Principal Data and AI Strategy Lead

Our Principal Data and AI Strategy Lead will play a critical role in driving delivery excellence, growing our business, and ensuring customer success. As a critical leader in our top customer accounts, the Principal Data and AI Strategy Lead will also partner closely with Sales to drive account expansion and long-term value. We prioritize hiring not just brilliant delivery leaders, but leaders who excel at client engagement, guiding  clients’ long-term direction, and offering a valuable perspective, thereby elevating the quality of our consulting services. In this role, you’ll manage multiple work streams, build executive relationships, and guide clients through complex data challenges, and stay ahead of market trends to inform the development of our go-to-market capabilities.

This role is about creating value, fostering trust, building relationships, and positioning yourself as a strategic influencer in the evolving data landscape.

Required Experience:

• 8+ years as a hands-on Data and AI Strategy Leader who has led Data Strategy engagements.

• 4+ years previous Consulting leadership experience working with external clients, with the ability to multitask, prioritize tasks, and work across a variety of projects. 

•  Understands the evolving AI capabilities in the industry, including their applications and how to leverage them effectively to help clients increase revenue, improve customer experience, or introduce new products to the market.

• Brings vertical/industry expertise to bear, in making Strategic recommendations, given the nuances of each industry, e.g. Financial Services, Healthcare, Retail.

• Experience engaging senior stakeholders, including members of the C-suite.

• Functional Strategy Leadership expertise and/or exposure, including:

  • Identification and prioritization of business-focused opportunities.

  • Expertly balancing technical, organizational, and process recommendations.

  • Developing and sequencing long-term roadmaps.

  • Designing future state operating models.

  • Designing processes for effective data and analytical asset management.

  • Developing business cases with return on investment in mind.

  • Making recommendations that resonate with organizations, and have a clear story behind why we are making them.

  • Adept at making technical recommendations that are tied to business outcomes, including but not limited to the following areas:

• Adept at making technical recommendations that are tied to business outcomes, including but not limited to the following areas:

  • Cloud computing.

  • Data platform development.

  • Integration patterns.

  • Data quality resolution.

  • Data Governance.

  • Privacy and security.

  • Regulatory needs.

• Experience prioritizing use cases by value and complexity, conducting SWOT analysis, and bringing the confluence of capability and industry, to inform recommendations.

• Can communicate relatively technical concepts to a non-technical audience verbally clearly and concisely.

• Has facilitated discovery sessions and workshops, ensuring a focus on business value to keep all participants aligned on the objectives.

• Had led “art of the possible” sessions to bring insights into what other organizations are doing within an industry, and to inspire client stakeholders.

• Able to guide on technology rationalization decisions, taking into account criteria such as total cost of ownership (TCO) and business need in mind.

• Knowledge of industry-wide strategy frameworks, principles, and best practices.

• Knowledge of global privacy requirements, e.g. GDPR, CCPA.

• Proven ability to lead and manage a team of Business Analysts, Technical Architects, Data Engineers, and Change Leaders while fostering internal growth through coaching, mentoring, and performance management.

• Proven track record of collaborating with client stakeholders, technology partners, and cross-functional sales and delivery team members across distributed global teams, ensuring seamless, successful project delivery outcomes.

• Ability to create strong cross-practice relationships to drive customer success.

• Exhibits a strong sense of ownership in resolving challenges, committed to ensuring exceptional outcomes for all aspects of project execution.

• A vision for how the Data and AI industry is evolving, and the value that evolutions will bring to the organizations that we serve.

• Strong client-facing written and verbal communication skills and experience; ability to deliver presentations with compelling storylines, tailored to the target audience, from technical stakeholders through to executive teams.

• 4-year Bachelor's degree.

Why phData? We offer:

• Remote-First Work Environment 

• Casual, award-winning small-business work environment

• Collaborative culture that prizes autonomy, creativity, and transparency

• Competitive comp, excellent benefits, 4 weeks PTO plan plus 10 Holidays (and other cool perks)

• Accelerated learning and professional development through advanced training and certifications