability dynamics, with sufficient breadth to assess adjacent technological developments where relevant.

• Demonstrated ability to reason about AI as an evolving socio-technical system, connecting technical capability with adoption, institutions, governance, and real-world constraints.

• Strong understanding of AI capability trajectories, scaling dynamics, compute and data constraints, model behavior, autonomy, failure modes, and governance architectures.

• Familiarity with financial markets, investment management, or financial institutions, or demonstrated ability to apply deep technical expertise rapidly to unfamiliar domain contexts.

• The ability to distinguish credible developments from speculative or deterministic narratives, while staying open to change that challenges prevailing assumptions.

• The ability to explain complex technology clearly to non-technical and senior audiences, without jargon.

• Strong systems thinking, including the ability to trace how technological change may transmit through financial markets, institutions, investment workflows, professional practice, roles, and standards, while maintaining a system-level perspective rather than becoming confined to narrow applications

• Comfort operating across long time horizons and with incomplete evidence, together with disciplined judgment about what the available evidence supports and where technical trajectories remain uncertain.

• Exceptional writing and communication skills, with a track record of substantive analysis or thought leadership for sophisticated audiences.

• A collaborative style, strong stakeholder-management skills, and the ability to influence without authority, engage constructively with senior internal stakeholders and external technical experts, contribute specialist expertise to a multidisciplinary team, and publish in an institutional voice.

• Strong intellectual independence, curiosity, and disciplined judgment, including a willingness to challenge prevailing assumptions where technical evidence warrants it. Strategic foresight experience is a plus but not required.

This position may be based in eligible jurisdictions in the United States or United Kingdom.

At CFA Institute, we are committed to transparency and equity in our hiring process. In compliance with wage transparency laws in many of the jurisdictions in which we recruit, we provide the following information regarding compensation for this position: Expected salary range: $126,000 - $170,000 / £90,000 - £111,000 per year. All salary ranges are subject to adjustment based on experience, education, and other factors relevant to the position including location. Additional benefits include eligibility for an annual incentive bonus, a 12% employer contribution to a 401(k) or pension plan, and a comprehensive medical benefits package.

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We offer a comprehensive benefits package to support our employees, including health coverage, generous time off, competitive retirement plans, flexible work options, and wellbeing and development programs. You can learn more on our careers site: Working at CFA Institute | Comprehensive Benefits

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