Associate Director - Digital Strategy & Innovation (DSI)

About the role

Intentional Futures is seeking an Associate Director to join our Digital Strategy & Innovation (DSI) practice. This role sets the bar for strategic thought leadership and seamless project and client management across large, complex engagements.

Responsibilities

• Lead and support multiple research and synthesis workstreams on complex technology, market trends, and organizational strategy questions for clients across the private sector, philanthropy, and nonprofit sectors, serving as either project lead, driving strategy directly, or project advisor, providing guidance and quality oversight.
• Translate emerging technology trends, including AI and agentic systems, platform shifts, and digital infrastructure, into strategic insight and recommendations tailored to each client's context.
• Lead collaborative, multidisciplinary project teams (strategists, designers, technologists) through scoping, budgeting, research, and delivery, producing frameworks, strategy documents, and narratives that land with executive and non-technical audiences.
• Apply AI tools thoughtfully across client engagements and iF's internal work, with attention to responsible use and genuine value creation; contribute to iF's point of view on responsible AI, digital equity, and the future of technology-enabled work.
• Serve as day-to-day contact for client project teams, managing relationships with professionalism and strategic attentiveness.
• Lead client workshops, working sessions, and facilitated convenings, including iF's Humanist AI Studio and other co-design formats.
• Prepare and present findings and recommendations to senior client stakeholders, translating quantitative data into clear, compelling narrative that connects evidence to strategic decisions.
• Navigate ambiguity in client engagements with composure and intellectual clarity.
• Provide mentorship, coaching, and training to DSI team members around facilitation, client management, framework development, and stakeholder alignment.
• Own and manage multiple workstreams within complex, multi-stakeholder projects, including scoping, timelines, deliverable quality, and team coordination, while navigating pivots and scope changes.
• Collaborate closely with designers, researchers, and strategists across iF's other practice areas (Education, Organizational Effectiveness, Social Impact).
• Help develop reusable frameworks, toolkits, and points of view for the DSI practice.
• Cultivate key client relationships over time, building the trust and communication that sustain hard conversations and lead to ongoing partnership opportunities.
• Push back on clients and colleagues in ways they can appreciate; advocate for the project team when needed.
• Drive business development, including cultivating leads, managing relationships with prospective clients, and crafting proposals, statements of work, and pitches.
• Participate in thought leadership publishing and public speaking engagements as appropriate.

Qualifications

• 7 to 10 years of experience in strategy consulting, technology strategy, or a related advisory role, with demonstrated success leading complex, multi-stakeholder projects from scoping through delivery.
• Strong working knowledge of the technology landscape, including AI (generative and agentic systems), platform economics, digital transformation, and enterprise technology strategy, and how these forces intersect with organizational and social outcomes.
• Expert facilitation skills: the ability to guide diverse stakeholders through complex conversations in a strategic yet diplomatic way, and to design workshops that generate clarity and momentum.
• Proven ability to conduct rigorous research and translate findings, including quantitative data, into clear, compelling strategies, frameworks, reports, and presentations that land with executive audiences.
• Cross-sector consulting experience and comfort moving fluidly between very different client contexts, such as technology companies, philanthropies, foundations, or mission-driven organizations, sometimes within the same week.
• Genuine interest in AI, both as a subject to advise clients on and as a practical tool for improving your own work and iF's.
• Conversational fluency in product design and development across a broad technology stack: internet infrastructure, SaaS business models, AI (generative, agentic, and applied), and the emerging strategic implications of sovereign AI and quantum computing for organizations and society.
• A track record of mentoring colleagues, elevating team craft, and contributing to a culture of high-quality, collaborative work.
• Comfort defining the path forward in ambiguous engagements and helping others navigate uncertainty with confidence.
• Exceptional written and verbal communication, including writing for executive audiences and presenting complex ideas with clarity and conviction.

Preferred Experience

• Direct experience with clients in iF's current DSI verticals: big tech, philanthropy, or environmental/conservation nonprofits.
• Facilitation experience, particularly around AI strategy, organizational change, or innovation workshops.
• Familiarity with responsible AI frameworks, digital equity, or technology policy.
• Experience contributing to business development: proposals, SOWs, or pitches.
• Working knowledge of emerging AI infrastructure (MCP, agent-to-agent protocols, AI operating system dynamics), or the strategic implications of frontiers like sovereign AI and quantum computing.

Pay

The hiring range for this role is $114,000 - $142,000 annually as well as potential for an annual bonus based on performance and company financial outcomes. Along with this, iF offers a generous benefits package. More info can be found on the application page.