AI Strategy, Lead

Valkai•New York City, NY

About The Position

The role Valkai is compressing drug and device development timelines from months to days, working inside some of the largest pharma and medical device companies in the world. Our AI Strategists sit at the center of that work. They lead deployments from pilot to production, configure Assistants and Agents hands-on, and act as the day-to-day strategic partner to customer sponsors. As we grow, we are organizing that team into pods, each owning a portfolio of accounts. As Lead, you own one of those pods end to end. Think of it as running a business inside Valkai. The customers, the team, the commercial results, and the reputation we earn with those customers are yours. You make the calls on how the pod is staffed, how accounts are sequenced, and what we commit to, and you answer for the outcome: adoption, value delivered, renewals, and expansion into wider enterprise agreements. This is a player-coach role for someone who has led client teams at the highest level and wants to own the result, not advise on it.

Requirements

Owners, not advisors: You treat the pod as your business. You know the numbers, make the calls, and carry the result. You do not wait to be handed a plan, and you are accountable for outcomes, not recommendations.
Thoughtful problem solvers: You start with a clear and accurate understanding of the context, break unstructured customer challenges into concrete deployment plans, and weigh business impact against technical feasibility. You do this across a portfolio, not one account at a time.
Leaders who develop people: You have run teams on high-stakes client work. You set a high bar, give direct feedback, and get more out of people than they expected of themselves.
Trusted by executives: You are credible with VP and C-suite sponsors at large enterprises, comfortable leading a difficult conversation, and able to translate AI capability into business value they can defend internally.
Not ideological about technology: To you, technologies are about tradeoffs. You learn new AI capabilities quickly and stay receptive to better ways to solve customer problems.
Grit: You will run through walls to achieve customer success and drive adoption, and you expect the same of your team.

Nice To Haves

10+ years of experience, ideally a mix of top-tier strategy consulting and an operating role at a high-growth startup. We will also consider a senior consulting leader, at the Associate Partner or Partner level, making a first move into an operating role.
Ownership of a book of business, client portfolio, practice, or business line with revenue accountability.
Experience managing teams and owning client relationships at the executive level.
Life sciences experience, in pharma, medical devices, or biotech, ideally across R&D, regulatory, clinical, safety, or commercial functions.
Background in enterprise software deployments or post-sale customer work, including expansion and renewal.
Familiarity with AI and LLM capabilities and deployment patterns, and daily hands-on use of tools like Claude and ChatGPT.

Responsibilities

Run the pod like a business: Set the strategy and account plans for a pod of Pharma and leading medical device customers, including Fortune 100 customers. Decide where the team spends its time, what we commit to, and when to say no, and be accountable for adoption, value delivered, renewals, and expansion.
Build and lead the team: Hire, manage, and develop a pod of AI Strategists. Set the bar for the craft of deployment and customer leadership, coach to it, and clear the blockers your team cannot.
Hold the executive relationships: Be the senior counterpart to customer sponsors and executives. Shape the value case and lead the conversations that move an account from pilot to program to enterprise-wide agreement, partnering with Sales on the commercial motion.
Set the quality bar by example: Step into the highest-stakes deployments yourself: framing the problem, setting requirements and success criteria, and reviewing what ships. The pod's quality bar is your quality bar.
Advise on AI in regulated environments: Guide customers through governance, validation, change management, and compliance so deployments move quickly and safely.
Carry your customers into the product: Aggregate what your pod sees across accounts into clear requirements and priorities for Product and Engineering, and represent customer reality in roadmap decisions.
Write the playbook: Codify what works into repeatable deployment playbooks, account rituals, and onboarding for new Strategists, so every account benefits from the last and the pod runs well without you in every meeting.