Head AI Consulting & Solutions-Sales

Head – AI Consulting & Solutions -Sales

Rakuten India Enterprise Private Ltd. |Bangalore

1. Rakuten & Rakuten India — At a Glance

Rakuten Group is a Tokyo-headquartered global internet conglomerate (est. 1997) with 32,000+ employees across 30+ countries, and 50+ digital-first consumer tech businesses spanning across e-commerce, fintech, telecom, digital content, communications, and sports. Key brands include Rakuten Ichiba, Rakuten Mobile, Rakuten Bank, Rakuten Card, Rakuten Securities, Rakuten Insurance, Viber, Viki, and Kobo. The Group is listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange, with FY2025 revenues of USD 16 Bn.

Rakuten India (Bengaluru, est. 2012) is Rakuten Group's largest R&D centre outside Japan – a 2,000+ person engineering and innovation hub that co-creates global products and platforms across product engineering, AI & Data, platform engineering, and UX. It is not a captive development shop; it is a genuine technology powerhouse with a polyglot, English-first culture where high-calibre leaders come to build at scale.

2. Rakuten AI Consulting & Solutions (R-AICS) — The Business

Incubated in November 2024, Rakuten AI Consulting & Solutions (R-AICS) is a client-facing AI advisory and delivery business built inside Rakuten India. It has a dual mandate:

• External Revenue Engine: Deliver AI consulting and end-to-end AI solutions to enterprise clients across industries, leveraging Rakuten India's AI/ML engineering depth and the Rakuten brand.
• Internal AI Partner: Collaborate with Rakuten India's AI & Data Division to accelerate AI use-case identification, solutioning, and deployment for enterprise clients; and close the feedback loop

R-AICS occupies a differentiated market position at the intersection of Strategy Advisory Depth × AI Engineering Execution × Global Enterprise Perspective – enabling engagements from business problem framing to production AI deployment. The team is building proprietary solution accelerators and reusable frameworks to establish Rakuten as a credible AI consulting brand in target markets.

Current focus areas: Generative AI / LLM applications, conversational AI, intelligent automation and agentic AI, AI-driven analytics and personalization, AI strategy and maturity assessments, and Responsible AI governance.

Through 2025, the initial incubation team has successfully validated the market opportunity and Rakuten's sales and delivery playbook, with successful delivery of first 2 external AI Consulting & Solutions projects, and building an initial pipeline of 10+ leads. In the first 2 external AI projects, solutions have been built and successfully delivered for clients in the following areas:

1. AI led transformation of sales and customer support contact centres – agentic AI platform for handling end-to-end conversations in 6 Indian languages, and creating rich lead context and scoring for downstream follow up actions by digital marketing and human sales teams
2. AI platform for healthcare physical records digitization – end-to-end platform for annotation and review of physical records and digitized data for integrating into the EMR systems.
3. AI for IoT ecosystem – multiple solutions at the intersection of data sciences and AI for customer profiling, demand forecasting, predictive maintenance forecasting, and an AI business analyst layer on top of these solutions.

The Role

Role Type: External, client-facing Revenue Engine Leadership| P&L ownership

Location: Bengaluru (domestic and international client travel as required)

This is a founding leadership role — not a management position in a mature business. The incumbent owns the full build-and-scale agenda of R-AICS: from pipeline and revenue to team, IP, and Rakuten India's AI brand in the market. It requires executive gravitas to engage C-suite clients, consulting rigour to structure complex AI transformation engagements, and sufficient technical fluency to credibly direct AI solution architecture and delivery.

Key Responsibilities

• Business Development & Revenue: Develop and execute the GTM strategy; own the full sales pipeline from lead generation to contract closure; personally lead high-value CxO-level client pursuits; meet signed-project and revenue milestones agreed
• Client Engagement: Serve as executive sponsor for key accounts; own the end-to-end client lifecycle (discovery → solutioning → delivery → expansion); drive client satisfaction and account growth.
• Solution Design & AI Advisory: Guide end-to-end AI solution design (strategy, architecture, data, model, deployment) in partnership with the Pre-Sales Specialist and Rakuten India's AI & Data Division; lead AI strategy assessments and transformation roadmaps for clients.
• Delivery Oversight: Establish delivery standards and governance frameworks; provide senior oversight to the Delivery Lead; ensure on-time, in-scope, high-quality execution across the project portfolio.
• Team & Capability Building: Hire and develop a high-performing team of AI consultants, solutions architects, and delivery professionals; build reusable solution assets, IP, and a scalable delivery methodology.
• Internal AI Collaboration: Partner with Rakuten India's AI & Data Division on internal AI use-cases; act as a bridge between commercial client insights and Rakuten's internal AI platform teams.

4. Candidate Profile

Qualifications: Undergraduate

B.E. / B.Tech in Computer Science, Electronics, or related discipline from a reputed institution (mandatory)

Postgraduate

MBA from a premier institution — IIMs (A/B/C/L/I/K), ISB, MDI, IIT SoM, XLRI or equivalent global school (mandatory)

Certifications

AI/ML, cloud platforms, or Design Thinking certifications are a plus; not mandatory

Experience |15–20+ Years Total

• Consulting Pedigree (Essential): 5–8+ years at a top-tier firms — Strong track record across both Strategy Advisory and Transformation engagements at CxO level.
• Digital / AI Transformation (Strong Plus): Demonstrated experience on Digital Transformation programs — AI strategy, data platform buildouts, intelligent automation, or large-scale technology-led business transformation. Exposure to GenAI, LLMs, or enterprise AI deployments.
• Commercial / BD Ownership (Essential): Prior ownership or material contribution to sales pursuits, proposal development, and client acquisition. P&L or practice-building experience is highly desirable.
• Sector Context (Preferred): E-Commerce, FinTech, Retail, BFSI, or Technology; India market + global (US/APAC/Europe) client exposure is advantageous.

Competency Framework

Strategic Thinking

Define market opportunity, GTM strategy, and multi-horizon growth plans for a nascent consulting business

Executive Presence

Board-level communication; ability to engage and influence CxO audiences with clarity and conviction

Consulting Craft

Structured problem-solving, hypothesis-driven analysis, story lining, and proposal writing to top-tier standards

AI Fluency

Working knowledge of AI/ML landscape, LLMs, GenAI, and enterprise AI deployment — sufficient to direct technical teams and evaluate solution quality

Business Development

Pipeline management, enterprise deal pursuit, and commercial negotiation

Delivery Governance

Portfolio-level oversight; ability to balance quality, timeline, and client expectations across multi-workstream engagements

Team Leadership

Track record of building and scaling consulting / technology teams; strong coaching orientation

Entrepreneurial Drive

Comfort with ambiguity; start-up energy with bias for action and outcome accountability

5. Why Join

• Build a 0→1 Business: A rare opportunity to shape and lead a new, high-visibility business unit from the ground up — with the credibility and backing of a globally recognised consumer-tech business conglomerate, and the energy of a startup.
• Unmatched Technical Depth: Deploy 2,500+ world-class engineers and AI/data scientists at Rakuten India on client engagements — a talent pool most consulting firms cannot match.
• Cutting-Edge AI Work: Front-row seat to enterprise AI transformation — GenAI, agentic AI, and LLM applications at a moment when AI is reshaping every sector.
• Startup Agility, Enterprise Scale: The best of both worlds — founding team energy with the stability, brand, infrastructure, and global reach of Rakuten Group.
• Growth Trajectory: As R-AICS scales, significant scope for the role to evolve into a broader AI Services leadership mandate with global dimensions.
• Competitive Package: Compensation, benefits, and ESOPs aligned with the growth trajectory of the business.

If you want to build the AI consulting business of the future — on a global platform, with world-class engineering talent