Service Line Leader, Data & AI

Job description

At**Lantern**, our company culture stands as the bedrock of our success and a source of pride for our teams. We firmly believe that a culture founded on trust forms the basis for enduring relationships with clients, colleagues, and partners. Within this culture, we nurture an environment of respect, inclusion, and belonging, fostering collaboration among inspired teams. We prioritize the well-being of our colleagues, the success of our clients, and our positive impact on society. Embracing a growth mindset where curiosity thrives, we celebrate excellence and value individuals who inspire and mentor others, elevating the collective. Our driving force lies in personal and business growth. We go above and beyond to surprise and delight our clients, delivering tangible business value. In facing challenges, we make tough choices and solve complex problems to positively influence our clients, their customers, and the world at large. As a Microsoft services partner, we hold ourselves to the highest standards of technical excellence. This commitment to quality is evident not only in our work but also in how we support and empower our employees. At Lantern, our culture mirrors our core values and unwavering dedication to realizing our purpose and vision, making it a dynamic and fulfilling workplace. Together, we transcend the ordinary and achieve extraordinary results. Lantern is seeking a Service Line Lead, Data & AI to support the strategy, growth, market relevance, delivery excellence, and talent health of the service line. This senior leader will scale a high-performing consulting business, shape differentiated offerings, strengthen Microsoft and Databricks partnerships, and help clients achieve measurable outcomes through modern data platforms, analytics, machine learning, generative AI, and agentic solutions. ## What You’ll Do **Strategy, Growth & Market Leadership** - Define and execute the Data & AI service line strategy, operating plan, investment priorities, and multi-year growth roadmap. - Build and take differentiated offerings and sales plays to market based on client demand, Lantern capabilities, industry trends, and partner priorities. - Own pipeline coverage, bookings, revenue, gross margin, forecast accuracy, and strategic account expansion. - Lead executive client conversations, opportunity qualification, complex pursuits, commercial models, and proposals that connect technology to measurable business outcomes. **Delivery & Client Outcomes** - Establish delivery standards, governance, reusable assets, and quality controls that enable predictable, scalable execution. - Partner with Delivery and Operations leaders to mobilize teams, monitor portfolio health, manage risk, resolve escalations, and protect client outcomes. - Optimize staffing, capacity, utilization, and the employee-to-partner mix to support growth, profitability, and delivery excellence. - Build trusted executive relationships that increase client satisfaction, referenceability, retention, and repeat business. **People, Capability & Culture** - Set a clear vision and operating rhythm that aligns leaders and consultants around growth, quality, innovation, and client impact. - Build leadership depth and scalable capability through coaching, career development, certifications, communities of practice, and succession planning. - Partner with Recruiting and People & Culture on workforce planning, hiring, retention, engagement, and an inclusive, high-performance culture. **Technology & Partner Leadership** - Translate emerging Data & AI capabilities into pragmatic client value, market offerings, and reusable intellectual property. - Guide strategy and capability development across Microsoft Fabric, Azure, Databricks, analytics, machine learning, generative AI, governance, and agentic solutions. - Develop joint growth plans and executive relationships with Microsoft, Databricks, and other strategic partners to accelerate co-sell opportunities and client impact. - Strengthen Lantern’s market reputation through thought leadership, industry participation, client innovation, and sales enablement. ## Required Skills and Experience - 10+ years of progressive leadership in consulting or professional services, including responsibility for growing a Data & AI portfolio and leading high-performing teams. - Demonstrated success managing scope, schedules, budgets, resources, risks, dependencies, change control, and executive-level client communications. - Strong consulting and customer-management skills, with the ability to build trust and communicate effectively with technical teams, business leaders, and executive sponsors. - Practical experience with Agile, Scrum, Kanban, and traditional delivery methods, and the judgment to tailor governance to engagement size and complexity. - Working knowledge of modern Data & AI delivery, including Azure Databricks, Microsoft Fabric, Power BI, Azure, data governance, analytics, machine learning, generative AI, or agentic solutions. - Experience with resource and capacity planning, utilization, financial forecasting, contract compliance, and delivery performance reporting in a professional-services environment. - Strong facilitation, negotiation, organization, problem-solving, documentation, and escalation-management skills across multiple concurrent priorities. ## How Success Will Be Measured - Sustainable bookings, revenue, gross margin, and pipeline growth - Forecast accuracy, offering adoption, and partner-sourced opportunities - Delivery quality, utilization, client satisfaction, and strategic account expansion - Talent retention, engagement, skills readiness, certification progress, and leadership succession ## Why Join Lantern? - Shape and scale a strategic Data & AI business at a firm purpose-built for the era of AI. - Work across Microsoft Fabric, Azure Databricks, Power BI, Azure, and emerging AI technologies without being limited to a single technical specialty. - Collaborate directly with client executives, account leaders, architects, and experienced data and AI professionals. - Help shape scalable delivery governance, reusable practices, and a culture of transparency, accountability, and continuous improvement. - Grow through challenging assignments, mentoring, and strong learning and certification support as Lantern expands its Data & AI service line.