Azure AI Applications Practice Lead

At Lantern , our company culture stands as the bedrock of our success and a source of pride for our teams. We firmly believe that a culture founded on trust forms the basis for enduring relationships with clients, colleagues, and partners.

Within this culture, we nurture an environment of respect, inclusion, and belonging, fostering collaboration among inspired teams. We prioritize the well-being of our colleagues, the success of our clients, and our positive impact on society.

Embracing a growth mindset where curiosity thrives, we celebrate excellence and value individuals who inspire and mentor others, elevating the collective. Our driving force lies in personal and business growth. We go above and beyond to surprise and delight our clients, delivering tangible business value. In facing challenges, we make tough choices and solve complex problems to positively influence our clients, their customers, and the world at large.

As a Microsoft services partner, we hold ourselves to the highest standards of technical excellence. This commitment to quality is evident not only in our work but also in how we support and empower our employees. At Lantern, our culture mirrors our core values and unwavering dedication to realizing our purpose and vision, making it a dynamic and fulfilling workplace. Together, we transcend the ordinary and achieve extraordinary results.

We are currently looking for an Azure AI Apps Practice Lead who will be responsible for leading our Azure AI Applications Practice.


Key Responsibilities

The Azure AI Applications Practice Lead is a critical driver of Lantern's mission to empower clients to leverage AI and custom applications for transformative business outcomes. This role leads our Azure AI Applications practice, focusing on building and scaling a high-performance team with expertise in cutting-edge AI and app development technologies.
The Practice Lead is ultimately responsible for driving and supporting growth in our business relative to revenue, technical delivery, customer management and people leadership. That requires that this person will closely collaborate with the Go-to-Market and Commercial teams, having business driven, technology supporting, and solution focused conversations in the marketplace.
This role requires close collaboration with our Go-to-Market teams to develop relevant offerings, as well as with Delivery and Operations to ensure the successful and efficient execution of projects. Other core responsibilities include understanding and shaping the market landscape, driving talent acquisition and retention, and ensuring optimal workforce utilization to exceed client expectations and drive profitability.

Skills, Knowledge and Expertise

• Go-to-Market & Sales Support
  • Contribute to Lantern GTM Offering development, prioritization, and activation.
  • Develop Practice Sales Plays and partner with Business Development Teams to take those to market in areas not covered by Lantern GTM Offerings.
  Demand Generation
  • Champion Lantern GTM Campaigns and support related demand generation activities (e.g. briefings, events, sales enablement, etc.)
  • Partner with Business Development teams in driving pipeline by presenting Lantern GTM Offerings & Studio Sales Plays to Clients and Microsoft.
  
  
  Sales Support
  • Provide input during New Business Meetings to help qualify and ensure new opportunities have practice support.
  • Contribute to strategic account planning with the Business Development team, based on deep client environment knowledge.
  • Proactively support sales pursuits and coordinate people requirements as required to win business.
  • Develop project estimates and resource plans in support of delivering proposal and presentations to clients.
  • Partner in the Sales Process for solution shaping and deal success.
  Delivery Leadership
  • Work closely with Delivery & Operations teams to ensure seamless transitions from Sales to Delivery and mobilize resources effectively.
  • Oversee delivery quality, addressing escalations and offering guidance throughout project lifecycles.
  • Optimize staffing, resource planning, and utilization management to maximize and balance efficiency, profitability and client satisfaction.
  People Leadership
  • Set the vision and strategy for the Generative AI, ML, and Custom App Dev practice, inspiring consultants to deliver high-impact results.
  • Facilitate consultants' continuous professional development in priority areas such as AI model development, deployment, and custom application engineering.
  • Develop and roll out training plannings to meet our current and upcoming delivery needs
  • Partner with recruiting and People & Culture teams to attract and retain top talent in alignment with the practice's growth objectives.
  Technology Leadership
  • Act as the primary technical leader for clients, consultants, and sales pursuits within the practice.
  • Provide expert technical oversight and mentorship to consultants in AI-enabled applications, Generative AI, custom agents, UI/UX and custom application development.
  • Establish thought leadership through posts, webinars, workshops, presentations, and conference speaking engagements.
  • Develop strong relationships with Microsoft and other partners to support clients in adopting cloud, AI, and application technologies.
  • Exhibit a strong knowledge of the Microsoft Data Ecosystem (Fabric, PowerBI, Event Hubs), Databricks and Machine Learning

Requirements

• Experienced consulting leader with a deep understanding of the Microsoft ecosystem
  • Experienced in supporting sales and driving new business with existing clients, and the ability to drive growth through Go-to-Market offerings.
  • Experienced in practice development, team leadership, sales enablement, and high-level client engagements, ensuring the practice meets both technical excellence and business objectives.
  • 10+ Years in a consulting leadership role is required with experience leading custom application and UI/UX development, building data platforms, data lakes and machine learning solutions.
  • 2+ years leading Generative AI & Custom Agent and multi-agent (agentic) engagements.

Position Metrics

• • Primary Practice Health Indicators
  • Individual Utilization
  • Practice Utilization
  • Practice Growth YoY
  • Practice Billable Hours
  • Practice Headcount Growth
  Supplemental Practice Health Indicators
  • Budget vs. Actuals (Hours)
  • Practice Pipeline Forecast
  • Practice Revenue Growth
  • Practice Member Learning Index (Prof. Dev. Goals & Certs)
  • Client NPS
  • Practice Member NPS
  • Practice Retention Rate

Lantern is committed to fair and equitable compensation practices. Actual compensation will depend upon an individual's skills, experience, qualifications, location, and other relevant factors. The salary pay range is subject to change and may be modified at any time.

Colorado Salary Range

$175,000-$225,000 USD