VP, Client Partner

VP, Client Partner

Philadelphia, PA

Company Overview

Robots & Pencils is an applied AI engineering firm building the next frontier of business architecture. We design and ship AI co-workers that integrate into enterprise operations and deliver measurable results for our clients. We're all in on AWS, combining deep UX capability with senior engineering talent to get AI into production fast and keep it there. We've earned the trust of leaders across Consumer Products and Retail, Education, Energy, Financial Services, Healthcare, and Manufacturing and more, and earned a reputation as the nimble alternative to traditional global systems integrators. Founded in 2009, with delivery centers in Canada, the United States, Eastern Europe, and Latin America, we are smaller, faster, and more senior by design. Our teams average 15+ years of experience. We move fast, sweat the details, and build things that actually ship.

Position Overview

As a VP, Client Partner, you lead delivery and growth on assigned enterprise engagements: owning the work itself, deepening client trust, and contributing to the firm's offerings and IP. You work alongside SVP, Client Partners on broader strategy and pursuits.

Why This Role Matters

This is where strategy meets execution at Robots and Pencils. On the accounts you own, you set the direction, lead the work, and drive the next opportunity. We ship production-ready AI in 30 to 45 days; that pace holds only when someone runs an account like their own, sweats the details, and has the courage to surface trade-offs before they cost the result.

What You'll Do

Account Ownership & Delivery

• Shape account strategy and set the vision for where each engagement goes next, aligning cross-workstream goals to client outcomes.
• Own delivery end-to-end on assigned engagements, with accountability for client outcomes, timeline, quality, and target revenue and margin.
• Drive the program operations that protect both impact and profitability (estimating, pricing, resource planning, risk and scope), bringing the bigger calls to your SVP, Client Partner when course corrections are needed.

Client Trust & Growth

• Build trusted relationships with client stakeholders, including executive sponsors, and translate progress, trade-offs, and decisions into the business terms that build confidence and earn renewal.
• Drive expansion within assigned accounts: define the vision, lead proposals, and own the path from opportunity to close, drawing on Sales and your SVP, Client Partner when it helps.
• On qualified new-logo pursuits, you carry the load for Sales: scoping, proposal development with Solution Architects, team composition, pricing, and deal review.

Firm Building & Growth

• Coach Delivery Managers, attract high-potential talent into your engagements, and support the pipeline of future Client Partners.
• Contribute reusable IP, frameworks, and best practices from your work that lift other engagements across Robots and Pencils.
• Stay current on AI, cloud, and applied-AI patterns, and bring fresh thinking into how we deliver and how we sell.

What You'll Bring

• 8–10 years in consulting, digital, or AI and technology services, including delivery of leadership on enterprise programs with P&L visibility.
• A track record growing accounts through trusted executive-level relationships and expansion within assigned clients.
• Depth in digital product, cloud (AWS preferred), data and AI, with the ability to connect technology to measurable business outcomes.
• Hands-on account operations across program governance, estimating, forecasting, utilization, and margin management.
• Demonstrated coaching of senior individual contributors and emerging leaders, with the credibility to attract talent to your engagements.
• Recognized expertise in delivery or a client domain that lets you influence client direction and shape practice standards.
• Willingness to travel regularly to meet clients where they work.

Helpful Extras and Unique Skills

• Certifications such as PMP, Agile, or SAFe. Outcomes still matter most.
• Vertical depth in one or more Consumer Products and Retail, Education, Energy, Financial Services, Healthcare, or Manufacturing.
• Experience leading delivery of AI co-worker, agentic, or applied-AI engagements.
• Experience scoping or closing new business in partnership with Sales and SVP, Client Partners.

You'll Do Well Here if You Are

• A doer. You see something broken and fix it. You'd rather move on clarity than wait for certainty.
• A fast learner who knows you don't know everything. The AI landscape changes weekly. You're senior enough to know better and curious enough to keep learning anyway.
• Direct in a way that makes the work better. You give honest feedback. You'd rather have the hard conversation than blow smoke.
• Obsessed with craft. You know genius is in the details. You ship exceptional, not perfect, and you don't put your name on work you wouldn't stand behind.
• Built for ownership. You honor commitments, admit mistakes fast, and back your teammates when a decision costs something. No handoffs, no finger-pointing.
• All in. You treat clients' businesses like your own. You take the work seriously without taking yourself seriously.
• Resourceful when the budget, timeline, or team is tight. Constraints don't slow you down. They sharpen you.
• Glad to be in the room with people who care as much as you do. Our teams average fifteen-plus years of experience. We hire people who push each other to do better work.
• Brave in the room. You raise risks and trade-offs early on the engagement, and you bring the bigger calls to your SVP, Client Partner before they need to be reversed. You'd rather have the hard conversation today than the harder one next month.