Wayfinders is Fujitsu’s new business and technology management consulting firm built for the AI era. The mission of Wayfinders is to help customers define how they should harness the power of technology to outperform their peers and drive new frontiers of growth and profitability. We help customers from opportunity to outcome; we work with them to develop their strategy, implement it at scale, and maximize their return on investment. We do all this by weaving AI into our consulting process and building our customers’ capabilities so they can leverage AI at scale across their enterprise.
Position Overview: Wayfinders Associate Partner – Data & AI
We are seeking a dynamic and experienced Associate Partner to join our Data & AI practice. This role is ideal for a strategic thinker and leader with expertise in leading enterprise-wide AI and data transformation programs. Experience aligning AI strategy initiatives with business goals and driving measurable outcomes. The ideal candidate will have a proven ability to translate complex data and AI challenges into business value, crafting compelling strategies and presenting C-suite-ready roadmaps, and driving adoption of data-driven decisions. This position offers a pathway to becoming a Partner.
Key Responsibilities
Client Leadership
Serve as a trusted advisor to senior executives (e.g., CDO, CIO, CTO) on AI & Data strategy and transformation. Clear track record leading multiple high-value projects/consulting engagements (e.g. $1M+ Data and AI Transformations) Demonstrated history of a leveraged split-time model, simultaneously leading 2-3 projects in parallel. Proven mentor, who has built internal teams and successfully grown junior colleagues to lead project teams Drive client satisfaction and long-term relationship development.
Practice Development
Shapes practice-level strategy and consulting offers to address market trends, develops intellectual property Mentor and develop high-performing consulting teams. Collaborate with cross-functional leaders to integrate Technology capabilities with broader digital, sustainability, and operational excellence initiatives.
Business Development
Experience winning new business, crafting proposals, expanding the practice’s market presence, and building relationships with senior client leaders. Build and maintain a strong pipeline of opportunities across industries such as automotive, industrials, banking, and food & beverage. Achieve revenue and profitability targets.
Required Skills & Experience
Consulting & Industry Experience and Education
8+ years, with demonstrated consulting experience or equivalent industry leadership (e.g. Head of Data or Head of Analytics for a midsized company). Excels in storytelling and stakeholder facilitation, bridging technical (e.g., data engineers, data scientists, and MLEs) and business audiences with persuasive narratives, building trust, and navigating client dynamics with finesse. Adept at collaborating with colleagues and clients, delivering clear technical insights through engaging presentations and consultations, and building strong relationships to drive project success and client satisfaction in dynamic, team-oriented environments Skilled in defining compelling business use cases by identifying high impact opportunities (e.g. cost reduction, revenue growth), translating complex needs into actionable Data & AI implementations, process optimization strategies and governance frameworks that align solutions to strategy. Impact-oriented mindset, with the proven ability to drive return on investments in data and analytics. Experience working with mid-size companies in the $1B - $20B revenue range. Experience with US subsidiaries of Japanese multi-national firms is a plus. Advanced degree (PhD, MBA, MS in Computer Science, Data Science, or equivalent) from a top-tier institution preferred, though relevant experience can substitute.
Leadership & Influence
Executive presence with the ability to influence and engage senior stakeholders. Strong people leadership skills, including team building, coaching, and performance management. Proven track record leading interdisciplinary projects spanning clients & colleagues with diverse technical backgrounds (e.g. data engineering, data science, MLE, software engineering) and traditional business backgrounds (e.g. project managers, integrative management consultants).
Technical & Industry Knowledge
Skilled in designing scalable, cloud-native data architectures, integrating data lakes (e.g., Databricks Delta Lake), data warehouses (e.g., Snowflake, Google BigQuery), data meshes for decentralized ownership, and real-time streaming platforms (e.g., Apache Kafka, AWS Kinesis) to support dynamic use cases, e.g. logistics optimization, retail store transformation, & production optimization in manufacturing. Masterful in crafting data governance frameworks that ensure data quality, security, and compliance (e.g., GDPR, CCPA, CA AI Bill of Rights, CO Consumer Protections for AI). Ensures AI-ready data quality with lineage tracking and bias mitigation, to maintain compliance and fairness in large-scale AI deployments. Proficient in AI/ML concepts (e.g., supervised learning machine learning, deep learning, LLMs), with experience in frameworks like TensorFlow, PyTorch, or Hugging Face, especially as it pertains to data integration for model development and deployment. Designs robust data pipelines to support both traditional enterprise ETL use cases, as well as AI at scale, with knowledge of feature stores (e.g., Feast, Tecton) and vector databases (e.g., Pinecone, Weaviate) to manage high-dimensional data for real-time inference. Optimizes data infrastructure for AI workloads, leveraging contemporary orchestration tools (e.g. Airflow) and cloud cost tools to balance performance and expense for enterprise AI.E
Core Competencies
Strategic Thinking & Vision Client Relationship Management Commercial Acumen Change Leadership Innovation & Thought Leadership Communication & Storytelling Results Orientation