Principal, R&D AI Solutions

About the Role:
We are seeking a Director or Principal-level Consultant to lead the selling and delivery of AI-powered projects in the Life Sciences R&D space, with a core focus on Clinical Development and Clinical Trials. You will drive sales and delivery of engagements that range from strategic AI and data transformation initiatives to hands-on development of ML models and next-generation agentic AI systems.

This is a high-impact, client-facing role for someone who is equally comfortable crafting visionary strategies in the boardroom and leading technical solution delivery with data scientists and engineers. You will be instrumental in building a practice, growing a team, and shaping the future of AI in Pharma R&D.

Key Responsibilities:

Client Engagement & Business Development

• Lead the end-to-end sales cycle: opportunity identification, proposal development, client presentations, and deal closure.
• Serve as a trusted advisor to senior client stakeholders in Pharma and Life Sciences organizations.
• Identify and cultivate new opportunities in AI, data science, and digital transformation across Clinical R&D.
• Sell novel projects and solutions that have not been sold before; conceive, sell and deliver first-in-class solutions; including selling and delivering solutions that are being built and need partnership with clients for successful development and delivery
• Lead the creation of narratives around IQVIA’s Agentic AI solutions and systems; and the selling and delivery of agents and agentic systems to clients

Project Leadership & Delivery

• Design and oversee delivery of AI/ML projects involving real-world data (RWD), clinical trial data, omics or other structured and unstructured data.
• Manage cross-functional project teams, ensuring quality, timeliness, and client satisfaction.
• Support development of discriminative, generative and agentic AI solutions in the life sciences domain
• Design, develop, deploy and evangelize new/innovative scalable high-performance solutions using state-of-the-art techniques and advanced analytical platforms
• Lead multi-disciplinary project teams with industry expertise, technology skills, and functional knowledge 
• Lead development of AI strategy roadmaps, PoCs, ML pipelines, and deployment strategies mainly focused on customer projects.
• Work with 3rd party partners, especially tech partners across the tech stack for successful delivery of AI projects and solutions.

Practice Building

• Shape the growth of a new AI Life Sciences practice: define offerings, hire and mentor team members, establish delivery frameworks.
• Drive thought leadership by contributing to white papers, conference talks, or client workshops.
• Foster an agile, entrepreneurial, and impact-driven team culture.

Ideal Candidate Profile:

Must-Haves

• 5–10+ years in Consulting with a strong focus on AI, Data Science, or Digital Transformation.
• Hands-on experience in both business development and delivery of complex projects.
• Strong familiarity with AI/ML techniques (supervised, unsupervised, generative AI, LLMs, agentic AI, etc.).
• Domain expertise in Life Sciences, preferably in Pharma R&D, Clinical Trials, or Clinical Operations.
• Proven experience managing senior client relationships and acting as a strategic advisor.
• Team leadership skills with experience managing consultants, data scientists, and technical teams.
• Drive to make things happen
• Ability to conceive, sell and deliver novel projects, services and solutions that have not been developed or sold before

Nice-to-Haves

• Prior experience at a top-tier consulting firm (e.g., Deloitte, Accenture, EY, BCG, McKinsey, Bain).
• Understanding of regulatory and data governance issues in clinical data (HIPAA, 21 CFR Part 11, etc.).
• Exposure to Real-World Evidence (RWE), biomarker discovery, or trial optimization use cases.
• Experience with agentic AI or orchestration of LLM-based tools in the life sciences context.
• Familiarity with tools and platforms such as AWS, Azure ML, Databricks, Foundation model platforms such as ChatGPT or Claude, Code editors such as Cursor and other evolving parts of the tech stack needed for Agentic AI

What We’re Looking For

• Polymath mindset: Ability (and desire) to master many skills – strategic thinking, technical depth, and relationship-building.
• Entrepreneurial drive: You’re ready to build something – a team, a capability, a practice.
•  A “jugaad” spirit: Creative, scrappy problem-solving and execution under ambiguity.
• Ambition to make a real impact in