AI & Process Automation Manager
Hybrid – 2-3 days in our Canary Wharf Office
About Frive:
Frive stands for Food to Thrive – we help busy people thrive not only because our meals are healthy, balanced and made with 100% whole foods/ natural ingredients, but also because they’re ready to heat and eat in minutes – saving you an hour a day, or up to 7 hours a week, for what matters most. We’re the UK’s highest-rated meal prep brand, with over 20 million meals delivered, and we’re just getting started. We work with people from all different backgrounds and communities and recognise our own biases. We strive to create a strong sense of belonging and believe we will be better equipped to achieve our goals by building a team that approaches problems from different angles, using different perspectives and experiences to solve problems. All qualified applicants will be considered, and we have no regard for age, ethnicity, ability, gender, gender expression, gender identity, nationality, race, religion, or sexual orientation. The more the merrier, and together we can achieve greatness
Mission:
To make healthy eating convenient, delicious and accessible, whilst championing locally sourced and organic ingredients.
Vision:
To inspire a global shift towards a healthier society by changing eating habits and restoring food to its purest form.
Values:
· Take Ownership: We make independent decisions with confidence and ownership
· Be Transparent: We share information openly and with intention
· Communicate Openly: We communicate directly and honestly
· Deliver High Performance: We foster an environment that attracts, retains, and rewards high performance
· Be Agile: We encourage flexibility in our people by reducing blockers and prioritising their creativity and productivity
Role Overview
The AI & Process Automation Manager will own the discovery, design, and delivery of AI-driven automation across every business function. This is a deeply cross-functional role: you will embed yourself within Finance, Data, Operations, Marketing, Customer Service, HR, and Product to understand how work actually gets done, identify where manual effort can be eliminated or significantly reduced, and partner with subject matter experts to build automation that is both technically sound and practically adopted. Where others see spreadsheets and repetitive workflows, you will see automation pipelines. You will translate operational knowledge from SMEs into robust, AI-enhanced solutions, using tools like n8n, LLM integrations, APIs, and custom scripting to move processes from manual to automated, from slow to instant, and from error-prone to reliable. You will also own the AI tooling strategy across the business: chatbots, internal assistants, productivity tooling, and governance, ensuring every team has access to AI capabilities that meaningfully reduce workload and improve output quality.
Core Focus: Multi-Function Process Automation
This role places particular emphasis on acting as an automation partner to business functions, not a passive tool-builder waiting for requests, but a proactive investigator who goes into functions, learns the work, and drives change. Typical engagement with a function will follow this pattern:
· Discover: Sit with function leads and SMEs. Map existing processes end-to-end: inputs, outputs, decision points, pain points, frequency, and manual effort involved.
· Prioritise: Score opportunities by effort-to-automate vs. time-saved. Build a backlog ranked by ROI, feasibility, and cross-functional impact.
· Design: Co-design the automated solution with the SME. Select appropriate tooling (n8n, LLM APIs, scripts, integrations). Document the logic and define success criteria.
· Build: Develop, test, and iterate on the automation. Integrate AI where it adds genuine value — classification, extraction, generation, decision support.
· Embed: Hand over to the function with documentation and training. Monitor adoption and iterate based on feedback. Track impact in hours saved and cost reduced.
Core Responsibilities
1. Cross-Functional Process Discovery & Automation
· Act as the automation partner for Finance, Data, Operations, Marketing, Customer Service, HR, and Product. Core activities include:
· Proactively engage each function to map manual, repetitive, or high-effort processes — including financial reporting, data reconciliation, invoice processing, payroll prep, forecasting inputs, and operational handoffs.
· Work directly with SMEs to understand process nuance, edge cases, and interdependencies before designing automation.
· Translate operational knowledge into automation blueprints: workflow diagrams, trigger logic, input/output specs, and exception handling.
· Build and deploy automations using tools such as n8n, LLM APIs (e.g. Anthropic Claude, OpenAI), SQL integrations, and webhooks — ensuring solutions are maintainable and documented.
· Identify where AI adds genuine value over rules-based logic: document classification, data extraction, anomaly detection, natural language querying, and decision support.
· Maintain a prioritised automation backlog scored by ROI, feasibility, and cross-functional impact.
2. Finance & Data Operations Automation
· Given the volume of manual effort in Finance and Data workflows, this function receives dedicated focus:
· Partner with Finance to identify and automate recurring processes — month-end reporting, reconciliation, budget variance summaries, AP/AR data preparation, and board pack generation.
· Build LLM-assisted pipelines that extract insights from financial data and surface them in plain language to non-technical stakeholders.
· Develop text-to-SQL or natural language query interfaces that allow Finance and Operations teams to interrogate data without analyst bottlenecks.
· Automate data-sync processes between operational systems (e.g. ERP, CRM, subscription platforms) to reduce manual extraction and reduce error rates.
· Support the Data team in deploying and maintaining ML/AI models within operational workflows — including churn prediction, demand forecasting, and customer segmentation.
3. AI & Chatbot Performance Management
· Oversee internal and external chatbots, ensuring performance against CSAT, automation rate, containment rate, and resolution quality KPIs.
· Continuously audit conversation flows, model behaviour, and automation logic to reduce human intervention.
· Identify, test, and optimise prompts, integrations, and vendor capabilities.
· Implement A/B testing to monitor and improve chatbot efficiency and customer satisfaction.
4. Automation Strategy & Roadmap
· Own the company-wide automation roadmap, balancing quick wins with strategic, high-impact initiatives.
· Lead cross-functional automation projects end-to-end: scoping, build, testing, launch, and post-launch iteration.
· Proactively identify inefficiencies in fulfilment, support, finance, product management, and marketing workflows.
· Ensure alignment between automation priorities and company growth, operational, and cost objectives.
5. AI Governance, Quality & Compliance
· Establish and document best practices for safe, effective, and compliant use of AI tools across all functions.
· Conduct regular reviews of AI-driven outputs to ensure accuracy, brand alignment, and operational compliance.
· Lead risk assessments for automation initiatives — including data handling, model reliability, and fallback procedures.
· Monitor AI usage costs to ensure efficient utilisation across all deployed tools and workflows.
6. AI Evangelism, Training & Adoption
· Champion AI and automation across the organisation through workshops, drop-in sessions, and internal communications.
· Support all functions in adopting the right tools, prompting techniques, and workflow integrations.
· Build and maintain internal documentation, playbooks, and training materials for deployed automations.
· Act as the go-to expert for AI tooling questions across the business.
7. Monitoring, Analytics & Reporting
· Build dashboards tracking automation adoption, time savings, CSAT performance, and cost impact.
· Present insights and recommendations to leadership, highlighting trends, risks, and new opportunities.
· Quantify automation impact in hours saved, cost reductions, and quality improvements per function.
8. Key Performance Indicators
· Hours saved per function: Monthly manual effort eliminated across Finance, Ops, CS, and other functions.
· Automations deployed: Number of new automations shipped per quarter, tracked by function.
· Automation adoption rate: % of target users actively using deployed automations within 60 days.
· Process coverage: % of mapped manual processes that have been automated or are in progress.
· AI chatbot CSAT: Customer satisfaction score for automated interactions vs. human baseline.
· Containment rate: % of queries fully resolved by automation without human handoff.
· Cost of AI tooling per outcome: AI spend relative to measurable output (hours saved, errors reduced).
· Productivity uplift: Self-reported and measurable productivity improvements per function post-automation.
Experience & Skills
Essential
· Proven experience designing and building workflow automations — ideally across multiple business functions, not just a single team.
· Ability to engage non-technical SMEs, understand complex manual processes, and translate them into automation logic.
· Hands-on experience with automation platforms (n8n, Zapier, Make, or equivalent) and API integrations.
· Working knowledge of LLMs and AI APIs — prompt engineering, tool use, structured outputs, and model selection.
· Comfort with data: SQL queries, data structures, and working with structured/unstructured datasets.
· Strong communication and stakeholder management skills — able to run discovery sessions, present automation proposals, and train non-technical teams.
· Project management discipline: scoping, sequencing, and delivery of concurrent automation initiatives.
Desirable
· Experience automating Finance or Data operations workflows (reconciliation, reporting pipelines, data extraction).
· Familiarity with text-to-SQL, RAG pipelines, or other LLM-powered data interfaces.
· Experience in food subscription, e-commerce, or a similarly data-intensive operational environment.
· Technical comfort with Python or JavaScript for scripting within automation workflows.
· Familiarity with tools such as Zendesk, Intercom, Retool, Streamlit, or similar operational platforms.
· Understanding of ML model deployment in production (monitoring, retraining triggers, feedback loops).
Tools & Platforms
Familiarity with the following is advantageous.
· Automation: n8n, Zapier, Make, Webhooks & REST APIs, Python / JS scripting
· AI / LLM: Claude / Anthropic API, OpenAI / GPT APIs, LangChain / n8n AI nodes
· Data & Analytics: SQL, MySQL, BigQuery, Streamlit, Retool, Dashboards & BI tools
· Ops Platforms: Zendesk, Intercom, ERP / Finance systems, Subscription platforms
Full training on internal tooling will be provided.
Staff Benefits
· Private Medical Insurance
· 25 days Holiday + Public
· Bonus Scheme
· A discount on our amazing food
· Hybrid working pattern
· Enhanced parental leave
