Senior Consultant — Enterprise Change & Transformation

Job description

AHEAD builds platforms for digital business. By weaving together advances in cloud infrastructure, automation and analytics, and software delivery, we help enterprises deliver on the promise of digital transformation. At AHEAD, we prioritize creating a culture of belonging, where all perspectives and voices are represented, valued, respected, and heard. We create spaces to empower everyone to speak up, make change, and drive the culture at AHEAD. We are an equal opportunity employer, and do not discriminate based on an individual's race, national origin, color, gender, gender identity, gender expression, sexual orientation, religion, age, disability, marital status, or any other protected characteristic under applicable law, whether actual or perceived. ***We embrace all candidates that will contribute to the diversification and enrichment of ideas and perspectives at AHEAD.*** The **Senior Consultant, Enterprise Change & Transformation**, helps establish and direct strategic and tactical OCM activities across the practice and project delivery including training materials and knowledge base that support them, while building the organizations' capacity and capability to change continuously, not just land a single initiative. Rather than executing one off communication and training plans for a discrete rollout, this role leads clients toward durable change capability and adoption: Centers of Excellence, self-service playbooks, and manager-led change practices that make the organization resilient to constant transformation, well beyond any one project's go-live date. Consistent with AHEAD's Senior Consultant capability tier, this role leads workstreams and/or a full engagement segment with limited oversight: shaping the approach and workplans rather than executing tasks handed down, owning day-to-day relationships with organization leadership ranging from manager and director-level client stakeholders, and formally coaching Consultants and Associates. When assigned to a project, the Senior Consultant works in collaboration with the project team, client stakeholders and business units/organizations to effectively implement change and drive adoption while remediating impacted parties' resistance, across engagements of significant ambiguity, complexity, and scope. ### Responsibilities **Enterprise Change Capability & Transformation** - Establishes and defines strategic and tactical OCM activities across the OCM team and project delivery, including but not limited to training material and knowledge base. - Leads the design and stand-up of client Centers of Excellence (CoE) for change, including governance, playbooks, and role definitions that let the client sustain change practice after AHEAD's engagement ends. - Coaches line managers to lead their own teams through continuous, overlapping shifts, building manager-led change capability rather than centralizing it with the project team. - Directs the development of scalable, self-service change playbooks, toolkits, and templates that business units can apply independently to future transformations. - Understands and has experience with OCM methodologies, frameworks and models such as Prosci’s ADKAR Change Management Model and has experience developing and conducting OCM readiness and impact assessments and plans adapted for an enterprise, continuous-change context. - Understands human behavior, motivation, and group dynamics in the context of change, and analyzes the impact of proposed changes on processes, systems, culture, and people (People, Process, Tools) across multiple concurrent initiatives. - Identifies and categorizes all stakeholders affected by change, understands their needs, concerns, and influence, and develops relationships with stakeholders while maintaining a working knowledge of the organization's business operations, objectives, and industry context. - Leads enterprise wide digital transformation road mapping and directs defined workstreams that translate business needs into actionable change, adoption, and implementation plans. - Provides change management guidance, coaching, and mentorship to project teams and business partners, with an emphasis on building their independent change capability. **Value Realization & Outcome Measurement** - Helps establish mechanisms to collect feedback from stakeholders throughout the change process and analyze stakeholder feedback to make recommendations to changes to the change management strategy. - Designs and directs outcome-based metrics — behavioral adoption, productivity, and business KPIs — rather than activity metrics such as communications sent or sessions hosted, and identifies and supports the KPIs used to measure the success of the change initiative. - Directs the use of data and analytics to demonstrate actual behavioral change resulting from transformation initiatives, and to identify where adoption is stalling. - Tracks progress and provide regular reports to leadership and stakeholders; supports pre- and post-implementation surveys and the data collection, analysis, and reporting of results. - Builds financial and business-case components (cost/benefit, ROI/TCO inputs) that tie change outcomes to the commercial story, well beyond a project's go-live date. **AI-Enabled Change Practice** - Participates in the design and development of OCM digital tools for OCM and program management and develops OCM-related templates and tools for use by practitioners, enhancing engagement and effectiveness. - Provides training to other OCM practitioners in the use of digital and AI-enabled tools, ensuring they can leverage these tools to increase their impact. - Engages with clients at the beginning of transformation programs to set up and launch digital tools tailored to their specific needs and provides ongoing technical support. - Applies AI-based sentiment analysis to employee feedback to surface adoption risk and stakeholder concerns faster than manual review allows and directs the use of AI-assisted tools to rapidly map change impact and stakeholder data across large or overlapping initiatives. **Leadership, Mentorship & Practice Development** - Understands and has a strong foundation of project management concepts and can manage engagements independently; has experience managing and driving OCM initiatives independently or as part of a larger project engagement. - Manages communication across multiple stakeholder groups, including senior leadership, and plans, prepares for, and effectively facilitates team meetings and presentations. - Is accountable to create, develop, and deliver the change management strategy for simple- to moderately complex projects, and is responsible for the execution of change management deliverables throughout all project phases; leads enterprise-wide change management efforts with significant ambiguity, complexity, and scope. - Has the authority to make independent decisions with limited oversight on resource deployment and work activity. - Formally mentors and coaches’ junior consultants on OCM concepts and project delivery expectations, including strategic and tactical activities on assigned engagements, and is responsible for change management coaching and mentorship for project teams and business partners. - Develops a working understanding of project economics on assigned engagements billing rates, team composition, utilization targets, and margin structure sufficient to support scope and staffing conversations with engagement leadership. - Leads at least one practice-building initiative by directing reusable content (playbooks, frameworks, case studies) adopted by other teams and owns research and analysis for at least one thought-leadership workstream, contributing to a published point of view or white paper. - Identifies follow-on opportunities on current engagements and surfaces client needs to engagement leadership; owns sections of proposals or pursuits with limited guidance. ### Core Skills & Capabilities - Strong understanding of change management fundamentals and enterprise change capability building, backed by a minimum of five years of recent, relevant hands-on OCM or transformation experience; experience leading, driving, and facilitating change as part of a project or independently as part of a transformation. - Ability to assess organizational readiness for change and drive and adapt communication strategies for maximum impact while gaining support across all levels of the organization. - Ability to lead the design and stand-up of scalable change capability (Centers of Excellence, self-service playbooks, manager-led practices) rather than only executing a project-specific plan. - Ability to define and direct outcome- and value-based metrics, distinct from activity metrics, and to connect change adoption to business results. - Working proficiency with enterprise AI tools for communications drafting, sentiment analysis, and impact/stakeholder mapping, applied with sound judgment, and the ability to train other practitioners in their use. - Proficient in Prosci’s ADKAR framework, with the experience and ability to apply Prosci tools and frameworks to assess change readiness, build change plans, and drive adoption at enterprise scale; Prosci certification preferred. - Strong project management, critical thinking, problem-solving, data analysis, and information-structuring skills; must be able to translate plans/policies into specific goals, tactics, strategic action plans, and deliverables. - Ability to lead digital transformation road mapping and direct defined initiative workstreams in partnership with client stakeholders and project teams. - Working knowledge of project economics billing rates, utilization, and margin sufficient to support scope and staffing conversations with engagement leadership. - Proficient in Microsoft Office (Outlook, Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Visio, and Project); leverages these tools to develop work plans, articulate complex issues, and structure information. ### Core Consulting Skills - Demonstrated ability and a proven track record of success in delivering client services in a collaborative, dynamic, and fast-paced environment. - Client relationship management, including building trust, managing expectations, and serving as a credible advisor to business and IT stakeholders at the manager and director level. - Business acumen, with the ability to understand client industries, operating models, and strategic priorities to frame recommendations in business terms. - Executive presence and polished presentation skills, with the ability to communicate complex ideas clearly to senior leadership and diverse audiences. - Analytical and structured problem-solving skills, with the ability to break down ambiguous business problems into clear, actionable workstreams and defensible hypotheses. - Effective time management and prioritization across multiple workstreams, deliverables, and competing deadlines in a fast-paced consulting environment. - Collaborative teaming skills, working effectively within cross-functional project teams and adapting style to diverse team and client cultures. - Formal coaching and mentorship skills — develops junior team members' OCM capability and project delivery expectations, with accountability for their growth. - Proficiency with core consulting toolkits (e.g., PowerPoint, Excel, Word) and enterprise AI tools to produce polished deliverables, executive-ready presentations, and data-driven analyses. - Adaptability and sound judgment when navigating ambiguity, shifting priorities, and evolving client needs across engagements. ### Required Qualifications - Minimum five years of recent, relevant work experience related to Organizational Change Management (OCM) or enterprise transformation; experience leading, driving, and facilitating change as part of a project or independently as part of a transformation. - Demonstrated ability and a proven track record of success delivering client services in a collaborative, dynamic, and fast-paced environment. - Previous experience managing and driving OCM initiatives independently or as part of a larger project engagement, including small- and large-scale organizational change efforts. - Experience using data and analytics to measure adoption or business outcomes, beyond activity-based reporting. - Hands-on experience with enterprise AI tools or digital OCM tools applied to communications, sentiment analysis, or stakeholder/impact mapping, including experience training other practitioners in their use. - Demonstrated ability to own a workstream or engagement segment with limited supervision, and to formally coach and mentor junior team members. - Prosci certification and experience required; strong understanding of change management fundamentals, principles, methodologies, and leading practices, with previous experience across small- and large-scale organizational change efforts. - Excellent written and verbal communication skills to convey the purpose and benefits of change, and to engage, influence, and manage relationships with stakeholders, senior management, and staff, working independently or as part of a team. - Willing and able to travel to client sites as needed for project delivery, approximately 25%.