Data & AI Readiness Consultant - W2 Role.

Description:

Title: Data & AI Readiness Consultant
Mode: Contract
Work Arrangement: Remote (EST)

Position Overview

We are seeking an experienced Data & AI Readiness Consultant to support a large-scale enterprise initiative. This person will work closely with business leaders, technology owners, cybersecurity, legal, compliance, data management, and delivery teams to assess the organization's current data landscape and readiness for AI adoption.

This is not a hands-on engineering role. The ideal candidate will be a strong business-facing consultant who can lead executive discussions, understand complex technology and data environments, identify governance and access requirements, and translate findings into practical recommendations.

Key Responsibilities

• Lead interviews and discovery sessions with business owners, application owners, data owners, technology teams, cybersecurity, legal, compliance, and operational leaders.
• Facilitate workshops with senior leadership to identify AI-related risks, constraints, priorities, and opportunities.
• Inventory enterprise systems, applications, platforms, data repositories, and third-party dependencies supporting business operations and potential AI use cases.
• Document system ownership, data ownership, data classifications, access methods, APIs, integration patterns, data flows, and lineage.
• Assess current-state data accessibility, quality, governance, security, and operational readiness.
• Develop current-state and future-state assessments related to enterprise data and AI adoption.
• Identify gaps involving data governance, data quality, lineage, access management, security, privacy controls, and overall AI readiness.
• Partner with business, technology, cybersecurity, legal, compliance, and governance teams to align requirements and priorities.
• Create executive-level presentations, assessment summaries, and actionable recommendations.
• Support the development and prioritization of a Data and AI Readiness roadmap.

Required Qualifications

• 8+ years of experience in consulting, data strategy, data governance, enterprise architecture, or business transformation.
• Strong experience leading stakeholder interviews, discovery sessions, and facilitated workshops.
• Solid understanding of enterprise data management, data governance, data lineage, data quality, access controls, and API-based integrations.
• Experience assessing and documenting complex enterprise systems, data environments, and organizational dependencies.
• Ability to work effectively with both technical and non-technical stakeholders.
• Comfortable presenting findings and recommendations to directors, vice presidents, and executive leadership.
• Strong written communication, documentation, and executive presentation skills.
• Ability to translate technical concepts and risks into clear business language.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience conducting AI readiness assessments.
• Familiarity with AI governance frameworks and programs.
• Experience supporting enterprise data governance initiatives.
• Knowledge of metadata management and enterprise data catalogs.
• Experience with Microsoft Purview.
• Familiarity with data classification programs.
• Experience collaborating with cybersecurity, privacy, legal, and compliance teams.
• Experience within regulated industries such as financial services, healthcare, or insurance.

Ideal Candidate Profile

• Strong facilitator with polished communication and stakeholder management skills.
• Able to quickly establish credibility with senior business and technology leaders.
• Structured, organized, and comfortable operating in an ambiguous environment.
• Capable of challenging assumptions, identifying risks, and building consensus.
• Experienced bridging business, technology, cybersecurity, legal, and governance functions.
• Consulting-oriented and comfortable producing executive-ready deliverables.

Expected Deliverables

• Comprehensive inventory of systems, data sources, ownership structures, and third-party dependencies.
• Clear documentation of data access patterns, APIs, integrations, and data flows.
• Assessment of current AI readiness, including documented gaps, constraints, and risks.
• Executive-level findings and actionable recommendations.
• Prioritized roadmap for improving enterprise data and AI readiness.
• Alignment across business, technology, cybersecurity, legal, compliance, and governance stakeholders.

Candidates should have a strong business-facing data strategy and advisory background. This position is not intended for a hands-on data engineer, technical architect, developer, or governance policy writer.