Senior Manager, IT Communications & AI Evangelist

Sandisk is investing to become an AI-enabled enterprise. The technology is arriving faster than the organization is absorbing it, and the gap between what IT ships and what the business actually adopts is now the binding constraint on return from that investment. This role exists to close that gap.The Senior Manager, IT Communications & AI Evangelist owns enterprise awareness, adoption, and engagement for AI, cybersecurity, and digital transformation. The role leads communications strategy, runs the AI and Cyber Councils, produces IT town halls and executive forums, and drives the change management that turns platform availability into measured behavior change. Success is judged on adoption and sentiment movement, not on volume of communications produced.This is not a traditional communications role. It blends four disciplines: IT communications leadership, AI adoption ownership, change management practice, and executive engagement. The person in this seat is a technology translator who can connect CIO vision to business outcomes, and is equally credible presenting to an executive staff meeting and recording a one minute product explainer.

ESSENTIAL DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES:
1. AI Amplification and Evangelism
• Serve as the lead AI evangelist for the IT organization, building the narrative for AI platforms, capabilities, and use cases across systems, applications, and cybersecurity.
• Develop creative strategies that generate buzz and amplify AI momentum enterprise-wide, moving the organization from awareness to active daily use.
• Produce short-form content that people actually consume: one minute podcasts, product videos on AI capabilities in the works, and customer interviews on realized impact.
• Plan, design, and launch targeted, persona-based adoption campaigns differentiated by function, seniority, and technical fluency, extending the same approach to security training.
• Build a network of AI champions and ambassadors in the business, and convert their success stories into reusable proof points. 2. Council and Community Leadership
• Establish and run the enterprise AI Council to communicate AI platform and use-case changes across the enterprise, and to surface business demand back into the IT roadmap.
• Facilitate cross-functional participation across IT, Finance, HR, Operations, Engineering, and Sales, with active executive sponsorship at each session.
• Run the monthly Cyber Council, championing an AI and Security mindset across the organization and reinforcing responsible AI and security governance principles.
• Design and implement a measurement framework for employee pulse on the AI adoption curve, reporting movement rather than activity.
• Grow a self-sustaining practitioner community so adoption continues without central push. 3. Change Leadership
• Act as the change agent for enterprise technology initiatives: keeping the business informed on IT changes and feeding business needs back to IT.
• Organize town halls, LIVE meetings, and seminars featuring IT leaders on upcoming innovations, and design them as engagement events rather than broadcast slots.
• Build stakeholder engagement, communication, and adoption plans for major transformations, including change impact assessments and organizational readiness measures.
• Partner with HR, Learning, and business teams to align training, enablement, and incentives with the behaviors each program requires.
• Anticipate and address resistance directly, treating adoption friction as a signal to be fixed rather than a message to be repeated. 4. Communications and Channels
• Partner with Operations Communications teams to distribute across every available channel, including intranet, email, Teams, digital signage, and live events.
• Ensure consistent, timely messaging across AI, cybersecurity, applications, and enterprise systems, so the business receives one coherent IT voice.
• Develop executive communications: keynote messaging, leadership presentations, newsletters, blogs, and video.
• Maintain the editorial calendar and message architecture for the IT organization, sequencing announcements to avoid change fatigue. 5. Metrics and Governance
• Define and own adoption and engagement KPIs for AI, security culture, and IT change programs.
• Track platform usage depth, campaign effectiveness, training completion and efficacy, sentiment, and change readiness.
• Produce executive dashboards for the CIO and IT Leadership Team, and use the data to reallocate effort toward what is working.
REQUIRED
QUALIFICATIONS
• Education - Bachelor's degree in Communications, Marketing, Business, Information Technology, Organizational Change, or a related field.
• Experience - 10+ years in corporate or IT communications, change management, digital transformation, or technology program leadership, including 3+ years leading enterprise-wide programs in a global organization.
• Executive communication - Demonstrated ability to develop and deliver executive-level messaging, and to write and present for a C-suite audience with minimal direction.
• Storytelling - Proven track record translating complex technical subject matter into clear, compelling narratives for non-technical audiences.
• Adoption outcomes - Evidence of driving measurable organizational adoption and behavior change, not only message delivery. Candidates should be able to cite the metrics they moved.
• Stakeholder management - Experience managing senior stakeholders across multiple functions and influencing without formal authority.
• Content production - Hands-on capability across written, video, and audio formats, including comfort on camera and on microphone.
• Measurement. Working fluency in communications and adoption analytics, and the discipline to report outcomes honestly when a campaign underperforms.

PREFERRED
QUALIFICATIONS
• AI and GenAI programs - Direct experience launching or scaling enterprise AI, GenAI, or Copilot adoption programs, including familiarity with responsible AI and governance concepts.
• Cybersecurity awareness - Experience running security awareness, phishing simulation, or security culture programs in partnership with an Information Security organization.
• Certifications - Prosci or CCMP change management certification; PMP; recognized AI or GenAI credential.
• Executive support - Prior experience supporting a CIO, CTO, CDO, or CISO organization as a communications or chief-of-staff partner.
• Industry context - Background in semiconductor, hardware, high-tech manufacturing, or another engineering-led enterprise where the internal audience is technically sophisticated and skeptical of hype.
• Community building - Track record establishing councils, guilds, ambassador networks, or internal communities that outlived their launch campaign.
• Production skill - Practical ability with video editing, podcast production, or design tooling sufficient to produce quality content without full agency support.
• Global reach - Experience communicating across US, India, Malaysia, and other Asia-Pacific sites, including adapting messaging for distributed manufacturing and engineering populations.
• Advanced degree - MBA or master's degree in Communications, Organizational Development, or a related discipline.

#LI-RG1