Associate Director / Senior Managing Consultant Pod Lead - Financial Services Operations & Technology

Berkeley Research Group•Boston, NY

18d

About The Position

Berkeley Research Group is building a Financial Institution Operations & Technology practice focused initially on Commercial and Consumer Banking. The practice combines banking expertise, technology, and AI-enabled delivery to help financial institutions achieve measurable operational improvements. Its small multidisciplinary pods work closely with clients and share responsibility from discovery through implementation. The Pod Lead is the accountable delivery leader, connecting client priorities, business expertise, and technical execution. The role owns engagements from proposal and scoping through implementation, adoption, and handover, with accountability for client outcomes, delivery quality, team performance, and engagement economics. This is a hands-on leadership position that shapes the work, leads multidisciplinary teams, resolves delivery obstacles, and stays engaged with what is being built and how it will be used. The Pod Lead partners with technical leads on architecture, feasibility, engineering quality, and technical risks, while maintaining overall delivery accountability. The company is considering candidates at the Associate Director and Senior Managing Consultant levels. The preferred locations are New York, Chicago, Washington, D.C., Dallas, and Boston; strong candidates in other locations may be considered case by case. Travel to client sites may be required. Candidates must be able to verify their legal right to work in the United States without employer sponsorship now or in the future.

Requirements

For Associate Director consideration, at least 10 years of prior applicable work experience; for Senior Managing Consultant consideration, at least 7 years of experience.
Experience owning consulting engagements and supporting business development, including scoping work, leading delivery teams, managing client expectations, and managing engagement economics.
Demonstrated ability to lead multidisciplinary business and technology teams through implementation, with clear workstream ownership, delivery discipline, and accountability for outcomes.
Relevant financial services experience in consumer lending, commercial lending, or payments.
Experience leading complex transformation programs in regulated financial institutions, including regulatory change, compliance, operational improvement, or regulatory remediation.
Ability to work across business, operations, technology, legal, compliance, and risk, with sound judgment in resolving trade-offs, managing dependencies, and escalating issues.
Strong written and verbal communication skills, including the ability to influence senior stakeholders, facilitate decisions, and coach and develop team members.
Curiosity about AI-enabled delivery and willingness to learn and use approved tools responsibly.
Ability to travel to client sites as needed.
Ability to verify legal authorization to work in the United States without employer sponsorship now or in the future.

Nice To Haves

Experience in mortgage, credit card, personal loan, or auto lending, including servicing, collections, and default.
Adjacent banking or wealth and asset management experience.
Deep experience in retail banking, consumer lending, or credit cards, including servicing, collections, or default operations.
Experience leading agile, product-oriented, or pod-based delivery, including prioritized backlogs, iterative releases, and adoption of technology-enabled workflows.
Technical fluency in applications, data flows, APIs, integrations, and AI-enabled solutions sufficient to challenge assumptions and evaluate delivery options with technical specialists.
Experience using AI tools such as Claude or ChatGPT to improve analysis and delivery, or leading implementation of AI-enabled workflows, automation, or digital solutions.

Responsibilities

Own client pursuits, proposals, scope, pricing, and delivery plans; translate business problems into outcomes, success measures, and realistic implementation commitments.
Lead discovery and solution shaping with client stakeholders, analysts, and technical leads, connecting operational priorities to practical technology and AI-enabled improvements.
Assemble and mobilize delivery pods around funded engagement needs, secure internal talent and specialist resources, and define roles and decision rights.
Own backlog priorities with clients and teams, balancing business value, feasibility, dependencies, risk, and delivery capacity; lead planning, demonstrations, and feedback-driven iteration.
Manage delivery across discovery, requirements, build, testing, and release, keeping business analysis, technical implementation, and client decisions aligned.
Track scope, milestones, staffing, budget, and engagement economics; manage changes, resolve impediments, and escalate risks early with options and recommendations.
Build senior client relationships and lead engagement governance; communicate progress, trade-offs, and decisions and hold teams and stakeholders to agreed commitments.
Ensure appropriate quality assurance, operational controls, and risk and compliance input, including evaluation and human oversight of AI-enabled workflows where needed.
Lead business readiness, adoption, training, and handover; validate results against agreed success measures and ensure solutions can be sustained beyond the engagement.
Oversee concurrent engagements or pods as assigned, maintain accountable leadership for each, identify opportunities to expand client relationships, and support practice growth.
Set the pod’s direction and operating cadence, delegate workstream ownership, review critical deliverables, and coach colleagues.
Create an environment where issues surface early and business and technical specialists solve problems together.
Promote responsible use of approved AI tools, requiring validation of outputs, protection of client information, and sound judgment about appropriate automation.
Develop delivery talent, support recruiting, capture reusable assets and lessons learned, and contribute to offerings, proposals, thought leadership, and continuous improvement of the practice’s delivery model.