AI Advisory Principal

About the role

As an AI Advisory Principal, you lead Scale’s Advisory work in your vertical, end-to-end. In pre-sales, you shape and qualify opportunities alongside Account Executives and sell the Advisory phase to clients. In delivery, you’re the Directly Responsible Individual on engagements — owning the client relationship, running the discovery and scoping work, and accountable for the outcome.

Responsibilities

• Own the engagement and the vertical — from the first pre-sales conversation through the final readout.
• Lead engagements end-to-end.
• Owning the client relationship, running workshops, leading the final readout, driving the direction, and accountable for the outcome (use-case selection, SOW quality, delivery).
• Coordinate and direct the Solutions Engineers, Designers, Tech Leads, and DSGs on the engagement without managing them directly.
• Sell Advisory in your vertical.
• Build the approach, lead the Advisory portion of key pre-sales meetings, bring industry roadmap examples from buyer peers, and qualify opportunities with Account Executives — and you represent Scale and Advisory at industry events.
• Build the vertical point of view.
• Develop your vertical's point of view — the AI-shaped problems, best practices, technology and learnings, and buyer-peer and competitor intelligence that make Advisory credible in the field.
• Grow the playbook from the field.
• Surface what's working and what isn't across your engagements, document the patterns and reusable approaches, and work with DSGs to update the Advisory approach based on build feedback.
• Manage your Consultant.
• Coach the Consultant on your engagements and overall, give feedback, and own their professional development — and you provide input on Consultant hiring.

Qualifications

• Senior manager or principal equivalent experience at a Tier 1 firm (McKinsey, Bain, BCG ideally); 7+ years of work experience.
• AI strategy or transformation experience strongly preferred.
• Scoping, proposal, and pitching experience — comfortable shaping and selling an engagement, not just delivering it.
• The judgment to advise clients directly on where AI creates value — identifying and shaping the right, AI-shaped use cases for their business.
• The technical credibility to speak to AI builds credibility and to work closely with Solutions Engineers on feasibility.
• A classic consulting toolkit e.g. strategy, operating-model, governance, change management, and exec-ready storytelling to assist clients in developing an AI strategy.
• Experience designing and facilitating client workshops.
• A natural relationship-builder who establishes trusted-advisor credibility early, paired with the judgment to own outcomes independently.
• Strategic but hands-on: able to think at the level of a client's AI agenda and still get into the day-to-day work of an engagement.
• Willingness to travel 30-60 percent, which can include international trips depending on the account.