Location: New York, NY / Chicago, IL - Onsite [Must be based in or willing to relocate]
Work Authorization: US Citizen / Green Card / H1B Transfer / TN Transfer - No new sponsorship
Industry: CPG & Retail
About the Company
Our client is a global, AI-first strategic partner to Fortune 500 companies. Unlike traditional consulting firms where AI is an add-on, AI is their core business. For 25+ years, they have helped enterprises apply advanced analytics and AI at scale to power every human decision in the enterprise. Their CPG & Retail practice works with some of the world's largest CPG companies across Commercial, R&D, Supply Chain and Enterprise functions to design, build and scale production-grade AI and GenAI solutions.
Role Overview
We are seeking a senior, client-facing Growth Leader - AI Engineering to own the AI Engineering workstream across a portfolio of Strategic CPG Accounts.
You will sit at the intersection of strategic account growth, technology advisory, and transformation execution. You will build trusted relationships with CIOs, CTOs, CDOs, business presidents and their leadership teams, understand their enterprise priorities, and translate those into a differentiated AI engineering and modernization agenda.
You will own the opportunity lifecycle from executive dialogue and problem definition through solution shaping, commercial closure, mobilization, and scale. Success means moving beyond isolated pilots to funded transformation roadmaps, durable executive sponsorship, and expanding into repeatable, enterprise-wide programs.
Key Responsibilities
1. Strategic Growth & C-Suite Engagement
- Own AI Engineering growth agenda - qualified pipeline, bookings, revenue, and profitable expansion across assigned strategic accounts
- Develop and sustain trusted-advisor relationships with CIOs, CTOs, CDOs, Chief Digital Officers and senior technology leaders across multiple buying centers
- Create executive-level POVs on AI-led transformation and enterprise modernization, connecting technology choices to growth, productivity, resilience, and CX
- Map account priorities, stakeholders, budgets, decision processes and competitive positions; convert into focused account & pursuit plans
- Lead executive briefings, innovation sessions, modernization assessments and co-creation workshops
2. Transformation Origination & Enterprise Modernization
- Identify and shape initiatives across data-platform & cloud modernization, AI/ML Engineering, GenAI & Agentic AI, Application & Software Engineering, Intelligent Operations, and Enterprise Automation
- Translate current-state tech estate and business ambition into pragmatic multi-year roadmap, value cases, target architecture, investment case and governance model
- Advise clients on Responsible AI, security, privacy, model risk, data governance, interoperability and operating model implications
- Bring capabilities, platforms, accelerators and industry solutions together into a coherent transformation proposition
3. Pursuit Leadership & Program Scale
- Lead large, complex pursuits from qualification through proposal, solution architecture, value engineering, commercials, negotiations and executive closure
- Build compelling business cases with clear baseline metrics, benefits, investment, risks, dependencies and path from POC to production scale
- Orchestrate consulting, AI, data, cloud, product, design and engineering teams into one integrated client narrative
- Turn successful pilots into reusable platforms and multi-business, multi-region programs
4. Ecosystem & Practice Leadership
- Build joint propositions with Hyperscalers (AWS/Azure/GCP), data & AI platforms, and strategic tech partners
- Create reusable modernization plays, reference architectures, solution blueprints and pursuit assets
- Coach account, solution and engineering leaders; foster high standards of commercial ownership and client stewardship
Must-Have Qualifications
- 15-20+ years in technology consulting, digital engineering, data/AI services, or enterprise transformation
- Proven Account Expansion Track Record: Demonstrated history of originating, shaping and winning complex, multi-million-dollar / multi-year transformation programs WITHIN EXISTING STRATEGIC ACCOUNTS. This is a farming / wallet-share expansion role, NOT new-logo hunting. You must have grown accounts via upsell / cross-sell.
- C-Suite Relationships: Existing, sustained CIO / CTO / CDO level relationships in strategic accounts with ability to create executive access and sponsorship
- Technical Credibility: Working technical fluency in AI/GenAI/Agentic AI, Data Engineering, Advanced Analytics, RAG, MLOps/LLMOps, Cloud Modernization - enough to be credible in deep technical discussions with client architects (not expected to code/deliver)
- Industry:CPG is mandatory. CPG-heavy experience strongly preferred over Retail. If mixed, must be CPG dominant.
- Strong understanding of cloud-native architecture, data platforms/Lakehouse patterns, APIs, microservices, DevSecOps, Platform Engineering
- Strong commercial acumen - qualification, deal strategy, pricing, contracting, negotiation, portfolio economics
Nice to Have
- Experience in highly data-intensive enterprise sectors
- MBA / Master's in Engineering, Computer Science, Business or related field
- Experience leading multidisciplinary, geographically distributed teams in a matrixed org
Leadership Competencies
Strategic account entrepreneurship, C-suite influence, transformation thinking, technical credibility, commercial discipline, enterprise orchestration, scale mindset.
Location & Mobility: Onsite in NY or Chicago. Willingness to travel to client locations as required.