Head of Frontier AI Risk

Location: Remote, global, preference for Japan, Republic of Korea, Singapore or Indonesia

Engagement: Full-time

Reports to: CEO

Team: Senior individual contributor, working across AISA's research, training and convening workstreams

About AI Safety Asia

AISA builds the governance capacity that lets Asia's middle powers shape how frontier AI is developed, deployed and governed, rather than importing someone else's rules along with the technology. The region's governments are writing their first binding AI rules while holding real leverage over the global AI supply chain — chip fabrication, advanced memory, data centres, subsea cables, and some of the world's largest deployment markets. That leverage is scattered: each government negotiates alone, with the same handful of external suppliers, on those suppliers' information.

AISA runs three connected activities: research, capacity building and convening. Research sets the agenda and supplies the scenarios; capacity building equips the director-level officials who draft the rules; convening puts senior decision-makers inside the problem and turns the outcome into standing mechanisms. Since March 2025 we have delivered 21 programmes, including senior officials trained across national ministries and scenario exercises for senior officials and ambassadors in Geneva and at the Biological Weapons Convention, with partners including Brookings, Chatham House and the UK's FCDO.

AISA is part of UNESCO's Global Civil Society Organizations and Academic Network on AI Ethics and Policy, a member of the World Economic Forum's AI Governance Alliance, an official affiliate of IASEAI, and a partner organisation of Partnership on AI.

Purpose of the role

To be AISA's authoritative voice on frontier AI risk: briefing senior government stakeholders across Asia, translating AI research into policy priorities that withstands technical scrutiny, and shaping the wider research agenda so the evidence base for AI policy in the region gets better.

This role encompasses a lot of different skills and experiences, the technical fluency to read a system card or critique an evaluation report and the policy confidence to brief a minister on what it means to them.

What you will do

Policy briefing and senior government engagement (~40%)

• Brief ministers, permanent secretaries, regulators, AI safety institute leadership and senior officials across Asia on frontier AI capabilities, risks and governance options, in person and in writing; translate technical developments into decision-relevant advice
• Produce briefing notes, option papers and technical explainers pitched at senior non-technical readers, and serve as a trusted, non-partisan advisor to governments that lack in-house frontier AI expertise
• Design and deliver technical content for AISA's capacity building programmes and provide technical substance for convenings, tabletop exercises and Track 1.5 dialogues, including scenario realism and post-exercise analysis

Conducting policy research (~35%)

• Lead AISA's research on frontier AI risk and its governance: dangerous-capability evaluations and their limits, safety cases and assurance, agentic systems and autonomy, misuse pathways including cyber and biosecurity, loss-of-control risk, power concentration and lock-in, compute and supply-chain governance, incident reporting and post-deployment monitoring, and open-weight release questions
• Ground that work in Asian realities; regulatory capacity, adoption patterns, deployment contexts and strategic interests actually present in the region, and build the case for what a government needs to test, verify or refuse for itself
• Publish across registers (peer-reviewed, preprint, policy briefs and reports) and represent this work publicly at technical and policy venues, in the press where appropriate, and in multilateral processes

Informing and shaping research (~25%)

• Set the technical direction of AISA's wider research portfolio and act as technical reviewer and quality bar for AISA outputs, including work from colleagues, fellows and commissioned researchers
• Advise AISA leadership on where the field is heading and what it means for our strategy

Who we are looking for

We realise this is a rare combination of expertise, we'd still encourage you to apply if you don't tick every box.

Essential

• Real technical depth in frontier AI — you understand how modern frontier systems are trained, evaluated and deployed, and can assess capability claims on the evidence; typically from research or engineering work on frontier or near-frontier systems, evaluations or safety work at a lab, institute or serious academic group, for example completed a program like MATS or ARENA.
• Substantive policy experience — you have worked with or inside government, a regulator, an international organisation or a policy institute, and understand how policy gets made
• Experience in Asia — significant professional experience across Asian jurisdictions and a working understanding of how AI policy is being made in the region
• Command of a senior room — the presence and judgement to brief a minister and be challenged, including the confidence to say what is not known
• Excellent written English, specifically for senior officials: short, precise, and free of jargon
• Independence and self-direction, comfortable setting your own agenda in a small, distributed, fast-moving organisation
• Non-partisan integrity — commitment to honest technical advice in the public interest, including when inconvenient for AISA, industry, or the prevailing narrative

Desirable

• Published research on AI risk, evaluations, safety or governance
• Experience with an AI safety institute, a national AI regulator, or a frontier lab's safety, policy or evaluations function
• Experience of multilateral processes (UN, OECD, GPAI, G20, APEC, ASEAN or the AI summit series)
• Working proficiency in an Asian language in addition to English
• Experience commissioning or supervising research, or building a research programme
• Track record of translating technical work for non-technical audiences

Terms and practicalities

• Structure: Full-time.
• Location: Fully remote and open globally, provided you can maintain substantial working-hours overlap with Asian time zones - preference for Japan, Republic of Korea, Singapore or Indonesia (but not essential)
• Travel: Regular regional and international travel, roughly one trip per month on average, concentrated around convenings and briefings.
• Compensation: Competitive, benchmarked to experience and location. Reasonable pre-approved expenses reimbursed.
• Term: Permanent, subject to an initial review period.

Integrity, independence and conflicts of interest

AISA's credibility depends on governments trusting that our advice is not shaped by commercial interest. Candidates will be asked to declare current and recent advisory roles, board positions, equity holdings and other engagements, including any with AI developers, so potential conflicts can be identified and managed. Our team is a diverse mix of diplomacy, private tech, NGO and labs and we see disclosed experience and interests as an asset.

How to apply

Send the below to contact@aisafety.asia with subject "Head of Frontier AI Risk — [Your Name]"

• CV
• Short cover letter - max two pages, covering why this role, where the current Asia AI-risk policy conversation is getting something wrong, and your first-six-months priorities
• Writing sample; ideally something written for a decision-maker

Process:

1. Initial conversation with AISA leadership (~45 min)
2. Technical discussion (~45 min)
3. Scenario-based briefing exercise (~45 min)
4. References

We may also include a paid work test, this will be confirmed as part of the process.

Applications reviewed on a rolling basis, with a deadline of 27 September; informal, confidential enquiries welcome before applying.

AI Safety Asia is committed to building a team that reflects the diversity of the region we serve. We welcome applications from candidates of all backgrounds.