Applied AI Strategist

Role: Applied AI Strategist

Role type: Permanent

Location: UK

Preferred start date: ASAP

LIFE AS A SATALIAN

Satalia is WPP’s applied AI and decision science specialist. Founded in 2008 and acquired by WPP in 2021, we combine academic depth with commercial delivery across optimisation, machine learning, simulation, generative AI, agentic systems and product engineering. We take on problems that are valuable, ambiguous and constrained: where standard software does not fit, and where generic AI can produce an answer but not a dependable outcome. Satalia is a community of individuals devoted to diverse and challenging work, allowing you to flex your skills alongside a tight-knit team of high-performing colleagues.

Led by our founder (who is also WPP’s Chief AI Officer), Satalia’s ambition is to become a decentralised organisation of the future. Today this involves developing tools and processes to liberate and automate manual repetitive tasks, with a focus on freedom, transparency and trust. At the core of our thinking is an approach to wellbeing and inclusivity. We unpack human behaviour and unpick prejudice to ensure a safe and inviting environment. We offer true flexible working and allow our employees to find the working practice that makes them most productive. At Satalia, your opinion matters and your achievements are celebrated.

THE ROLE

As an Applied AI Strategist you will help clients turn complex business challenges into AI-enabled outcomes that create measurable value. You will work from problem definition through solution shaping, delivery, adoption and value realisation, creating clarity where the path is uncertain, bringing together business and technical specialists, and taking responsibility for moving ambitious ideas into practical, measurable change.

The role is deliberately broad and deliberately situational. Across a single engagement you may act as trusted adviser, solution lead, product lead, delivery lead, facilitator and challenger. You will shape when the problem or proposition is unclear, influence when stakeholders need alignment and you hold no formal authority, steer when a team has momentum but needs direction, direct when the outcome is at risk, and do the work yourself when progress depends on it. What stays constant is accountability for coherence and impact: that we are solving the right problem, with a credible solution, through a team that can deliver it, for a client that can adopt it.

This is not a pure strategy role, a generic transformation role, a project management role or a technical specialist role. It sits between those disciplines and connects them. It is a generational moment to be doing that work.

YOUR RESPONSIBILITIES

• Understand the client’s objective, operating context, stakeholders, data, technology and constraints, and challenge the initial request when it is not the right problem to solve.

• Run the interviews, workshops and analysis that turn an ambiguous business challenge into a clearly framed problem, prioritised use cases and testable value hypotheses.

• Build the value case: connect effort to impact, define the success measures, and be transparent about whether an intervention is worth doing.

• Shape the intervention: decide what should be advised, tested, bought, adapted, built or stopped, and convert that into solution concepts, executable roadmaps, delivery plans and proposals.

• Lead delivery towards the outcome: mobilise multidisciplinary teams of data scientists, optimisation specialists, engineers, designers and product managers, and keep the work aimed at the client’s objective rather than the production of technical outputs.

• Make and facilitate trade-offs across value, pace, scope, cost, risk and technical quality; remove ambiguity and unblock decisions. Challenge the team when an elegant technical answer does not make economic or operational sense.

• Translate between executive, operational, product and technical audiences, adapting the narrative without losing the thread.

• Own the product thinking on your work: balance desirability, viability, feasibility, usability and value, and move between a client engagement and a repeatable offer or product.

• Embed and prove the value: plan rollout, transfer knowledge, measure against the original benefits case, and iterate after implementation.

• Grow the relationship and the capability: become a trusted adviser to your clients, identify follow-on value, and turn delivery learning into reusable methods, propositions and products.

• Ensure the delivery team operates effectively and cohesively, in an environment that supports continual improvement and psychological safety.

• Proactively coach, mentor and support other Satalians.

MINIMUM QUALIFICATIONS / SKILLS

• Substantial experience shaping and leading technology-enabled change, as a consultant or in-house, at a level where you operate independently with senior stakeholders. We care about the evidence more than the number of years.

• Delivery credibility, which is non-negotiable: you have taken technology work beyond strategy into implementation, adoption or operation. Pure strategy or advisory experience is not sufficient.

• AI fluency and judgement: enough understanding of machine learning, generative AI, optimisation and agentic systems to identify credible possibilities, expose weak assumptions, engage specialists and manage delivery risk. Coding is not the job.

• Evidence of high agency: you create momentum without waiting for a complete brief, formal authority or perfect information, and you step into work outside your remit when the outcome requires it.

• Dynamic problem solving: you make sense of unfamiliar situations quickly, decompose complexity, test assumptions and find practical routes forward.

• Commercial judgement: you connect effort to value and can reason clearly about ROI, scope, risk and what makes an intervention worth doing.

• Influence without authority: you build trust, align people, absorb challenge and move consequential decisions across organisational boundaries.

• Experience leading multidisciplinary technical teams through difficult delivery trade-offs, and comfort working alongside data scientists, optimisation specialists and engineers.

• Clear communication: intelligent questions, a coherent narrative, and the range to pitch to a board and interrogate a solution design with equal credibility.

• Product thinking, and the pragmatism to balance ambition against a client’s actual data, systems, capability, budget and appetite for change.

• A learning mindset: you stay current with a field that moves monthly, learn new domains fast, and turn experience into reusable methods and assets.

NICE TO HAVE QUALIFICATIONS / SKILLS

• A technical degree, or equivalent depth built in practice, in computer science, engineering, mathematics or a related field

• Depth in a named sector or discipline: creative and marketing, retail, supply chain, financial services, optimisation, simulation or agentic systems

If you feel like you don’t tick all our boxes but know you’d make a fantastic Applied AI Strategist at Satalia, please do apply! We know the value of transferable skills and experiences and would love to hear about these in your cover letter. As an equal opportunity employer we welcome applications that reflect the diversity of our wider community. Please let us know at any time if you require reasonable adjustments to your interview process and feel free to let us know the pronouns you use.

WE OFFER

• Development - annual development budget to upskill yourself

• Annual bonus - when Satalia does well, we all do well

• Remote working - From within the UK

• Impactful projects - focus on bringing meaningful social and environmental change

• People oriented culture - wellbeing is a priority, as is being a nice person

• Truly flexible working hours - school pick up, volunteering, gym - no problem

• Generous leave - 27 days’ holiday plus bank holidays and enhanced family leave

• Transparent and open culture - you will be listened to and heard

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