Team Lead- AI Enablement (Research)

Who We Are

Escalent is an award-winning data analytics and advisory firm that helps clients understand human and market behaviors to navigate disruption. As catalysts of progress for more than 40 years, our strategies guide the world’s leading brands. We accelerate growth by creating a seamless flow between primary, secondary, syndicated, and internal business data, providing consulting and advisory services from insights through implementation. Based on a profound understanding of what drives human beings and markets, we identify actions that build brands, enhance customer experiences, inspire product innovation, and boost business productivity. We listen, learn, question, discover, innovate, and deliver—for each other and our clients—to make the world work better for people.

Role Overview

This role sits within our AI and Innovation Hub — an enterprise-wide team focused on operationalizing and integrating AI tools and capabilities into our core business of research & consulting, as well as our corporate function workflows. Ultimately, this role actively contributes to our efforts to develop in-house and monetizable AI products and solutions to foster better, smarter, and efficient workflows.

As a research and advisory firm, the ideal candidate is an experienced professional with notable Strategy Research and/or Consulting experience, exposure to Workflow and Product Development, high degree of AI-and-tech savviness, and a Consultative and Impact oriented mindset.

Responsibilities

• Develop a strong understanding of Escalent group's products, tools, solutions, and technological roadmap and use as context for AI initiatives related to company workflows and products.
• Demonstrate a strong capability to link findings and recommendations to desired business impact.
• Present findings and recommendations, while explaining approach and rationale, to various business teams as and when needed.
• Contribute to Escalent's ongoing and ever-expanding AI upskilling initiatives by conceptualizing ideas, developing collateral, and administering sessions.
• Organize and administer demos, show-n-tells, and lunch-n-learns among internal/external audiences to socialize the product/feature/agent, resolve queries, foster adoption, and gather constructive and actionable feedback.
• Exhibit a strong passion for AI and innovation, and stay updated on the latest developments, trends, product/model launches, etc. and their plausible impact on Escalent's AI strategy /approach/roadmap.
• Address internal queries on AI, innovation, and automation tools/techniques/approaches to ensure teams know when (and when not) to use AI, how to use it effectively + efficiently + ethically, which tool/feature/product/agent to leverage, and where to avoid pitfalls.
• 3P Toolkit Due Diligence and Expansion
  • Identify relevant AI/innovation tools for any use case, via desk research and internal outreach.
  • Liaise with various tool vendors to understand functional possibilities, evaluate use case fitment, and assess commercial viability.
  • Partner with Compliance and IT teams to vet and whitelist specific tools for test/trials.
  • Conceptualize a trial program and secure licenses for testing.
  • Partner with domain/functional/corporate teams to test various tools to assess their effectiveness and value-add.
• Internal and SharePoint Documentation
  • Prepare, maintain, and improve documents on AI-related processes, guidelines, and protocols.
  • Author self-learn collateral on the in-house and approved 3P tool mix, such as tool one-pagers, tool usage decision flowcharts, SharePoint pages and content, etc.

Support AI Product Development

• Where applicable, co-develop the development/implementation and scaling plan, in collaboration with the tech, development, and product teams.
• Where applicable/possible, adopt a hands-on approach on low-code/no-code/vibe-code agent development tools/environments to create the tool/agent.
• Craft and co-implement alpha and beta testing plans, and internal and external rollout roadmaps, to ensure controlled testing, scaled launch, robust adoption, and continuous improvement.
• Double up as an alpha tester focused on 'breaking' the product/feature/agent to ensure adequate stress-testing under various edge cases.

Supervisory Responsibilities

This role may supervise 1–3 team members on a newly formed global team, including employees located in India and the UK. Supervisory responsibilities may include basic first-line management duties such as:

• Coach direct reports on how to understand internal stakeholder and/or client needs, apply AI-enabled approaches appropriately, and deliver work that creates measurable impact.
• Lead by example by demonstrating creativity, curiosity, imagination, and passion for AI-enabled innovation and upholding high standards of conduct accordingly.
• Assist the team in quickly ramping-up on various AI tools, low-code/no-code workflow automation and agent building platforms, and internal AI toolkits, thereby helping them effectively perform the role of an “AI Enabler”.
• Provide day-to-day guidance by helping team members execute technical tasks, prioritize work, stay aligned across regions and time zones, raise issues early, and collaborate effectively with colleagues in India, the UK, and other stakeholder groups.
• Codify and share best practices and approaches to strengthen or maintain the quality of the team’s work in partnership with SVP, and other AI Hub leaders.
• Support accountability by reinforcing roles, expectations, deliverables, and timelines established with senior leadership, helping team members understand priorities and how their work contributes to team goals.
• Support the growth of team members through regular 1:1s and performance management check-ins. Partner with SVP to identify opportunities for skill development, recognize performance excellence, and steer their career growth.

Qualifications

• 5-7 years in delivering Market Research & Insights engagements across industries, focused on international markets.
• Bachelor's degree from an accredited university, or equivalent combination of education and experience
• Must Have: hands-on experience with AI and innovative tools + ability to quickly ramp-up on new ones.
• Big Plus: experience with low-code/no-code/vibe-code agent development and working with tech/development/product teams.
• Solid experience leading project-based engagements and delivering findings to client and internal stakeholders.
• Strong exposure to internal process innovation/automation.
• Some experience in cross-functional, enterprise-wide initiatives.
• Excellent communication and presentation skills
• Collaborative leader with strong interpersonal skills, comfortable coaching and reviewing the work of junior colleagues
• Logical and creative thinker with astute analytical aptitude
• Consultative approach to problem solving
• Strong attention to detail

Work Environment & Compensation

• Location: Remote – Ontario, Canada
• Canada Salary Range: CAD $100,000 – $125,000. Competitive, market-aligned compensation commensurate with experience
• Travel: Minimal, based on project needs

Explore our Careers and Culture page to learn more about the people behind the brand: https://escalent.co/careers-and-culture/