AI Strategist - Hybrid, CA

Role

You will run Operational Intelligence accounts end-to-end for retail and consumer brands, acting as the primary client contact and owning discovery, business case development, specification, delivery direction, and adoption. The role emphasizes long-term program delivery rather than single-tool solutions and requires embedding in client workflows to identify opportunities early.

Key Responsibilities

• Own multiple accounts independently as the primary point of contact
• Lead discovery across defined operational areas (e.g., customer experience, marketing operations, forecasting, inventory), benchmark performance, and identify opportunities
• Build clear business cases: expected impact, costs to deliver, and measurement
• Produce specifications precise enough for engineers and analysts to execute
• Direct concurrent projects and contractors to deliver against scope
• Drive adoption and ensure shipped systems remain in use and move tracked business metrics
• Maintain quality and profitability and identify repeatable offerings from bespoke work

How Success Is Measured

• Clients treat you as an operational and AI partner rather than a vendor contact
• Work expands beyond initial projects because you surface the next opportunity early
• Contractors execute from your direction without redoing discovery or specs
• Deliverables move tracked business metrics and remain in use after launch
• Multiple accounts run concurrently without losses in quality, client trust, or margin

Requirements

• Startup experience (built or operated) with comfort creating playbooks while delivering
• Strong client-facing and executive communication skills; able to challenge clients and refocus on business problems
• Deep, applied AI experience (tools, products, custom agents, or workflows you have built); you will be asked to demo an Applied AI case study
• Technical and analytical fluency to reason about agent systems, data connections, backend architectures, APIs, and implementation tradeoffs
• SQL and/or Python experience is valuable
• Ability to read a P&L, explain how Shopify/e-commerce businesses make money, and build financial models

Nice-to-have

• Time on the operator side inside a consumer or e-commerce brand
• Published writing or talks on applied AI

Working Style

• You will be embedded in client businesses and responsible for the full arc from relationship and discovery to delivery and the business metric at the end
• This is an early hire in the practice with scope to shape the offering; the environment suits those who want ownership and accountability rather than fixed scopes or predictable weeks