Team Leader/Manager - Market Intelligence & Advisory

AHEAD builds platforms for digital business. By weaving together advances in cloud infrastructure, automation and analytics, and software delivery, we help enterprises deliver on the promise of digital transformation. At AHEAD, we prioritize creating a culture of belonging, where all perspectives and voices are represented, valued, respected, and heard. We create spaces to empower everyone to speak up, make change, and drive the culture at AHEAD. We are an equal opportunity employer, and do not discriminate based on an individual's race, national origin, color, gender, gender identity, gender expression, sexual orientation, religion, age, disability, marital status, or any other protected characteristic under applicable law, whether actual or perceived. We embrace all candidates that will contribute to the diversification and enrichment of ideas and perspectives at AHEAD. You will build and lead AHEADs combined Research, Insights & Design CoE establishing the teams operating model, research methodology, design standards, quality governance, and delivery engine. This is a player-coach role that combines hands-on research execution and design excellence with stakeholder partnership, practice-building, and people leadership. You will be both an intellectual anchor and creative authority for the team, and a credible thought partner for AHEADs senior consulting and sales leadership. Your work will directly shape how AHEADs consulting teams understand markets, position against competitors, plan for accounts, win complex enterprise technology deals and how sharply those ideas and insights are expressed to CXO audiences through consulting-grade visual storytelling. KEY RESPONSIBILITIES: Research Delivery & Insights Create and own end-to-end delivery accountability for AHEAD's full research product stack like Market Size & Outlook, Industry/Technology POVs, Account Intelligence Packs, Competitive Profiles & Battlecards, Buying Behaviour Analysis, Capability Heatmaps, Benchmark Reports etc Synthesize intelligence from primary research and secondary research via tier-1 analyst platforms (e.g. Gartner, Everest Group, Forrester, IDC, Avasant etc), business databases (e.g.Hoovers, AlphaSense etc), and proprietary sources into crisp, executive-ready insight narratives. Lead competitive intelligence strategy and translate findings into actionable pursuit positioning. Drive account-level intelligence to support strategic account planning, C-suite engagement personalization, and opportunity identification for AHEAD's consulting and sales teams. Conduct peer review of analyst-produced research; enforce quality standards and provide structured developmental feedback across all deliverables. Advisory Engagements: Support pursuit engagements by delivering market insights, competitive benchmarking, and strategic guidance based on proprietary research and market intelligence. CoE Build-Out & Team Leadership Establish and operationalize the Research & Insights centre defining intake processes, research methodology, turnaround benchmarks, quality review protocols, and governance frameworks from the ground up. Lead, coach, and develop a team of Research Analysts /Sr Research Analysts; build a high-performance culture grounded in intellectual rigour, delivery excellence, and continuous learning. Design competency frameworks, structured onboarding programs, and career progression pathways for the research team; actively mentor analysts in their professional growth. Establish innovative research processes, methodologies and frameworks for structuring and analysing the data to develop impactful insights at a quality that is repeatable and is continually improved Build and govern the team's knowledge repository: standardized research templates, source libraries, reusable intelligence assets, and a living research calendar aligned to consulting priorities. Manage team utilization, workload distribution, and delivery economics; provide regular performance reporting to senior leadership. Stakeholder Partnership & Consulting Enablement Serve as the primary research interface for AHEAD's onsite consulting, sales, practice, and deal teams translating strategic business questions and pursuit needs into structured, hypothesis-led research briefs. Proactively anticipate intelligence needs across the full pursuit lifecycle: from opportunity identification and qualification through to proposal development, deal shaping, and win/loss review. Present research findings and insight packages to senior internal stakeholders; provide strategic context and actionable recommendations, not just data. Manage the custom research request pipeline; balance recurring standard reports with bespoke, high-urgency consulting support while maintaining delivery quality. Partner with onsite consulting leaders during workshops to .