Director, AI & CX Services
Customer Experience & AI EnablementPosition Summary
Waterfield Tech is seeking a Director, AI & CX Services to lead and grow one or more professional services delivery practices that design, implement, and modernize customer experience and contact center solutions across leading CCaaS and UC platforms and our Applied AI capabilities. The Director owns the full P&L for the practices held and is accountable for delivery outcomes, quality, growth, and the people in each practice.
Bringing deep, hands-on delivery expertise, the Director sets the delivery approach, standards, and CX modernization roadmap for the practices held, is the senior escalation and executive point of contact for customers, owns the manufacturer/partner relationships, and partners across Sales, Product, and Operations. The role leads the technical leads and engineers who deliver the practices, including any custom development/Applied AI that extends the platforms.
Key Responsibilities
- Lead one or more AI & CX Services delivery practices end to end, accountable for delivery outcomes, quality, utilization, and margin across the practices held.
- Own the full P&L for the practices held (revenue, margin, cost structure, headcount investment, and partner tier economics) and own the capacity to pipeline strategy and the investment that closes the gap.
- Set and communicate the delivery strategy and CX modernization roadmap for the practices held: secure senior leadership buy-in and resources; monitor industry trends, partner roadmaps, and customer feedback; and lead organizational change (change management plans for new methodologies, technologies, and operating models) that fosters continuous improvement and innovation.
- Lead and develop the teams within the practices held: hire, coach, develop, and retain leaders and individual contributors; set goals, run performance and career development, and build leadership depth and succession.
- Grow the delivery capability and own the manufacturer/partner relationships for the practices held, including certifications, enablement, partner tier, roadmap alignment, and joint delivery.
- Establish portfolio level delivery governance and roadmap and release management standards for the practices held, including cadence, health reporting, KPIs, risk and escalation management, quality gates, release readiness, and the accelerator/IP release pipeline; report progress and outcomes to senior leadership.
- Set and own delivery standards, methodology, reference architectures, accelerators, templates, quality bars, and the implementation to support handoff and lifecycle standards for the practices held (flows/IVR, IVA/agent assist, WFO/WEM, reporting/administration, and CRM/CTI integrations); run post-mortems and lessons learned, and feed delivery insight into renewals and expansions.
- Own resource and capacity planning across the practices held; partner with Sales on scoping, feasibility, and level of effort while protecting margin during pre-sales.
- Serve as the senior escalation and executive point of contact for customers across the practices held; maintain executive relationships, satisfaction, and reference-ability.
- Partner cross-functionally with Sales, Product, IT, Operations, and commercial, pre-sales, and proposal colleagues, bridging technical and non-technical teams to drive aligned execution of CX modernization.
- Drive AI enablement in both directions: delivering AI solutions to customers and applying AI to delivery operations (portfolio health signals, status roll-ups, risk analysis, documentation) across the practices held.
- Where a custom development/Applied AI capability is held, own the team that builds integrations, APIs, conversational AI, and AI-enabled applications that extend the platforms, and align its roadmap to customer and practice needs.
- Review the customer satisfaction and delivery results (CSAT, NPS, and KPIs) for the practices held; use that data, customer feedback, and delivery metrics to identify pain points and trends and drive data driven decisions that refine delivery and the CX strategy.
- Ensure booking, time entry, and delivery operations within Microsoft Dynamics 365/Project Operations across the practices held.
How This Role Is Measured
- Practice P&L & economics: Gross margin and revenue vs. plan; utilization to target; cost structure vs. plan; estimate at completion/burn variance within threshold; headcount ROI.
- Delivery execution & quality: On time delivery and schedule variance across the practices held; reduction in escalations, rework, and margin leakage; quality gate/release readiness pass rate; estimate accuracy.
- Customer outcomes & satisfaction: CSAT/NPS trend across the practices held; executive relationship health and reference-ability; resolution and recovery of at-risk engagements.
- People & leadership: Team retention and engagement; certification and skills growth; leadership bench and succession depth; goal setting and performance review completion.
- Growth & capacity: Practice expansion and revenue growth vs. plan; pipeline conversion and capacity to pipeline coverage; demand forecast accuracy.
- Partner standing: Manufacturer certifications and partner tier maintained or improved; partner sourced pipeline and joint delivery results.
- Strategy, standards & AI enablement: Adoption of delivery standards, methodology, and accelerators; CX modernization roadmap and change initiative milestones delivered; AI in delivery adoption and impact.
- Operational discipline: Data accuracy, completeness, and timeliness of D365 booking, time entry, and delivery operations.
Primary Delivery & Technical Experience
- Strong Five9 practice experience required, with multiple production implementations and migrations at scale (inbound, outbound, blended, Intelligent Virtual Agent (IVA), Agent Assist, WFO/WEM, Studio/IVR, reporting and VCC administration, and CRM/CTI integrations such as Salesforce and ServiceNow).
- Zoom (Contact Center, Phone, and Workplace) and custom development/Applied AI delivery preferred.
- All other CCaaS/UC practice areas a plus: Genesys (Cloud CX), Cisco (Webex Contact Center/UC), Avaya (Aura/AEP/ACO), and Google (Contact Center AI/Dialogflow).
- AI enablement: Conversational AI, virtual agents, agent assist, real-time analytics, and AI-powered self-service.
- Multi-vendor/multi-platform delivery: Combining two or more of the above with CRM, WFM, QA, and analytics integrations; legacy to cloud migration delivery.
Qualifications
Experience- 12+ years delivering complex CX/contact center technology services, with 5+ years leading, building, and retaining delivery teams (people leadership) accountable for delivery outcomes and margin.
- Grounded in hands-on delivery, with career progression through implementation consultant, technical/solutions architect, or professional services/telephony (CCaaS) engineering into delivery leadership.
- Proven track record leading CX modernization initiatives at a leadership level.
- Demonstrated financial and practice economics acumen: margin, utilization, burn vs. plan, and estimate at completion.
- Experience owning manufacturer/partner relationships, including certification, enablement, and partner tier management, and leading customer executive governance and recovery of at-risk engagements.
- Software development/Applied AI engineering leadership a plus.
Leadership Attributes- Executive presence and people leadership: build, coach, and retain multi-team technical organizations.
- Strong financial and operational discipline; balances growth, margin, and headcount investment while protecting delivery quality.
- Data driven, innovative, and future oriented; turns customer and delivery data into modern CX strategy.
- Sets strategy and standards across diverse teams and resolves cross-team tensions constructively.
- Outstanding communication across all levels, including C-suite and partner executives; strong change management expertise; thrives amid rapid change and ambiguity.
Education- Bachelor's Degree required; Master's a plus. Emphasis in Business, IT, Engineering, or a related field preferred. Equivalent work experience will be considered.
Additional Requirements
- Manufacturer/platform certifications strongly valued across the CCaaS/UC ecosystem.
- PMP/PgMP, ITIL, and change management credentials (e.g., Prosci ADKAR) a plus, but not required for this role.
- Availability to work flexible hours as needed, including senior customer escalations.
Physical Requirements
- Sitting: Ability to sit for extended periods (up to 80% of the time).
- Lifting: Ability to lift or carry objects up to 10 lbs.
- Equipment: Frequent use of computer, telephone, and standard office equipment.
- Travel: Ability to travel up to 15% for client meetings, training, or installations.
