AI & Data Strategy and Transformation Consulting Manager

As an AI & Data Strategy and Transformation Consulting Manager level at Wavestone, you will help clients translate AI ambition into business outcomes, serving as a trusted advisor to business unit and functional area executives and leading strategy and transformation engagements in collaboration with strategic, adoption, and technical teams. Within the AI Strategy and Transformation pillar of our AI & Data capability group, you will lead or support AI readiness assessments, strategy and roadmap development, use-case prioritization, business cases, operating model design, and adoption programs. You will bridge business priorities, people and process change, and technical execution to help clients move from experimentation to scaled value. You will partner with engineering, data, and responsible AI specialists rather than serve primarily as a hands-on data platform architect, while mentoring teams and developing reusable consulting offerings. Key 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 the 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; collaborate with responsible AI, risk, security, and data specialists to embed appropriate controls. • Build business cases and value realization plans that define 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: lead discovery and executive briefings, shape proposals and pitches, and create 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 Key Competencies & Skills • AI Strategy & Readiness: Ability to assess organizational AI readiness, align leaders around business priorities, and translate findings into practical strategies, prioritized use-case portfolios, and transformation roadmaps. • AI & Data Technical Fluency: Working understanding of generative AI, agentic AI, analytics, and the data and platform foundations needed to scale them; ability to evaluate feasibility and trade-offs with specialists. Hands-on engineering experience is valuable but is not the primary requirement. • Operating Model & Process Design: Experience defining ownership, decision rights, funding, and cross-functional ways of working, and redesigning business processes and human-AI workflows to embed AI into day-to-day operations. • Technology & Vendor Advisory: Ability to assess AI tools and platform options against business needs, integration requirements, cost, risk, and scalability, working with architecture and engineering specialists rather than requiring expertise in every cloud platform. • Responsible AI & Governance: Ability to integrate responsible AI, data readiness, privacy, security, human oversight, and risk considerations into strategy and delivery in collaboration with specialist teams. • Business Case & Value Realization: Experience developing investment cases, outcome measures, benefits tracking, and capacity reinvestment plans that connect AI adoption to measurable business results. • Executive Facilitation & Stakeholder Management: 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. • Transformation & Change Leadership: Experience managing delivery, budgets, dependencies, and cross-functional teams, alongside stakeholder engagement, role-based enablement, adoption measurement, and sustained behavior change. • Offering Development & Continuous Learning: 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. Qualifications • Bachelor's or master's degree in Business, Economics, Organizational Change, Computer Science, Engineering, Data Science, or a related field, or equivalent professional experience. • 8+ years of relevant experience in management consulting, technology strategy, or enterprise transformation, including AI strategy or AI-enabled transformation engagements, with at least 2 years in a leadership or management role. • Relevant AI, change management, project management, or cloud/data certifications are a plus, not a substitute for demonstrated advisory and transformation delivery experience. • Demonstrated experience producing client-ready assessments, strategies, roadmaps, business cases, or operating model and adoption plans; exceptional communication, facilitation, stakeholder management, and strategic problem-solving skills. • Proven contribution to business development, including proposal shaping, identifying opportunities, or securing extensions. *Only candidates legally authorized to work for any employer in the U.S on a full-time basis without the need for sponsorship will be considered. We are unable to sponsor or take over sponsorship of an employment Visa at this time. Additional Information Travel Expectations Consultants are expected to work flexibly based on client and business needs. This role may require periodic travel to client sites and/or attendance at a designated hub office to support project delivery, collaboration, and team engagement. Working arrangement Hybrid role working in the office 3 days if not at a client site Compensation and Benefits • Placement within the salary range is based on the candidate's experience, qualifications, demonstrated capabilities, and alignment with the requirements of the role. • Bonus eligible • 401K Savings Plan with Company Match • Medical / Dental / Vision coverage • Employee Stock Options Plan (ESOP) • 35 PTO inclusive of holidays • 4 months parental leave to birthing parent / 2 months to supporting parent