GDS Mistral Alliance Operations Strategist-Associate Director
EY · Kochi
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Role Title: GDS Mistral Alliance Operations Strategist - Associate Director
Function: GDS ES Growth & Innovation
Skill Level: Strategic Leadership
Sub Function: GDS Alliances Partner Operations CoE
The Opportunity
EY GDS Growth & Innovation enables EY’s strategic ecosystem relationships, market activation priorities and alliance-led growth programs. The Mistral alliance brings together EY’s industry, transformation, risk and responsible AI capabilities with Mistral AI’s enterprise AI platform, open and commercial models, and flexible deployment approaches. The alliance requires a senior operations leader who can connect joint strategy, governance, commercialization, enablement, investment oversight and multi-geo execution through a disciplined global operating model.
The GDS Mistral Alliance Operations Strategist is an Associate Director-level role responsible for defining and driving the business management, governance and execution strategy for the EY–Mistral alliance. The role serves as the operational counterpart to global alliance leadership, translating joint priorities into scalable plans, measurable outcomes and coordinated execution across go-to-market, solution development, sales activation, delivery readiness, marketing, enablement and alliance investment programs.
Operating from GDS, this role will orchestrate consistent support across regions and service lines while maintaining clear interfaces with EY and Mistral stakeholders. It combines strategic planning, alliance business management, program leadership and executive influence with working knowledge of enterprise generative AI, sovereign and private deployment considerations, model and platform lifecycle management, responsible AI, security, regulatory obligations and the fast-moving economics of AI solutions.
Your key responsibilities
- Own and continuously mature the global operating model, governance framework and business management processes for the EY–Mistral alliance.
- Translate joint alliance priorities into annual and quarterly operating plans, execution roadmaps, decision rights, milestones and measurable business outcomes.
- Design and run executive governance forums, steering committees, pipeline and performance reviews, and working cadences involving EY and Mistral leadership.
- Develop alliance scorecards and executive insight packs covering pipeline, bookings, influenced revenue, solution maturity, client adoption, delivery capacity, enablement, investments, risks and outcomes.
- Coordinate joint go-to-market planning, account activation, campaigns, events, thought leadership, case studies and priority pursuits across regions and sectors.
- Support the lifecycle of Mistral-enabled offerings from ideation and business case through solution approval, readiness, launch, field adoption and performance improvement.
- Build repeatable GDS services, playbooks, intake processes, service levels, knowledge assets and escalation paths for alliance, sales and delivery stakeholders.
- Coordinate capability building across Mistral AI models, APIs, enterprise platform capabilities, agentic AI, retrieval-augmented generation, model customization and cloud, VPC, on-premises or edge deployment patterns.
- Embed responsible AI, privacy, cybersecurity, intellectual property, data residency, model risk and applicable regulatory considerations into alliance operating processes, with specialist teams retaining accountability for formal approvals.
- Maintain visibility of model, platform and commercial changes; assess operational impacts and coordinate updates to enablement, offerings, controls, contracts and stakeholder communications.
- Manage alliance investments, forecasts, budgets, resource plans, benefits realization and supporting evidence in collaboration with finance, commercial and alliance leadership.
- Orchestrate execution across alliance, technology, consulting, industry, risk, legal, procurement, finance, marketing, sales and delivery teams in a complex global matrix.
- Identify bottlenecks, dependencies and execution risks early, establish remediation plans and provide decision-ready recommendations to alliance leaders.
- Drive automation and data quality improvements across pipeline reporting, governance workflows, knowledge management, enablement tracking and leadership reporting.
- Coach matrixed contributors across operations, PMO, reporting and enablement support to improve quality, accountability, responsiveness and delivery discipline.
Skills and attributes for success
- Senior-level experience in technology alliance operations, AI or data ecosystem programs, business management, PMO, commercialization or strategic execution.
- Working knowledge of the enterprise generative AI landscape, including foundation models, APIs, agents, retrieval-augmented generation, customization, evaluation and production deployment.
- Ability to convert rapidly changing technology, product and market developments into clear alliance priorities, operating implications and executable plans.
- Strong understanding of partner governance, joint business planning, go-to-market activation, pipeline management, offering lifecycle and investment governance.
- Awareness of responsible AI, model governance, privacy, cybersecurity, intellectual property, third-party risk, EU AI Act considerations and data sovereignty requirements.
- Executive stakeholder presence and the ability to align senior leaders, technical teams and business stakeholders across organizations, regions and service lines.
- Excellent communication and storytelling skills, with the ability to translate technical and commercial information into concise, decision-ready narratives.
- Strong commercial and financial acumen, including forecasting, investment tracking, business cases, performance measurement and value realization.
- Strong analytical capability and disciplined use of metrics to diagnose performance, identify opportunities and recommend corrective action.
- Experience designing scalable processes and service models for GDS or a comparable global delivery environment.
- Comfort using approved AI, analytics and automation tools to improve research, reporting, meeting productivity, workflow execution and knowledge reuse.
- People leadership and matrix management skills, including coaching, prioritization, quality oversight and capability development.
To qualify for the role, you must have
- University degree required; qualification in business, technology, engineering, computer science, data and analytics, finance, operations or a related discipline preferred.
- MBA, postgraduate qualification or recognized certification in AI, data, cloud, project or program management, process improvement or technology management would be an advantage.
- 15+ years of relevant experience, including substantial leadership responsibility in technology alliances, AI or data programs, strategic operations, commercialization, global PMO or business management.
- Demonstrated success leading complex, cross-functional global programs in a matrixed professional services, technology, platform or ecosystem environment.
- Experience partnering with senior executives and technical leaders on joint strategy, governance, performance management and decision support.
- Practical experience with alliance business plans, pipeline and revenue reporting, offering or solution governance, enablement, investments and operating cadences.
- Sufficient fluency in enterprise AI concepts to work confidently with product, engineering, architecture, risk, legal and client-facing teams; deep hands-on model engineering is not required.
- Advanced proficiency in Microsoft 365, Power BI, Excel, PowerPoint, collaboration platforms and business intelligence or reporting tools.
- Ability to work flexibly across priorities, stakeholder groups, global time zones and evolving alliance requirements.
Ideally, you'll also have
- Direct experience with Mistral AI, another foundation-model provider, or an enterprise generative AI, cloud or data platform alliance.
- Familiarity with Mistral AI’s model and platform ecosystem, including APIs, agents, model customization, evaluation, administration and flexible cloud, private or on-premises deployment patterns.
- Experience supporting sovereign AI, regulated-industry or sensitive-data use cases where control, residency, security, traceability and deployment choice are material.
- Understanding of open-weight and commercial model ecosystems, licensing considerations, model evaluation, inference economics and build-versus-buy decisions.
- Exposure to AI use cases such as intelligent document processing, knowledge assistants, coding, multilingual solutions, multimodal AI and agentic workflows.
- Experience building or scaling partner enablement, certification, field activation, solution incubation or technical community programs.
- Exposure to professional services operating models and alliance-led growth across consulting, technology transformation, risk or managed services.
- Experience managing GDS or global delivery teams that support multiple regions through standardized services and locally adaptable execution.
Technologies and Tools
- Microsoft 365 tools including Excel, PowerPoint, Word, Teams, Outlook, SharePoint, OneDrive, Planner, Forms and Loop.
- Power BI, Power Query, Power Pivot, Power Automate, Power Apps and approved dashboarding, workflow and AI-enabled productivity solutions.
- Mistral AI platform and ecosystem awareness, including Studio and API concepts, model catalogue, agents, retrieval-augmented generation, evaluation, administration, usage and billing controls, documentation and release information.
- CRM, pipeline, alliance relationship management, campaign, marketplace, deal registration, certification, incentive, investment and business performance platforms.
- Knowledge of cloud, private cloud, virtual private cloud, on-premises and edge deployment terminology, together with common enterprise identity, access, observability and security concepts.
- Data visualization and governance tools for KPI scorecards, executive reporting, workflow notifications, version control, knowledge management, service-level tracking, quality assurance and audit-ready evidence.
What we look for
We are looking for a commercially aware, technology-fluent Associate Director who can turn the ambition of the EY–Mistral alliance into coordinated global execution. The ideal candidate will combine alliance operations depth, executive stakeholder confidence, AI ecosystem awareness, governance discipline, financial acumen and GDS leadership, while remaining comfortable with rapid product evolution, responsible AI expectations and the sovereign, secure and flexible deployment needs of enterprise clients.
What we offer
EY Global Delivery Services (GDS) is a dynamic global delivery network that advances EY’s growth strategy. Within Growth & Innovation, GDS teams enable alliances, ecosystems, go-to-market programs, technology-enabled growth and business insights across global locations. In this role, you will help shape the operating foundation of the EY–Mistral alliance, collaborate with senior global and technical stakeholders, enable responsible enterprise AI growth and build scalable GDS services that connect strategy with market and delivery execution.
- Continuous learning: Develop the mindset, skills and confidence to adapt, grow and navigate what comes next.
- Success, as defined by you: Access the tools, flexibility and support to make a meaningful impact in the way that works best for you.
- Transformative leadership: Gain insights, coaching and experiences that help you grow into the leader the world needs.
- Technology-enabled impact: Work with modern analytics, automation and AI-enabled productivity tools to improve how alliance operations, governance and insights are delivered at scale.
- Diverse and inclusive culture: Be valued for who you are and empowered to use your voice to help others find theirs.
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