• A track record of owning — not contributing to — a 7- or 8-figure engagement at a top-tier consulting firm (McKinsey, BCG, Bain) or equivalent, where you ran the team, owned the client relationship, and were on the hook for the outcome
• Executive presence. You hold a room of C-suite stakeholders, push back on a COO without losing them, and make a CFO feel like you understand their P&L better than their own team does
• First-principles thinker. You don’t reach for the framework or the template — you reason from the actual business problem and back into a recommendation that holds up under stress-testing
• People leadership. You’ve run a team of consultants or operators and made them better. Your reports have gone on to do bigger things because of how you ran your engagements
• Founder or operator instincts. You’ve built something, run a P&L, or owned an operating function — and you know what it feels like when the work actually has to ship, not just get presented
• AI-native. You use AI tools every day, you’ve followed the space closely, and you have a real point of view on where agents work, where they don’t, and what’s coming next. You can scope an AI implementation and communicate clearly with engineers about what to build
• Extreme ownership. You run your engagements with minimal oversight, and you’re accountable for the outcome, not the output
• Based in SF or willing to relocate. Comfortable with 10-20% travel to client sites.