Interim Transformation Director (Data & AI)

Location: London (Hybrid)
Client: Confidential (PE-backed services group)
Day Rate: Benchmarking against transformation community (c. £1,200–£1,800 p/d + agency margin)

About the Company and Role

Our client is a private equity–backed international services group undergoing a significant enterprise-wide transformation. Now 18 months into a broad change agenda, the organisation has created a new Chief Data & AI leadership function to bring clarity, accountability and commercial value to data, analytics and AI initiatives.
Reporting directly to the Chief Data & AI Officer, this Interim Transformation Director (Data & AI) will act as a temporary chief of staff, helping to mobilise delivery, establish transparency, and translate early strategic intent into a coherent execution plan. This is a hands-on delivery role, ideal for an operator experienced in low-to-mid maturity environments where foundations need to be built at pace.
The initial term will be three months with a strong likelihood of extension to six months. The interim will ultimately pave the way for a permanent “Head of” role as the function matures.

Key Responsibilities

• Convert “whiteboard” strategy into a clear, mobilised delivery plan across data management, governance, analytics and AI enablement.
• Establish transparency, accountability and cross-functional working rhythms that address historic issues around delivery quality and business trust.
• Work directly with senior executives and operational teams to ensure that “done” is defined in business-value terms, not solely technical delivery.
• Support the CDAO in shaping team structure, managing sensitive integration points (including existing data leadership), and aligning workstreams to the wider transformation.
• Drive effective executive communications, cadence and reporting, ensuring progress is visible and risks are surfaced early.
• Engage collaboratively with wider transformation stakeholders (including Finance Transformation) to ensure dependencies are understood and managed.

Candidate Profile

• Proven experience delivering data and AI–related transformation in low or early-maturity organisations, ideally moving from fragmentation to structure.
• Strong operational orientation: able to organise, mobilise and drive outcomes rather than produce strategy decks.
• Comfortable acting as a chief-of-staff–type operator to a CDAO, with the confidence to work across and down the organisation.
• Technically credible across data management, governance, analytics enablement and AI use-case mobilisation; does not need to be a deep specialist.
• Excellent communication and stakeholder management skills, with the ability to work closely with senior executives who may be new to data leadership roles.
• Travel industry experience is helpful but not required.
• London-based hybrid working, with ability to align to the CDAO’s rhythm (typically Tue/Wed in office with some flexibility across other days).