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

BRG•Washington, DC

1d•$150,000 - $250,000

About The Position

Berkeley Research Group is building a Financial Services Operations & Technology practice initially focused on Commercial and Consumer Banking. The practice combines banking expertise, technology, and AI-enabled delivery to help financial institutions improve operations. Its small multidisciplinary pods work closely with clients and share responsibility from discovery through implementation. This role offers the opportunity to help build the practice by delivering client results, developing reusable offerings, recruiting talent, and improving the delivery model. The Pod Lead is the accountable delivery leader, bringing together client priorities, business expertise, and technical execution. The role owns engagements from proposal and scoping through implementation, adoption, and handover, with responsibility for client outcomes, delivery quality, team performance, and engagement economics. It is a hands-on leadership position involving shaping the work, leading a multidisciplinary team, resolving delivery obstacles, and staying engaged with what is being built and how it will be used. The Pod Lead partners with the technical lead on architecture, feasibility, engineering quality, and technical risks, while retaining overall delivery accountability and assigning clear ownership to analysts and engineers. Success means leading effective pods, maintaining strong client relationships and disciplined engagement economics, and delivering working solutions that produce measurable business improvement. The position may oversee concurrent engagements or pods and requires travel to client sites as needed. Preferred locations are New York, Chicago, Washington, D.C., Dallas, and Boston; strong candidates elsewhere may be considered case by case. Candidates must have the legal right to work in the United States without current or future employer sponsorship. The hiring level will be determined based on qualifications and experience. Salary ranges are $180,000–$250,000 for Associate Director and $150,000–$175,000 for Senior Managing Consultant.

Requirements

Experience owning consulting engagements and supporting business development, including scoping work, leading delivery teams, and managing client expectations and 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, applying sound judgment to trade-offs, dependencies, and escalations.
Strong written and verbal communication skills, including influencing senior stakeholders, facilitating decisions, and coaching and developing team members.
Curiosity about AI-enabled delivery and willingness to learn and use approved tools responsibly.
Ability to travel to client sites as needed.
Candidates must be able to verify legal right to work in the United States without employer sponsorship now or in the future.

Nice To Haves

Deep experience in retail banking, consumer lending, or credit cards, including servicing, collections, or default operations.
Experience in mortgage, credit card, personal loan, or auto lending, including servicing, collections, and default; this experience is described as valuable.
Adjacent banking or wealth and asset management experience.
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 implementation commitments.
Lead discovery and solution shaping with client stakeholders, analysts, and technical leads, linking operational priorities to practical technology and AI-enabled improvements.
Assemble and mobilize pods around funded engagement needs, securing talent and specialist resources with practice leadership and defining roles and decision rights.
Set backlog priorities with clients and the team, balancing value, feasibility, dependencies, risk, and capacity; lead planning, demonstrations, and iterative feedback.
Manage delivery across discovery, requirements, build, testing, and release, keeping business analysis, technical implementation, and client decisions aligned.
Track scope, milestones, staffing, budgets, and engagement economics; manage changes, remove impediments, and escalate risks with options and recommendations.
Build senior client relationships and lead engagement governance, communicating progress, trade-offs, and decisions and holding stakeholders and teams to commitments.
Ensure quality assurance, operational controls, and appropriate risk and compliance input, including evaluation and human oversight of AI-enabled workflows where needed.
Lead business readiness, adoption, training, and handover; validate outcomes against agreed success measures and support sustainable solutions.
Oversee concurrent engagements or pods as assigned, maintaining accountable leadership for each; identify opportunities to expand client relationships and support practice growth.
Set pod direction and cadence, delegate workstream ownership, review critical deliverables, and coach colleagues; foster early issue escalation and collaboration across business and technical specialists.
Promote responsible use of approved AI tools, including 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.