AI Strategy and Governance Lead

We're hiring an AI Strategy and Governance Lead for a professional services firm with 60+ years of experience delivering accounting, tax, and advisory services across government, healthcare, franchise, and construction sectors.

Our client is a leading accounting and consulting firm that seeks a client-facing AI Strategy and Governance Lead to advise organizations on how to adopt, scale, and oversee artificial intelligence across the enterprise. This leader will partner with executives, business stakeholders, and technical teams to develop AI strategy, assess business process automation opportunities, prioritize high-value use cases, evaluate solution feasibility, and establish governance structures that enable responsible, secure, and measurable AI adoption.

They are seeking an experienced AI Strategy and Governance Lead to help clients define, prioritize, and govern enterprise AI transformation. This role is designed for a consulting leader who can translate business strategy into practical AI roadmaps, identify automation and advanced AI opportunities across business processes, shape business cases with measurable ROI, and guide clients through the governance, operating model, and portfolio oversight required to scale AI responsibly. The ideal candidate combines executive presence, business process acumen, AI fluency, and governance discipline to help clients move from ideation to value realization using our AI platform built on the Microsoft Azure AI ecosystem and other leading enterprise AI products.

AI Strategy, Roadmap & Client Advisory

• Lead client engagements to define enterprise AI strategy, target outcomes, transformation priorities, and implementation roadmaps.
• Translate executive objectives into practical AI initiatives, sequencing recommendations, investment priorities, and measurable value cases.
• Advise clients on AI adoption models, operating models, governance structures, capability maturity, and change implications.

Business Process Analysis & Automation Opportunity Identification

• Assess client business processes, workflows, data flows, pain points, and decision points to identify automation, augmentation, and advanced AI opportunities.
• Facilitate discovery sessions, process walkthroughs, ideation workshops, and stakeholder interviews to build a qualified AI opportunity pipeline.
• Prioritize opportunities based on expected business value, feasibility, risk, data readiness, adoption complexity, and alignment to enterprise strategy.

AI Use Case Portfolio, Business Case & ROI Evaluation

• Develop and manage an AI use case portfolio that connects business objectives, automation opportunities, expected benefits, dependencies, and delivery sequencing.
• Build business cases that estimate ROI, cost-to-serve, productivity impact, revenue enablement, risk reduction, and operational efficiency gains.
• Partner with technical architects, data leaders, security teams, and engineering teams to assess solution feasibility, integration complexity, technical risk, and delivery effort.

AI, GenAI & Agentic Automation Advisory

• Advise clients on practical applications of generative AI, agentic automation, retrieval-augmented generation, intelligent workflow orchestration, and AI-assisted decision support.
• Shape solution concepts using our AI platform, Microsoft Azure AI Foundry, Azure OpenAI, Microsoft Agent Framework, Semantic Kernel, and other leading enterprise AI products where appropriate.
• Work with technical teams to translate business needs into solution hypotheses, capability requirements, proof-of-concept designs, pilot scope, and scale-up recommendations.
• Define adoption pathways for agentic capabilities, including human-in-the-loop controls, escalation paths, oversight requirements, and measurable performance outcomes.

AI Governance, Policy & Enterprise Oversight

• Provide consultancy on AI governance strategy, responsible AI operating models, portfolio oversight, and enterprise decision rights.
• Design or refine AI policies, standards, intake processes, risk assessment workflows, approval gates, model/use-case inventories, control libraries, and reporting mechanisms.
• Align governance recommendations to practical frameworks such as NIST AI RMF, ISO/IEC 42001, privacy and security requirements, and emerging AI regulatory expectations.
• Define the roles and responsibilities across business, technology, data, legal, risk, compliance, security, audit, and executive oversight to form a governing body.

Client Workshops, Facilitation & Executive Communication

• Plan and facilitate executive workshops, stakeholder meetings, process discovery sessions, governance design sessions, and AI ideation forums.
• Create executive-ready deliverables, including AI strategy roadmaps, opportunity heatmaps, business case summaries, governance charters, operating model designs, and implementation plans.
• Communicate AI concepts, risks, tradeoffs, and recommendations clearly to senior business, technology, and risk stakeholders.

Required Qualifications

• 10+ years of experience in management consulting, technology strategy, digital transformation, AI strategy, enterprise architecture, governance, or related advisory roles.
• Demonstrated experience leading client-facing strategy engagements, workshops, and executive stakeholder discussions.
• Strong understanding of AI, generative AI, automation, analytics, and emerging agentic AI capabilities, with the ability to translate technical concepts into business value.
• Experience assessing business processes, identifying automation opportunities, and developing AI roadmaps, investment cases, or transformation portfolios.
• Ability to evaluate business case ROI, feasibility, risks, dependencies, and adoption considerations in partnership with technical teams.
• Working knowledge of AI governance, responsible AI, risk management, policy design, portfolio oversight, and operating model development.
• Excellent executive communication, structured problem-solving, facilitation, and client relationship management skills.

Preferred Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in Business, Computer Science, Engineering, Data Science, Public Policy, Risk Management, or a related field; advanced degree preferred.
• Experience advising enterprise or public sector clients on AI adoption, automation, governance, risk, compliance, or digital transformation.
• Familiarity with Microsoft Azure AI Foundry, Azure OpenAI, Microsoft Copilot ecosystem, agentic AI frameworks, RAG, workflow automation, and enterprise AI platforms.
• Knowledge of NIST AI RMF, ISO/IEC 42001, OECD AI principles, privacy/security requirements, model risk management, or enterprise GRC practices.
• Experience developing AI use case inventories, governance dashboards, policy frameworks, operating models, and portfolio management processes.
• Ability to work effectively with cross-functional teams across business, technology, data, legal, risk, compliance, security, and audit.