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Introduction

A career in IBM Consulting is built on long-term client relationships and close collaboration worldwide. You’ll work with leading companies across industries. At IBM Consulting, curiosity fuels success. You’ll be encouraged to challenge the norm, explore new ideas, and create innovative solutions that deliver real results. Our culture of growth and empathy focuses on your long-term career development while valuing your unique skills and experiences.

Your role and responsibilities

About the Role:

We are seeking a highly capable Business Operations Consultant/Manager to support the National Practice Leader for Talent Technologies Consulting. This is a run-the-business role that sits at the center of practice operations, sales execution, portfolio governance, and people and workforce management, with a client-facing consulting component on select engagements.

This is not an administrative assistant role. You will operate as an extension of the Practice Leader, helping drive growth, ensuring operational discipline, and enabling strong decision-making across a high volume of active pursuits and client engagements, while also developing the capability to take on discrete advisory and delivery responsibilities directly with clients.

We are considering candidates at the Consultant, Senior Consultant, or Manager level, depending on experience, maturity, and demonstrated ability to independently lead critical workstreams.

What makes this role different:

You will work with very senior stakeholders on a daily basis. Internally, you will coordinate and influence across the Practice Leader’s leadership team, as well as Partners and Senior Partners across other practices and our Account and Sector teams. You will also work closely with internal functions including Finance leadership and the CFO organization, Delivery Excellence, and Procurement. Externally, you will engage with client executives up to and including CIOs, CHROs, and CFOs.

Success in this role requires strong cross business collaboration and the ability to influence without authority, aligning diverse stakeholders to move priorities forward quickly and professionally. This demands exceptional emotional intelligence and political maturity. You must be able to read the room, navigate complex dynamics, handle sensitive issues with discretion, and still drive outcomes with confidence and pace.

Key responsibilities (including but not limited to):

1. Client facing consulting work

This role is expected to carry a meaningful client-facing component. You will build the capability to lead select advisory and delivery responsibilities directly with clients. This includes:

• Supporting and scaling our HR Technology Strategy offering by developing expertise over time and leading select advisory engagements as a consultant, including business case development, investment rationales, and executive ready recommendations with client executives
• Serving as the Delivery Executive or Project Manager for select engagements, owning end-to-end delivery, status and governance reporting, financial tracking, and client communication
• Attending selected governance and steering committee meetings on behalf of the Practice Leader and representing the practice professionally

2. Portfolio operations and delivery performance

Project Managers and Delivery Executives will run day to day delivery. Your role is to digest the day-to-day signals, synthesize what matters, ensure overall financial and operational health, and escalate what the Practice Leader needs to know, including:

• Establishing visibility across all projects and programs, including status, risks, key decisions, and emerging issues
• Partnering with PMs and Delivery Execs to surface risks early, unblock decisions, and maintain a strong execution cadence
• Reviewing engagement financials regularly and flagging trends early, including burn, scope, margin pressure, and forecast variances
• Ensuring billing hygiene by driving timely invoicing, tracking receivables, and following up

3. Sales and go to market execution, deal operations, and pricing strategy

You will be deeply involved in pursuits, from qualification through proposal submission, and will ensure deals move through IBM processes cleanly and on time. You will sometimes lead, sometimes support, and often orchestrate the right people to get it done, including:

• Leading and or coordinating RFP responses and proposal development, including quality, structure, compliance, and version control
• Driving approval paths across IBM, including solutioning, pricing, finance, risk, legal, compliance, and leadership reviews, and removing bottlenecks
• Pricing support and pricing strategy by running pricing through IBM tools and workflows, maintaining a clean audit trail, and advising on price to win
• Tracking and analyzing historical proposal pricing patterns and outcomes to help identify the win price and strengthen deal positioning
• Partnering with the sales and account teams to maintain pipeline discipline by consolidating milestones, next steps, and stakeholder actions, and ensuring pursuits stay on track and moving forward

Client facing expectations are common in this role. You will:

• Prepare teams for sales pitches including coordination of storyline, roles, prep materials, and rehearsals
• Regularly attend client meetings and sales pitches alongside the Practice Leader
• Confidently communicate the why IBM narrative and help position IBM as partner of choice

4. People operations, workforce management, and team enablement

You will help ensure the team is supported, staffed appropriately, and positioned for both delivery success and career growth. This includes operational people leadership through influence, including:

• Resource allocation and staffing hygiene to align the right skills to the right work at the right time
• Partnering with our Workforce Management team in Costa Rica to create open seats and positions for all upcoming engagements
• Partnering with domestic and offshore delivery center leaders to staff their roles, and helping staff all other roles across the Canadian practice team
• Maintaining a forward looking resource forecast and flagging hiring needs early, then driving hiring actions through the system
• Creating operational clarity for the team including expectations, escalation paths, and decision timelines
• Ensuring teams have access to the Practice Leader when needed, without creating bottlenecks
• Balancing practice needs with individual development goals to support retention and growth
• Partner with the practice’s people managers (aka. Coaches) to ensure their teams are informed on the latest initiatives, processes, and required training.

5. Practice Leader back office and business rhythm

You will run, or drive to completion, the operational cadence and internal processes that keep a national consulting practice healthy and scalable, including but not limited to:

• Workforce forecasting and capacity planning, including near term demand, future gaps, and hiring triggers
• End to end hiring approvals for full time and contractors, from request through approvals and onboarding readiness
• Practice reporting to senior leadership covering people, active work, pipeline and go to market, and project financial summaries
• Executive briefs, decision notes, and talking points for internal leadership forums
• Operational dashboards and trackers to create visibility and accountability across the practice

Required education

Bachelor's Degree

Preferred education

Master's Degree

Required technical and professional expertise

• At least 6 years of professional experience post education
• Exceptional emotional intelligence and political maturity, including strong judgment, tact, stakeholder awareness, and the ability to drive outcomes in high stakes environments
• Demonstrated ability to work with senior executives and handle sensitive, complex situations with discretion
• Strong executive communication, including clear concise writing and confident verbal presence
• Highly organized, able to manage multiple workstreams, deadlines, and stakeholders
• Self directed operator who creates structure, cadence, and clarity where ambiguity exists
• Comfortable constructively challenging senior leaders and bringing a clear point of view, not simply executing instructions.

Preferred technical and professional experience

• Previous Chief of Staff, Operations Manager, or consulting practice operations experience
• Management or strategy consulting experience
• Background in professional services where sales, delivery, and financial discipline all matter
• French fluency