Senior Director, Data & AI Advisory

Role Description

We are seeking a Sr. Director, Data & AI Advisory to lead Acxiom’s Data & AI Advisory team within the broader Data & AI Services practice. This role is for a senior consulting leader who can advise clients on how to turn customer data, identity, platforms, analytics, and AI into measurable business value while helping scale a growing advisory business.

You will serve as a trusted advisor to senior client stakeholders, lead complex consulting engagements, and own day-to-day leadership of a portfolio of advisory and delivery-oriented offerings. Success requires the ability to shape the market story, sell the work, guide multidisciplinary teams, and translate strategic ambition into practical roadmaps, operating models, implementation plans, and value cases.

This is not a purely conceptual strategy role. The right candidate will understand how data strategy, platform modernization, identity, governance, activation, measurement, and AI enablement come together in real marketing and customer engagement environments. They will be expected to structure and sell offerings, lead delivery, mentor team members, develop reusable methods, and ensure our recommendations are commercially relevant, technically grounded, and executable.

SPONSORSHIP NOT AVAILABLE FOR THIS POSITION

Qualifications

• 8+ years of professional experience in consulting or professional services, with a focus on data strategy, marketing transformation, analytics, AI, data management, technology advisory, or related fields.
• Bachelors Degree Required - Masters Preferred
• Proven experience leading client-facing consulting engagements end to end, including discovery, assessment, strategy, roadmap, executive presentation, and implementation planning.
• Experience developing, packaging, selling, and leading consulting offerings or repeatable service propositions, including sales enablement, scoping, proposal development, and value articulation.
• Strong understanding of customer data as a strategic asset in marketing and customer engagement, including first-party data, identity, segmentation, activation, measurement, and personalization.
• Working knowledge of modern data and marketing ecosystems, including cloud data platforms, CDPs, CRM, activation platforms, journey orchestration, clean rooms, and measurement tools.
• Practical understanding of AI and analytics use cases, including how data readiness, governance, workflow integration, operating model design, and adoption affect value realization.
• Working awareness of data governance, data quality, data cataloging, privacy-by-design, consent management, and responsible AI considerations, with the ability to involve deeper SMEs when needed.
• Experience leading cross-functional teams that may include strategists, analysts, solution architects, data engineers, data scientists, product owners, privacy stakeholders, and client SMEs.
• Ability to translate ambiguous executive priorities and non-technical stakeholder needs into clear requirements, strategic recommendations, workplans, roadmaps, and business cases.
• Strong executive communication, facilitation, presentation, and storytelling skills, with the ability to influence both technical and non-technical audiences.
• Experience applying consulting frameworks such as maturity assessments, capability models, use case prioritization, value vs. effort analysis, operating model design, governance models, and roadmaps.
• Experience working across onshore, nearshore, offshore, intercultural, and interdisciplinary teams.

Requirements

• Lead Data & AI Advisory engagements from opportunity shaping through discovery, current-state assessment, future-state design, roadmap development, and executive readout.
• Serve as the senior day-to-day advisory lead for clients, building trusted relationships with marketing, data, technology, analytics, operations, privacy, and executive stakeholders.
• Translate complex business challenges into clear data, AI, analytics, governance, identity, and technology strategies tied to measurable outcomes.
• Structure ambiguous problems into workplans, hypotheses, stakeholder sessions, deliverables, decision points, and actionable recommendations.
• Lead and evolve a portfolio of Data & AI Advisory offerings across strategy, readiness, platform improvement, identity enablement, activation, measurement, and value realization.
• Support business development through opportunity qualification, solution shaping, proposal writing, pitch development, scope definition, estimation, and delivery model design.
• Develop repeatable playbooks, sales enablement materials, assessment frameworks, workshop formats, delivery standards, and accelerators that improve quality and scalability.
• Advise clients on how to use first-, second-, and third-party data as strategic assets for customer understanding, marketing effectiveness, personalization, measurement, and growth.
• Assess client maturity across data strategy, platform utilization, identity resolution, consent management, governance, data quality, analytics, activation, measurement, and AI readiness.
• Develop future-state recommendations across operating model, capability gaps, data flows, functional architecture, governance, measurement, business case, and implementation sequencing.
• Guide clients on responsible and effective AI adoption, including use case prioritization, data readiness, workflow integration, governance, change management, and value realization.
• Partner with solution architects, data engineers, data scientists, analysts, product owners, experience strategists, and technology partners to ensure strategy is grounded in delivery reality.
• Deliver executive-ready artifacts such as maturity assessments, use case portfolios, gap analyses, future-state designs, data flows, solution concepts, RACIs, business cases, and phased roadmaps.
• Bridge strategy and implementation by clarifying scope, sequencing, dependencies, success metrics, delivery roles, risks, and decision rights.
• Provide day-to-day leadership, mentorship, and coaching to Data & AI Advisory consultants, strategists, and analysts.
• Shape staffing plans, delivery roles, quality standards, reusable methods, and development paths for the advisory team.
• Translate practice goals into tactical actions and ensure progress against priorities.
• Support the practice leader in scaling the broader practice by identifying talent needs, capability gaps, offering opportunities, and operational improvements.

Benefits

• You will help lead a team operating at the forefront of data, AI, identity, and marketing transformation.
• Shape how leading organizations define customer data strategy, modernize marketing and analytics capabilities, operationalize AI-enabled decisioning, improve platform performance, create practical governance models, and turn strategic ambition into executable roadmaps.
• Help scale the Data & AI Advisory team by developing people, improving delivery standards, shaping offerings, and partnering with the broader practice to drive growth.