Associate Director, AI Strategy, EY-Parthenon in London

At EY, we’re all in to shape your future with confidence. We’ll help you succeed in a globally connected powerhouse of diverse teams and take your career wherever you want it to go. Join EY and help to build a better working world.

Key responsibilities

• Lead engagement execution, managing sizeable workstreams and selected end-to-end AI strategy engagements.
• Convert broad client questions into clear hypotheses, issue trees, workplans, analytical requirements, stakeholder plans and decision points.
• Own the day-to-day management of engagements, including team deployment, timelines, dependencies, deliverable quality, client governance, scope management and engagement economics.
• Deliver enterprise AI strategies by assessing an organisation’s AI maturity, strategic ambition, business priorities, technology landscape, data readiness, talent base and governance capabilities.
• Identify, quantify and prioritise AI value creation opportunities across growth, productivity, cost, risk and customer outcomes.
• Develop and prioritise portfolios of AI use cases using commercial value, strategic relevance, feasibility, risk, data readiness and time-to-impact criteria.
• Define target AI operating models, including decision rights, governance, funding, delivery structures, talent requirements and collaboration between business, technology, data and risk teams.
• Evaluate build, buy and partner choices, including implications of foundation models, cloud providers, specialist AI vendors and existing enterprise platforms.
• Develop practical AI roadmaps, investment requirements, business cases, capability-building plans and implementation priorities.
• Lead or support buy-side AI due diligence for private equity and corporate investors.
• Assess whether claimed AI capabilities are proprietary, defensible and material to the investment thesis.
• Quantify potential AI value creation opportunities and associated execution requirements.
• Prepare management teams to respond credibly to investor scrutiny of the company’s AI capabilities.
• Present concise, decision-oriented findings to investment committees, deal teams, management teams and other senior stakeholders.
• Build trusted working relationships with C-suite executives, business-unit leaders, AI/Data leaders, functional leaders, private equity investment professionals and portfolio management teams.
• Plan and facilitate executive interviews, workshops, working sessions and steering committees.
• Communicate complex AI and technology topics in clear commercial language tailored to the audience.
• Lead multidisciplinary teams of consultants and specialists.
• Coach junior colleagues in structured problem-solving, analytics, story lining, client communication and professional judgement.
• Create an inclusive, collaborative and high-performance team environment.
• Play a leading role in proposals, pitches and commercial discussions.
• Contribute to the development of EY-Parthenon's AI Strategy methodology, propositions, tools and intellectual property.

Skills and attributes for success

• Structured strategy consulting capability.
• Strong hypothesis-led problem-solving skills.
• Excellent analytical judgement.
• Experience combining primary research, secondary research, quantitative analysis and expert input.
• Strong storylining and synthesis skills.
• Confidence operating at pace, with incomplete information and under demanding client deadlines.
• A high degree of personal ownership, attention to detail and commitment to quality.
• A sound understanding of the principal components of the enterprise AI landscape.
• The ability to engage credibly with architects, engineers and data scientists.
• Strong commercial acumen and the ability to connect AI opportunities to business strategy.
• Experience developing business cases, value-driver trees, market assessments, cost models, investment requirements and implementation roadmaps.
• Strong project and team leadership.
• Excellent written and verbal communication.
• A proactive, low-ego and collaborative working style.

Essential experience

• At least six years of management consulting experience.
• Evidence of operating at Senior Manager, Engagement Manager or equivalent level.
• At least two years of substantive AI-focused experience.
• A track record of independently leading major workstreams or smaller engagements.
• Experience managing consulting teams and reviewing the quality of analytical outputs.
• Strong evidence of structured problem-solving, quantitative/financial analysis, executive communication and project management.

What We Offer

• An attractive remuneration package.
• Continuous learning through training, coaching and mentorship.
• Opportunities to work on a wide range of projects.
• Diverse and inclusive culture.
• Tools and flexibility to make a meaningful impact.

If you can demonstrate that you meet the criteria above, please contact us as soon as possible.