Data & AI Lead – Head, MEA

Job Overview:

My client is seeking a hands-on Data & AI Leader to run the Data and AI practice in MEA. You will be responsible for Growth, Practice development, end-to-end customer engagements, Alliances, thought leadership, and innovation. Also be responsible for pre-sales solutioning to delivering strategic transformation programs.

This role blends deep technical expertise, business acumen, and P&L responsibility to lead client conversations, craft compelling solutions, and ensure delivery of high-impact data and AI-driven transformation.

Key Responsibilities:

Pre-Sales & Solution Engineering

• Engage with enterprise and government clients to understand their business needs and data maturity.
• Design and present tailored solutions leveraging AI, ML, Data Engineering, Generative AI, and modern cloud-native platforms (e.g., Azure, AWS, GCP).
• Lead RFP responses, technical proposal development, and effort estimation.
• Collaborate with alliance teams (e.g., Microsoft, AWS, Databricks) for joint GTM opportunities.
• Conduct workshops and technical demos to evangelize capabilities.

Transformation Delivery Leadership

• Lead and oversee AI & data transformation engagements across sectors (e.g., BFSI, Public Sector, Healthcare, Telco).
• Ensure the successful delivery of programs-data modernization, AI PoCs to production

Practice & Capability Development

• Build and groom a high-performance team of AI consultants, engineers, and analysts.
• Define reusable frameworks, AI accelerators, and reference architectures.
• Stay current with trends in Generative AI, Agentic AI, LLMOps, and Responsible AI.
• Contribute to thought leadership (whitepapers, blogs, webinars, etc.)

Key Skills & Experience:

• 15+ yearsof experience in Data, Analytics, and AI domains, with at least 8+ years in a client-facing pre-sales / advisory capacity and leadership role
• Proven experience in leading data-driven transformation programs on cloud platforms (Azure/AWS/GCP).
• Strong understanding of ML lifecycle, Generative AI, LLM fine-tuning, Prompt Engineering, and MLOps.
• Experience working with enterprise clients in the Middle East is a strong advantage.
• Excellent communication, storytelling, and stakeholder management skills.

Preferred Qualifications:

• Bachelor’s or master’s in computer science, Engineering, Data Science, or equivalent.
• Certifications in Azure AI Engineer, AWS Machine Learning, or GCP Data Engineering.
• Prior experience with consulting firms or digital transformation service providers.

*** Only successful candidates will be contacted ***

Salt is acting as an Employment Agency in relation to this vacancy.