Principal Consultant, AI Services

About the Role AHEAD seeks a Principal Consultant, AI Services to help enterprise clients move from AI ambition and experimentation to measurable business impact. In this role, you will lead high-impact client engagements with senior business and technology executives. You will identify where AI can create value, prioritize use cases, build business cases and roadmaps, design operating models and governance, and mobilize implementation with AHEAD’s broader teams of consultants, architects, engineers, and specialists.

What You'll Do

• Lead client engagements from strategy through execution
• Lead complex AI and digital transformation engagements from initial diagnostic through roadmap design, implementation planning, and execution support
• Structure ambiguous client problems into clear hypotheses, workplans, analyses, decision points, and executive-ready deliverables
• Manage day-to-day engagement delivery, including workstream planning, team leadership, synthesis, quality control, issue resolution, timelines, and client communication
• Facilitate executive workshops and align senior stakeholders across business, technology, data, risk, and operations
• Serve as a trusted advisor to client leaders on where AI can create measurable value and what is required to scale it responsibly
• Shape AI strategy, transformation roadmaps, and business cases
• Identify and prioritize AI opportunities across productivity, growth, customer experience, decision-making, software delivery, and operational efficiency
• Conduct AI maturity and readiness assessments across strategy, data, platforms, governance, talent, process, and change management
• Build practical AI roadmaps that sequence pilots, platform enablers, governance actions, operating model changes, and value realization milestones
• Develop business cases and value-tracking approaches that connect AI initiatives to measurable client outcomes
• Help clients redesign workflows and operating processes to capture value from AI, automation, and agent-assisted ways of working
• Partner with technical teams to move ideas into implementation
• Translate business priorities into implementation-ready initiatives in partnership with architects, engineers, data specialists, and security/governance experts
• Help define pilot scope, success metrics, adoption plans, governance requirements, and scale-up pathways
• Ensure AI recommendations are practical, credible, and grounded in enterprise technology realities
• Bridge communication between executive stakeholders and technical delivery teams
• Lead and develop teams
• Lead multidisciplinary teams across one or more client workstreams
• Coach consultants and specialists through structured problem solving, client communication, synthesis, and executive-ready output
• Create a high-performance team environment with clear ownership, strong feedback, and a consistent quality bar
• Help build reusable methods, tools, templates, and delivery approaches for AHEAD’s AI Services practice
• Support business and practice growth
• Identify follow-on opportunities within client engagements and help shape the path from initial advisory work to broader transformation programs
• Contribute to proposals, solution design, client presentations, and account growth efforts
• Help develop AHEAD’s AI offerings, points of view, go-to-market materials, and thought leadership
• Stay current on enterprise AI trends, including generative AI, agentic AI, AI governance, responsible AI, AI-enabled software delivery, data platforms, and cloud ecosystems

Nice to Have

• Experience in roles equivalent to Engagement Manager, Project Leader, Senior Manager, or Director in strategy consulting, technology advisory, digital transformation, or enterprise technology environments
• Strong executive communication, structured problem solving, and AI/tech fluency
• Ability to lead multidisciplinary teams without being a hands-on ML engineer

Compensation & Benefits

• Salary: USD 250,000 - 300,000 per year (OTE)
• Benefits: Medical, Dental, and Vision Insurance; 401(k); Paid holidays; Paid time off; Paid parental and caregiver leave