Acxiom is hiring a Senior Director, Data & AI Advisory to lead its Data & AI Advisory team across the United States. This is a senior consulting leadership role, not an entry-level position. It demands a rare combination of strategic thinking, technical fluency, and commercial instincts.
Understanding what Acxiom expects at this level can help you assess where you stand. It can also help you identify gaps before you apply.
What the Role Actually Involves
This position sits within Acxiom's broader Data & AI Services practice. The Senior Director leads advisory engagements from start to finish. That means shaping opportunities, running discovery sessions, designing future states, and presenting findings to executive audiences.
The role also carries business development responsibilities. You are expected to sell work, not just deliver it. Building a pipeline and growing a book of advisory business is part of the job description.
Acxiom is also clear about what this role is not. It is not a purely conceptual strategy position. Candidates must understand how recommendations translate into real operating models, implementation plans, and measurable outcomes.
Technical Skills Required
Technical fluency is non-negotiable at this level. You do not need to write code every day, but you must speak credibly about complex data and AI systems with both technical teams and executive stakeholders.
Data Strategy and Platform Knowledge
Acxiom specifically calls out platform modernization as a core area. Candidates should understand how modern data platforms are architected. Familiarity with cloud data ecosystems, data lakehouses, and CDPs is essential.
- Cloud platforms: AWS, Google Cloud, Microsoft Azure
- Customer Data Platforms and data activation tools
- Data pipeline design and orchestration concepts
- Data mesh and federated architecture principles
Identity and Data Governance
Identity resolution is central to Acxiom's business model. Senior Directors must understand how identity graphs work, how first-party data strategies are built, and how cookieless environments change the rules. Privacy regulations like GDPR and CCPA also factor heavily into governance frameworks.
- Identity resolution and graph technologies
- Data governance frameworks and stewardship models
- Privacy compliance: GDPR, CCPA, CPRA
- Consent management and data ethics principles
AI and Analytics Enablement
Deep expertise in AI enablement and advanced analytics is expected. This goes beyond knowing buzzwords. Candidates should understand how machine learning models are operationalized, how AI supports marketing use cases, and how measurement frameworks are designed.
- Machine learning model lifecycle and MLOps basics
- AI use cases in marketing: propensity models, personalization, next-best-action
- Measurement and attribution frameworks
- Generative AI applications in customer engagement
Soft Skills and Leadership Competencies
Technical knowledge alone will not qualify anyone for this role. Acxiom is looking for a trusted senior advisor who can navigate complex organizational dynamics and lead multidisciplinary teams under pressure.
Executive Communication
You will regularly present to C-suite and VP-level stakeholders at client organizations. The ability to take ambiguous, complex problems and communicate them clearly is critical. Acxiom describes this specifically as translating strategic ambition into practical roadmaps.
Strong written communication matters equally. Deliverables at this level include executive readouts, business cases, and strategic frameworks. Every document must be clear, credible, and commercially relevant.
Consulting and Problem Structuring
Structured problem-solving is a fundamental consulting skill this role demands. You must break down ambiguous client challenges into workplans, hypotheses, and decision points. This is a classic management consulting competency that takes years to develop.
Comfort with ambiguity is just as important. Client situations rarely come neatly packaged. Senior Directors must be able to synthesize incomplete information and still drive toward actionable recommendations.
Mentorship and Team Leadership
This role includes mentoring junior team members and developing reusable consulting methods. People leadership experience is not optional. Acxiom is building a growing advisory practice, and the Senior Director is expected to help scale it from the inside.
Managing multidisciplinary teams across marketing, data, technology, and analytics functions is also part of the job. Cross-functional leadership experience carries significant weight in evaluating candidates.
Commercial Acumen
The ability to sell consulting engagements separates this role from purely delivery-focused positions. Candidates should be comfortable shaping proposals, building value cases, and engaging with procurement and legal processes. Business development experience in a consulting or professional services context is a strong differentiator.
Experience Required
Acxiom is targeting senior professionals with deep industry experience. Based on the scope of the role, candidates typically need between 12 and 18 years of relevant experience. Several specific backgrounds are particularly relevant.
Management Consulting Background
Experience at a major consulting firm, a boutique data and analytics consultancy, or a technology advisory practice maps closely to this role. Familiarity with engagement delivery models, client management at senior levels, and structured methodology development is highly valued.
Industry Domain Experience
Acxiom serves clients across marketing, financial services, retail, and media. Candidates with hands-on experience building customer data strategies inside these industries or advising clients within them will have a clear advantage. Understanding how marketing organizations operate, including campaign operations, martech stacks, and media activation, is important context.
Prior Leadership Roles
Experience managing teams, owning client portfolios, and carrying revenue responsibility is expected at the Senior Director level. Titles like Principal, Partner, VP of Advisory, or Senior Manager at a recognized consulting firm indicate relevant seniority. Acxiom is not looking for someone stepping into leadership for the first time.
How to Build These Skills
Reaching the Senior Director level does not happen overnight. For professionals earlier in their careers, a clear development path exists across both technical and strategic dimensions.
Build Technical Depth First
Start by developing hands-on skills in data engineering, analytics, or marketing technology. Certifications from AWS, Google Cloud, or Databricks build credibility. Working directly on data platform projects, governance programs, or AI model deployments creates the practical knowledge this role requires.
- Pursue cloud certifications on AWS, Azure, or GCP
- Complete courses on data governance and privacy law
- Study AI and ML fundamentals through Coursera or edX
- Work on real CDP implementation or identity resolution projects
Develop Consulting and Advisory Skills
Structured thinking and client advisory skills develop through practice. Joining a consulting firm, even in a mid-level role, accelerates this development significantly. Frameworks like MECE thinking, hypothesis-driven problem solving, and pyramid communication are standard consulting tools worth studying deliberately.
- Read consulting methodology books like The Pyramid Principle
- Seek project roles that require stakeholder presentations
- Volunteer to lead discovery workshops or current-state assessments
- Take on proposal writing and business case development assignments
Grow Into Leadership Progressively
Leadership credibility builds over time. Managing small teams, mentoring analysts, and owning project delivery end-to-end all develop the muscles Acxiom is looking for. Seeking stretch assignments that involve cross-functional coordination builds the range this role demands.
Staying current on industry trends matters too. Following developments in generative AI, data privacy regulation, and martech consolidation keeps your advisory perspective sharp and commercially relevant to clients navigating the same landscape.
Professionals interested in applying for the Senior Director, Data & AI Advisory role at Acxiom can find the full job listing and application details at https://himalayas.app/companies/acxiom/jobs/senior-director-data-ai-advisory.
