Principal Data Strategist
Data & AI Practice · Senior Individual Contributor · Travel Required
About the Role
ThoughtFocus is looking for a rare combination: a seasoned data technologist and business transformation advisor who can walk a client’s architecture, challenge its assumptions, and then walk into the boardroom to shape strategy and drive deals. The Principal Data Strategist is a senior revenue-influencing role at the
intersection of deep technical authority and executive-level client influence — owning the narrative on data driven business transformation, AI readiness, and the solutions ThoughtFocus delivers.
You will work across the full sales and engagement lifecycle — from opportunity origination to close to outcome realization. You thrive in fast-paced, high-demand environments, manage multiple client situations simultaneously without losing quality or composure, and bring a builder’s mindset to both client work and the
ThoughtFocus practice.
What You Will Do
Revenue Generation & Client Engagement
- Drive revenue by identifying, shaping, and closing data and AI opportunities — operating as a senior
technical seller who earns trust through credibility, not just relationships.
- Partner with account and sales teams across the full opportunity lifecycle: qualification, solution shaping,
proposal development, and close.
- Lead executive briefings, discovery workshops, and whiteboard sessions — translating complex data
and AI concepts into compelling business value narratives for C-suite and VP-level audiences.
- Develop crisp, persuasive proposals, roadmaps, and business cases that connect ThoughtFocus
capabilities to client transformation priorities.
- Travel to client sites regularly to build relationships, advance opportunities, and maintain trusted advisor
status.
Data & AI Strategy Advisory
- Advise clients on enterprise data strategy in the context of business technology transformation — not just modernization for its own sake, but data as a strategic asset that drives competitive advantage.
- Guide clients on building AI-ready data foundations: governance, quality, lineage, integration, and architecture patterns that make reliable AI adoption possible at scale.
- Bring working knowledge of agentic AI, LLM integration into data pipelines, and AI governance frameworks — enough to shape strategy, challenge vendor claims, and define a credible path forward.
- Define current- and target-state architectures spanning cloud, hybrid, and legacy environments; translate them into phased, actionable roadmaps tied to business outcomes.
- Guide platform and tooling decisions across the full data spectrum: architecture, modeling, ETL/ELT, integration, analytics, data science, and AI/ML.
Engagement Oversight & Client Success
- Provide senior strategic oversight on large, complex engagements — ensuring delivery aligns with the original vision and clients realize tangible ROI from ThoughtFocus solutions.
- Bridge the gap between delivery teams and client stakeholders; serve as the escalation point for strategic misalignment.
- Work in close coordination with onsite and offshore delivery teams; bring deep fluency in the global delivery model to structure engagements that work across geographies and time zones.
Practice Development
- Contribute to the ThoughtFocus Data & AI practice: develop reusable offerings, points of view, solution accelerators, and go-to-market assets.
- Help build ThoughtFocus’s market presence — through thought leadership, client storytelling, and representing the firm’s data and AI capabilities externally.
What You Bring
Experience
- 15+ years of progressive experience across the data discipline — architecture, modeling, ETL/ELT, data movement, analytics, data science, and AI.
- Demonstrated track record of influencing and driving revenue in a pre-sales, solution advisory, or consulting capacity.
- Experience in a fast-paced, matrixed environment managing multiple client engagements and priorities simultaneously.
- Background overseeing large, complex data programs — not as a day-to-day delivery manager, but as the strategic authority accountable for outcomes.
- Fluency in the onsite-offshore global delivery model; you know how to architect and manage engagements that work across geographies.
Technical Depth
- Full-stack fluency across legacy and modern data platforms — from Teradata, Informatica, SSIS, and Oracle to cloud-native architectures.
- Hands-on familiarity with Databricks, Snowflake, and Microsoft Fabric; comfortable advising on architecture, fit, and trade-offs for each.
- Data modeling (3NF, dimensional, data vault), ETL/ELT patterns, streaming architectures, data mesh and data fabric concepts.
- AI/ML operationalization, agentic AI patterns, LLM integration into data pipelines, and AI governance frameworks.
- Data governance, cataloging, lineage, and quality frameworks (Collibra, Alation, Great Expectations, or equivalents).
- Familiarity with major cloud hyperscalers — AWS, Azure, GCP — and their data and AI service ecosystems.
Communication & Executive Presence
- Exceptional written and verbal communication — you write crisp proposals, tell coherent stories, and never hide behind jargon.
- Confident and compelling at the whiteboard: you sketch architectures, frameworks, and roadmaps in real time and bring a room with you.
- Equally at ease in a deep technical exchange with a data engineer and a strategic conversation with a CTO, CDO, or CFO.
- Comfortable operating in ambiguity and at pace — you manage multiple threads without losing sharpness or client focus.
Nice to Have
- Prior experience with financial services, manufacturing, or health tech clients.
- Consulting or advisory firm background with a track record of shaping and delivering client engagements.
- Experience building or contributing to a Center of Excellence, practice area, or go-to-market offering.
About ThoughtFocus
ThoughtFocus is a specialized IT services firm delivering technology solutions to clients in Banking & Insurance, Capital Markets, Payments, Mortgage & Lending, and Manufacturing. With a seasoned onsite leadership team and a proven global delivery engine, we partner with clients to modernize, scale, and extract
strategic value from their technology investments. Our Data & AI practice is a core growth engine — and this role sits at the center of it.
