Vice President Research, AI Planning and Operations

Role overview

IDC is seeking a Vice President, Research, Planning & Operations to join its AI Economics research team. The role will help enterprise leaders prioritize investments in artificial intelligence (AI), understand the full cost of deployment and operation, and measure business value across a portfolio of business processes and use cases.

We are looking for a senior practitioner who has held direct responsibility for the financial and operational outcomes of AI deployments in large organizations, across multiple business functions and domains. You will bring that experience into independent research, financial models, and executive advice for chief information officers (CIOs), chief financial officers (CFOs), and business leaders.

Responsibilities

• Contribute to the research agenda for enterprise AI economics, drawing on deployment experience to address investment prioritization, budgeting, forecasting, cost management, and value realization across business functions.
• Help develop and validate IDC AI economic models and methods covering cost structures, value realization, unit economics, payback, and scenario analysis. Distinguish initial investment from recurring costs, and forecast benefits from measured outcomes.
• Advise CIOs, CFOs, and business leaders on AI portfolio decisions, including build or buy choices, deployment options, funding, scaling, and when to redesign or discontinue use cases. Explain assumptions, uncertainty, and financial trade-offs.
• Build benchmarks and case studies across horizontal business functions and domain-specific processes. Analyze how adoption, workflow changes, output quality, human oversight, and risk affect cost and realized business value.
• Partner with the IDC sourcing advisory team to incorporate ongoing price benchmarks and commercial terms into economic models, including their effects on cost at scale.
• Produce syndicated and custom research, brief clients, and represent IDC in executive discussions and industry events. Translate evidence from enterprise deployments into clear, defensible research and practical guidance.

Required qualifications

• Senior practitioner experience leading AI deployments in large organizations, with direct responsibility or defined shared accountability from business case and funding through production, adoption, and post-deployment performance. Candidates must explain their own decisions and resulting outcomes.
• Hands-on delivery across multiple distinct business functions or domains, including horizontal corporate workflows and domain-specific operational processes. Examples include finance, procurement, human resources, customer service, and supply chain or industry operations. Experience within one industry is acceptable; multiple projects within one functional silo do not meet the breadth requirement.
• Direct responsibility for AI budgets, forecasts, and investment models covering capital and operating expenditure, cost structures, value realization, unit economics, and sensitivity analysis. Experience tracking actual costs and benefits against forecasts and revising assumptions as adoption and scale change.
• Detailed knowledge of lifecycle costs: data, integration, software and model licensing, compute, implementation, evaluation and monitoring, security and governance, adoption, human oversight, and ongoing support. Ability to model unit cost at different volumes and service levels, and explain the financial implications of AI platform, deployment, and sourcing choices.
• Evidence of measuring and realizing business value. Ability to distinguish cash savings, cost avoidance, capacity released, revenue or margin contribution, and service or risk improvements; establish baselines and benefit owners; and address attribution, timing, and double counting.
• Experience presenting to and advising both CIOs and CFOs on AI investments, funding, operating costs, and realized value, supported by strong working relationships with finance, technology, and business leaders.
• Ability to produce clear research and executive presentations, evaluate financial and operational data, normalize survey and benchmark findings, and turn lessons from individual deployments into defensible models and broader guidance.
• Candidates may come from enterprise operating roles or consulting firms. Consulting candidates must demonstrate hands-on delivery for large enterprise clients, with identifiable responsibility for implementation economics and measurement of results after launch.
• A bachelor's degree is required.

Preferred qualifications

• Experience publishing research, developing reusable economic models, or advising multiple enterprise clients; experience with generative AI and agentic AI.
• A master's degree in a relevant field.

Location and travel

Travel of approximately 25-30% is expected.

Why This Role Stands Out

At IDC, your work helps shape how the world understands technology and where it goes next. You collaborate with curious, high-caliber colleagues who value rigor, integrity, and shared success. As the premier global provider of trusted technology intelligence, IDC equips business and technology leaders with the evidence they need to make confident decisions. Our insights inform strategy, investment, and innovation across industries and regions.

Recognized by IIAR as Analyst Firm of the Year for five consecutive years, IDC sets the standard for credibility and impact. With more than 1,000 analysts worldwide and a truly global perspective, we combine deep expertise with practical relevance. Here, your ideas matter, your voice is heard, and your contributions provide the insights leaders rely on every day. It is meaningful work, backed by a culture that supports growth, collaboration, and long-term career development with a globally respected brand.

Equal Opportunity Employer

IDC is committed to providing equal employment opportunities for all qualified persons. Employment eligibility verification required. We participate in E-Verify.