Senior Director, Insights and Analytics Advisory

Avanade is seeking a Senior Director to expand its Insight & Analytics Advisory capabilities. You will advise clients on the strategic impacts of advanced analytics, machine learning, and intelligent automation. You will help your clients monetize their data, creating all new experiences for employees and customers alike. To be successful, you must possess exceptional analytic, interpersonal, and creative thinking capabilities. You will need to be entrepreneurial, enterprising, and personable, possessing exceptional leadership and managerial qualities, that allow you to assume a critical role in the Advisory Practice with an ability to scale over time. The work you're doing in this role will be of a Strategic nature rather than a software or technology architecture deliverable.  

Key Role Responsibilities: 

• Operating with senior client executives (C-levels, VPs, Directors), you will assist our clients in successfully defining their strategies across Data, Analytics, and Artificial Intelligence, Data Monetization, as well as developing data driven Transformation Initiatives, Investments and Operating Models to support their business objectives. 
• You will lead teams of 2-20 consultants, data scientists, and engineers to aid your clients in identifying how they will leverage data and intelligent automation. 
• You will be responsible for developing business within your region, partnering with our account teams and our solution areas to create and sell solutions which provide our clients real human impact.   
• You will be responsible for developing the team of Insight & Analytics consultants in your region, ensuring they deliver high quality work for our clients while growing in their careers and preparing for the next level of responsibility.  

As a successful Senior Director, you will: 

• Be and adept listener, able to rapidly understand a client’s business model and strategy and dig to the root of their challenges to provide advice on how data and AI capabilities can enhance or revolutionize their business model and create actionable solutions
• Lead and support the delivery of a broad range of Data, Analytics, RPA and AI related Strategy / Advisory engagements 
• Understand, and employ Data Monetization methodologies and frameworks 
• Sell and delivery Advisory services strong consultative selling practices
• Lead the creation of client proposals for consulting and/or transformation engagements focused on Data/Analytics/ AI and automation 
• Develop strategic relationships within your clients and our account teams 
• Possess deep understanding of trends and strategies for identifying and using appropriate approaches and solutions to meet client business, financial and technical objectives 
• Be a thought leader in data science, analytics, data monetization, and intelligent automation 
• Develop the intellectual capital of the practice by publication of domain-relevant points of view and white papers and enthusiastically contribute towards industry specific offerings 
• Conduct detailed analyses to understand and explain client problems and utilize standard management consulting skills such as facilitation, interviewing, gap analysis, etc. 
• Lead the design and delivery of Data/ Business Intelligence/ AI and automation advisory engagements involving strategy, roadmap, and longer-term operating model and COE solutions
• Lead the design and use of detailed financial models to enable the articulation of ROI, TCO, and value realization. 
• Conduct quick value discovery engagements in Data & AI to identify applicable industry use-cases, help clients understand the effort, potential benefits, and develop opportunity prioritization matrices 
• Lead strategy engagements to create clear and strategic roadmaps and supporting business cases that delineate a broader endgame, while also prioritizing quick wins with near-term measurable impact 
• Support the practice with depth of experience and expertise in the following domains: automation, machine learning, deep learning, advanced analytics, data science, data aggregation & visualization 

Required Skills & Experience: 

• 15+ years of Management Consulting experience from a top management or professional services firm 
• Superb communication, listening, presentation, and facilitation skills 
• Aptitude for critical and analytical thinking as well as the capacity to accept out-of-the box solutions 
• Demonstrated experience interfacing and maintaining relationships with executive level clients 
• Experience and success in consultative sales
• Previous experience working on multiple Advisory / Strategy engagements in a highly matrixed external client facing environment, with Talent, Project, & Budget Experience discussing a wide range of strategic imperatives across functional, operational, and technological issues Practical Business Architecture experience (business / operation models, personas, process modelling) 
• Comprehension of the Data/ Analytics strategy and COE definition; AND/OR; 
• Understanding of the Artificial Intelligence space, and the ethical themes for AI such as usage and effectiveness, fairness, transparency, or privacy 
• Consulting project solutioning skills
• Travel as necessary to client sites
• Bachelor’s degree in related field, MBA preferred

Management responsibilities: 

• Autonomous, positive thinker, and aptitude to work independently or part of a multi-disciplinary team 
• Lead cross discipline teams of 2-20 consultants, data scientists, and engineers. 
• Develop Insight & Analytics consultants in your region, ensuring they deliver high quality work for our clients while growing in their careers and preparing for the next level of responsibility.

The following skills and capabilities are central to the role, depending on Service Area expertise: 

• Industry experience highly desirable (Financial Services/ Healthcare/ Manufacturing/ Retail) 
• Understanding of best of breed working methodologies (Agile, DevOps) 
• Data, Analytics and AI Strategy, Maturity assessment & Roadmap development
• RPA/ Automation Strategy & Roadmap 
• Operating model and COE design and operationalization planning (Analytics, RPA, AI) 
• Process re-engineering, transformation and adoption 
• Sound knowledge in Strategy development involving areas such as Data Architecture, Data Hubbing / Integration, Data Modeling, Data Governance & Management, Data Quality, Data Security, Reporting & Analytics, BI Governance, BI Self-Service 
• Understanding of applications of Natural Language Processing, Image Recognition, Voice Recognition, Robotics, Automation, Knowledge Graphs & Semantic Search, Genetic / Evolutionary Algorithms, Chatbots & Intelligent Virtual Agents, Recommender Systems, Fuzzy Logics