Some organisations need the decisions made.And they need it now.
You have a data and AI function, or you’re building one. What you don’t have is someone at the table who can help set its direction, defend its budget, and tell you plainly when something isn’t working.
Hiring for that takes months. Often there isn’t an obvious way to fill the gap in the meantime, or the organisation isn’t ready to define what the permanent role should be.
What this is
Senior leadership for your data and AI function, three to five days a week, for as long as you need it.
Not advisory.
The person we place holds the accountability: running the function, making the calls, sitting on the committees, and being the person who can act when a decision involves data or AI.
How it works
We agree what the role actually covers before it starts — which decisions sit with us, which stay with you, and what we’re accountable for delivering.
Then we match the role to the right person. We work with a small group of senior leaders who have each run data and analytics functions at executive level, and we choose based on what your situation requires — a regulated environment, a merger, a function that needs rebuilding, a board or executive team that needs convincing.
You meet them before anything is agreed.
This isn’t a role that works at one or two days a week. Leading a function means being there for the conversations you can’t schedule, so three days is the minimum we’ll take on.
What this covers
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Setting and defending the direction for data and AI
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Leading the function day to day, including the hard people conversations
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Executive and board reporting, and the committees that come with it
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Managing budget, investment cases, and vendor relationships
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Developing your people, including whoever might do this permanently
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Being the person who says when something isn’t working
The people we place
Everyone we put into these roles has held the accountability themselves — as a chief data officer, analytics director, or equivalent — in organisations where the decisions carried real consequence. Between them that spans government, higher education, media, retail, banking, telecommunications and transport, including heavily regulated environments and functions of sixty people or more.
That background matters because most of this job isn’t technical. It’s holding the line on priorities when four executives want different things, navigating uncertainty, and keeping good people when the work gets difficult. Those skills are learned by doing them, not by advising on them.
Typical engagement
three to five days a week, three months minimum, reviewed quarterly.