AI SME, Telco Consulting (Associate Director)

Cognizant (NASDAQ:CTSH) is a leading provider of information technology, consulting, and business process outsourcing services, dedicated to helping the world's leading companies build stronger businesses. Headquartered in Teaneck, New Jersey (U.S.), Cognizant has over 350,000 employees as of January 2024. Cognizant is a member of the NASDAQ-100, the S&P 500, the Forbes Global 1000, and the Fortune 500 and is ranked among the top performing and fastest growing companies in the world.

At Cognizant, our consultants orchestrate the capabilities to truly change the game across strategy, design, technology and industry/functional knowledge to deliver insight at speed and solutions at scale. Our consulting services elevate the unique abilities and business aspirations of customers and employees and build relationships based on trust and value.

We are looking for an inspiring AI + Data Evangelist to drive awareness, adoption, and cultural transformation around AI, Generative AI, Agentic AI, and data-driven decisioning across the organisation. The role acts as a bridge between business teams, technology teams, and senior leadership to articulate AI value, identify transformation opportunities, shape AI-enabled use cases, and promote best practices across BSS, OSS, Network, CX, and Operations.

The ideal candidate is a storyteller, strategist, and hands on innovator who can simplify complex AI concepts, influence cross functional teams, and guide the enterprise toward becoming an AI first telco.

• Champion the vision for AI, GenAI, and Agentic AI adoption across business units and technology domains.

• Deliver inspirational talks, demos, PoVs, and workshops to accelerate organisational AI literacy.

• Shape the narrative of how AI will transform BSS, OSS, network operations, customer experience, field operations, and enterprise processes.

• Act as an internal influencer to build a culture of experimentation and data driven innovation.

• Work with stakeholders to identify high impact AI/GenAI opportunities aligned with business priorities.

• Create use case backlogs, business value assessments, and prioritisation frameworks.

• Design AI use cases across domains such as:

• Customer service (NLP, chatbots, agent assist)

• BSS (automated journeys, intelligent CRM, catalogue automation)

• OSS/Network (predictive assurance, autonomous ops, network slicing intelligence)

• Enterprise functions (HR, Finance, supply chain insights)

• Collaborate with product managers and enterprise architects to shape MVPs and pilot roadmaps.

• Advocate for strong data governance, data quality, cataloguing, and democratization.

• Promote the use of modern data platforms, streaming analytics, vector search, and LLM ready architectures.

• Translate analytics and AI potential into business value narratives for leadership teams.

• Support data literacy programs across non technical teams.

• Lead PoCs, showcase emerging AI frameworks, and conduct hands on demos.

• Stay updated on telco AI innovations - digital twins, autonomous networks, intelligent assurance, RAG, multi agent systems.

• Partner with engineering teams, cloud teams, and vendors to assess tools and capabilities for scaling.

• Act as a trusted advisor to senior leadership on AI strategy and industry trends.

• Work closely with BUs, architecture, and product teams to align AI initiatives with enterprise roadmaps.

• Present complex AI concepts in simplified, business friendly language.

• Prepare executive thought leadership papers, showcases, roadmaps, and storytelling collateral.

• Strong understanding of telecom ecosystems (BSS/OSS/Network/CX/Operations).

• Solid hands on experience or strong working knowledge of:

• AI/ML pipelines, MLOps/LLMOps

• Generative AI (LLMs, RAG, embeddings, prompt engineering)

• Agentic AI frameworks and multi agent orchestration

• Data platforms, big data tools, streaming analytics

• APIs, cloud services (AWS/Azure/GCP)

• Ability to conceptualize and communicate architecture patterns (AI driven ops, vector databases, knowledge graphs, digital twins).

• Excellent storytelling, communication, and presentation skills.

• Ability to influence executive stakeholders and create buy in.

• Strong business acumen around digital transformation, cost optimisation, and productisation of AI.

• Experience in leading workshops, hackathons, or innovation labs.

• Ability to mentor teams and drive organisational data literacy.

• Certifications in AI/ML, GenAI, Cloud, or Data Engineering.

• Experience working with major telecom operators or technology vendors.

• Knowledge of TM Forum frameworks (Open APIs, eTOM, ODA).

This role is central to accelerating the organisation's journey toward becoming a data powered, AI native, autonomous telco. As the AI & Data Evangelist, you will be the storyteller, catalyst, and culture builder who connects strategy to execution and transforms how teams work, make decisions, and innovate.