Head of AI Product & Architecture Consulting

We’re hiring a Head of AI Product & Architecture Consulting!

Employment Type: Full-Time/Direct Hire

Location: Richmond, VA, Atlanta, GA, Washington, DC, New York City & Charlotte, NC Metro Areas

Location Type: Hybrid - 1-2 days onsite per week - Home Office/Local Ippon office 

About Ippon:

The Ippon story started in 2002 in Paris, France - cue in the accordion. Our founder and CEO Stéphane Nomis used his unique experience as an international Judo champion to create a culture based on the sports values of ambition and excellence. Our USA Headquarters office is located in Richmond, VA, with additional offices in New York, NY,  Washington DC, and Atlanta, GA. We are a technology consulting firm that specializes in helping accelerate our client’s digital roadmap in the areas of Product Management, Cloud, DevOps, Data, AI, and Software Engineering. Expanding partnerships is the top priority in our strategy, and we are proud to be a Premier Snowflake Partner and an Advanced AWS Partner. Ippon stands out through its financial services industry expertise, technical excellence, and a distinctive coaching mindset.

About the position:

The Practice Head of AI Product & Architecture will lead Ippon's APA practice, combining deep expertise in software development, product engineering, agile delivery, architecture, and applied AI. This role is responsible for growing a high-performing consulting team, shaping the practice's methods and offerings, and ensuring delivery excellence across complex client engagements.

The ideal candidate is a proven leader with strong consulting instincts and a track record of delivering meaningful technology outcomes. They bring deep grounding in modern engineering practices and software craft, alongside hands-on AI experience — applied practically across product development, software delivery, customer experiences, and enterprise operations.

Roles and Responsibilities:

Practice Leadership & Team Development

• Lead and grow the practice across people, offerings, delivery standards, and market positioning.

• Continuously improve consulting methods, delivery playbooks, technical standards, and ways of working in collaboration with Customer Success and Senior Leadership.

• Build a strong team culture grounded in software craft, product thinking, architectural discipline, and practical AI adoption — with an emphasis on psychological safety, accountability, and measurable improvement.

• Recruit, develop, coach, and retain high-performing consultants, engineers, architects, product leaders, and delivery practitioners.

Delivery Excellence

• Provide senior oversight across client engagements involving software development, product engineering, AI-enabled delivery, modernization, and architecture.

• Ensure solutions are maintainable, secure, scalable, and aligned to client outcomes, promoting modern practices such as continuous delivery, test automation, observability, and platform thinking.

• Use metrics such as DORA, flow metrics, and business outcome measures to drive evidence-based improvement.

• Help clients adopt flexible, sustainable delivery models that balance speed, governance, quality, and business value — coaching cross-functional teams on effective collaboration across product, engineering, architecture, security, and compliance.

AI Leadership

• In collaboration with the CTO, shape APA's approach to applied AI across product engineering, software development, architecture, and delivery transformation.

• Help clients identify and pursue practical AI use cases that improve delivery speed, product quality, customer experience, or operational efficiency.

• Guide teams in the responsible use of AI-assisted development tools, agentic workflows, and intelligent applications, with clear understanding of associated risks including governance, security, privacy, and regulatory considerations.

• Partner with Ippon's data and cloud leaders to connect APA's AI capabilities with strengths in AWS, Snowflake, and data architecture.

Client and Thought Leadership

• Support sales pursuits, proposals, and executive conversations — translating ambiguous client needs into clear engagement strategies, delivery plans, and measur