Consultant - Financial Services

Sia•Charlotte, NC

1d•$80,000 - $99,000•Hybrid

About The Position

Sia is seeking a highly motivated Consultant to join its Financial Services Consulting practice as a Forward Deployed Business Analyst (FDBA). This is not a traditional Business Analyst role: the Consultant will be embedded with client teams and accountable for business outcomes, using data, analytics, and AI to support transformation across financial services organizations. The role acts as a strategic advisor, AI operator, and execution partner, applying AI to reduce administrative work and focus on decision-making, problem-solving, stakeholder alignment, operational efficiency, and solution design. The Consultant will work with clients across areas such as wealth and asset management, capital markets, corporate banking, risk, and compliance. They will assess processes, systems, data flows, risks, dependencies, and business needs; translate findings into requirements and solution documentation; and support design, implementation, testing, and delivery. The role also contributes to proposals, business development, and thought leadership. Sia values in-person collaboration. Consultants may be required to work onsite at a client location based on engagement needs. Between client engagements, they are expected to work from a Sia office or approved coworking location at least three days per week, and should live within reasonable commuting distance of one. Applicants must be legally authorized to work in the United States at application and throughout employment; the position is not eligible for employment visa sponsorship.

Requirements

Bachelor’s degree in Engineering, AI Engineering & Computing, Computer Science, Data Science, Financial Engineering, or a related field.
Recent graduate or early-career candidate with up to 2 years of post-graduate experience, including internships, academic projects, or work experience demonstrating business problem-solving, analytical thinking, professional communication, AI-enabled ways of working, and a proactive, forward-deployed Business Analyst mindset.
Foundational ability to use AI/GenAI tools, prompt engineering, and modern productivity platforms to accelerate business analysis, requirements gathering, process documentation, research, testing support, and stakeholder-ready deliverables; sound judgment to validate and improve AI-generated outputs using responsible AI governance concepts.
Ability to use Microsoft Excel, Microsoft PowerPoint, Microsoft Visio, JIRA/Confluence, Microsoft Power BI, Tableau, SQL, and related tools for data analysis, insight development, and effective presentations and communications.
Strong communication, analytical thinking, attention to detail, ownership, teamwork, and intellectual curiosity; ability to work with business and technology stakeholders, synthesize ambiguity, ask thoughtful questions, identify gaps, and help move work forward in a fast-paced, client-facing environment.
Foundational understanding of, or demonstrated interest in, financial services, including its products, operations, regulatory requirements, technology, and business processes.
Legally authorized to work in the United States at the time of application and throughout employment; employment visa sponsorship is not available.
Reside within reasonable commuting distance of a Sia office or approved coworking location.

Nice To Haves

Master’s degree.
Experience in financial services or management consulting.

Responsibilities

Apply consulting methods and AI-enabled, no-code, low-code, automation, and analytics platforms to accelerate research, analysis, documentation, prototyping, process mapping, stakeholder alignment, and delivery. Define agent responsibilities, decision boundaries, escalation paths, and human-in-the-loop controls for safe, reliable, and compliant operation in financial services.
Work directly with client business, operations, product, data, and technology teams to understand strategic objectives, operational challenges, technical constraints, stakeholder priorities, and desired outcomes.
Assess current-state processes, systems, data flows, risks, dependencies, and pain points; identify root causes and business impacts; and help design and implement strategic initiatives, including operating model transformation, system implementations, and process optimization.
Translate business needs into functional requirements, user stories, process flows, data requirements, business rules, acceptance criteria, and solution documentation, using internal and client-approved AI solutions where appropriate.
Partner with product owners, engineers, architects, data teams, and client stakeholders on solution design, system implementation, workflow optimization, integration planning, UAT, validation, and implementation readiness across front-, middle-, and back-office platforms, including targeted AI- or agent-enabled use cases.
Own assigned tasks and deliverables, manage timelines, track risks, issues, decisions, and dependencies, communicate progress, and help drive initiatives from analysis through execution.
Prepare structured, accurate, polished presentations, executive summaries, business cases, impact assessments, process documentation, status reports, meeting outputs, and stakeholder communications.
Support proposals and business development, including client presentations and thought leadership, and contribute perspectives on digital, data, and AI trends in financial services.