AI & Data Strategy and Transformation Consulting Senior Manager

Wavestone•New York, NY

5d•Hybrid

About The Position

At Wavestone, the AI & Data Strategy and Transformation Consulting Senior Manager helps clients turn AI ambition into business outcomes. The role serves as a trusted advisor to business unit and functional executives and leads strategy and transformation engagements in partnership with strategic, adoption, and technical teams. Within the AI Strategy and Transformation pillar of the AI & Data capability group, the Senior Manager leads or supports AI readiness assessments, strategy and roadmap development, use-case prioritization, business cases, operating model design, and adoption programs. The role bridges business priorities, people and process change, and technical execution, helping clients move from experimentation to scaled value. It works with engineering, data, and responsible AI specialists rather than primarily serving as a hands-on data platform architect. The position also mentors teams and develops reusable consulting offerings. The role is hybrid, with work in the office three days when not at a client site. Consultants are expected to work flexibly according to client and business needs; periodic travel to client sites and/or attendance at a designated hub office may be required. Candidates must be legally authorized to work for any U.S. employer full-time without sponsorship.

Requirements

14+ years of relevant experience in management consulting, technology strategy, or enterprise transformation, including AI strategy or AI-enabled transformation engagements.
At least 5 years in a leadership or management role.
Bachelor’s or master’s degree in Business, Economics, Organizational Change, Computer Science, Engineering, Data Science, or a related field, or equivalent professional experience.
Successful track record of creating competitive and breakthrough strategies, leading projects in consulting and industry environments, owning deliverables, and implementing creative client solutions in ambiguous situations.
Recognized ability to influence senior stakeholders, manage large audiences, and communicate transparently in high-pressure situations.
Strong record of developing managers and emerging leaders while serving as a role model for the firm’s values and strategy.
Demonstrated success generating new business, leading major pitches, and expanding client relationships and networks.
Well-developed communication skills, including delivering compelling presentations to internal and external stakeholders.
Interpersonal skills to work with clients and team members and build trusting client relationships.
Legally authorized to work for any employer in the U.S. on a full-time basis without sponsorship.
Ability to assess organizational AI readiness, align leaders around business priorities, and translate findings into practical strategies, prioritized use-case portfolios, and transformation roadmaps.
Working understanding of generative AI, agentic AI, analytics, and the data and platform foundations needed to scale them, with ability to evaluate feasibility and trade-offs alongside specialists.
Experience defining operating model ownership, decision rights, funding, and cross-functional ways of working, and redesigning business processes and human–AI workflows.
Ability to assess AI tools and platform options against business needs, integration requirements, cost, risk, and scalability, working with architecture and engineering specialists.
Ability to integrate responsible AI, data readiness, privacy, security, human oversight, and risk considerations into strategy and delivery with specialist teams.
Experience developing investment cases, outcome measures, benefits tracking, and capacity reinvestment plans that connect AI adoption to measurable business results.
Ability to lead discovery interviews, executive briefings, and decision-making workshops; communicate complex AI concepts clearly and build alignment across business, technology, and functional leaders.
Experience managing delivery, budgets, dependencies, and cross-functional teams, alongside stakeholder engagement, role-based enablement, adoption measurement, and sustained behavior change.
Ability to turn emerging AI trends and client needs into practical points of view, reusable methods, assessments, and playbooks; collaborate across capabilities and develop consultants and client teams.

Nice To Haves

Relevant AI, change management, project management, or cloud/data certifications.
Hands-on engineering experience is valuable, but is not the primary requirement.

Responsibilities

Lead AI strategy and transformation engagements from readiness assessment and executive alignment through roadmap development, execution support, and scaled adoption.
Advise business unit, functional, and senior leaders on AI opportunities, investment priorities, operating model choices, and organizational changes needed to realize business value.
Identify and prioritize AI use cases through stakeholder interviews and facilitated workshops, assessing business value, feasibility, data readiness, risk, and adoption requirements; develop actionable portfolios and roadmaps.
Design AI operating models with clear ownership, decision rights, funding mechanisms, cross-functional roles, and portfolio governance, collaborating with specialists to embed appropriate controls.
Build business cases and value realization plans defining outcome baselines, success measures, benefit owners, and how productivity gains or freed capacity will translate into growth, service improvements, or cost outcomes.
Lead adoption and capability uplift through stakeholder engagement, role-based AI literacy, change plans, communications, and communities of practice; mentor consultants and client teams.
Develop client opportunities and market offerings with account leaders and capability specialists by leading discovery and executive briefings, shaping proposals and pitches, and creating thought leadership, industry playbooks, and reusable assessment and delivery assets.
Guide AI-enabled work and process redesign and transformation delivery, coordinating business, change, data, and engineering teams; maintain roadmaps, manage dependencies and risks, and track adoption and benefits beyond pilots.
Drive business development for AI and other Wavestone capabilities within existing and new clients.
Develop managers and emerging leaders and serve as a role model for the firm’s values and strategy.