[Hiring] Senior Director Analyst, Finance AI Agent Architecture & Strategy @Gartner

Role Description

Gartner Analysts are industry thought leaders who create must-have insights, market predictions and best practices for a broad range of world-leading organizations. They serve as leaders within Gartner’s Business and Technology Insights (BTI) group, establishing oneself as a credible voice within their designated market at local, regional and global levels.

Utilizing exceptional research and analytical skills, they play a significant role in producing pragmatic and provocative insights which Gartner clients consume and apply to propel their business toward key objectives. They are a trusted source of advice for clients, reinforcing Gartner’s value every day by engaging them via:

• In-person meetings
• Virtual meetings
• Sales support visits
• Gartner conferences

A Gartner Analyst possesses a keen eye for identifying gaps, problems and solutions within the market they serve. They use their knowledge to help clients make better decisions, solve complex issues and execute new practices that propel clients’ businesses toward key objectives and publish these pragmatic and/or provocative insights.

We’re looking for a forward-thinking Finance AI Expert to join the Gartner Finance Practice. As a Finance AI Expert, you will regularly produce published insights and meet with Finance leaders including CFOs, FP&A leaders, Controllers, Finance Transformation leaders and their teams to advise on their Artificial Intelligence-related questions and challenges.

If you’ve spent a good part of your career working in or alongside corporate finance teams and have exposure to how those teams are getting value from AI investments in key finance processes, then this expert role could be for you.

Career experience with the development and deployment of AI projects within the finance function will be essential. In particular, experience with a wide range of AI techniques beyond GenAI will be valuable. As will deep familiarity with specific finance processes – including:

• Forecasting
• Planning
• Budgeting
• Record to report
• Transactional finance (such as accounts payable or accounts receivable)

Collaboration with leaders in other corporate functions such as IT, Data, Legal, HR, etc., will also be important.

The successful candidate will be comfortable discussing and researching topics including:

• Finance’s AI vision, strategy, maturity and roadmap
• Finance AI use case selection and implementation from pilot to production and scale
• Finance AI technology landscape and developments, including vendors and emerging capabilities (e.g., the rise of agentic AI opportunities for finance)
• Finance AI oversight and governance strategies
• AI agent design and architecture

What you will do:

• Create unique, defensible and highly consumable business and technology insights that directly address the AI priorities and opportunities of finance leaders.
• Serve as a leading authority on finance AI topics, such as:
• How AI technologies and approaches will impact the finance function
• Setting up AI pilots and scaling initiatives
• Ensuring proper governance of finance AI tools
• Navigating the Finance AI vendor landscape
• Finance AI use cases that draw on a range of traditional, generative and agentic AI techniques
• How finance teams should think about managing a portfolio of AI agents
• How AI agents in finance should be designed for effectiveness, security, and reliability
• Stay abreast of external trends in artificial intelligence relevant to finance audiences. Create innovative, thought provoking, and highly leveraged “must-have” insights.
• Demonstrate thought leadership in establishing insights positions across a team of analysts.
• Bring provocative, independent insights to Gartner leaders that can evolve the course of a research agenda.
• Research, analyze and predict market trends and shifts to provide clients and vendors with actionable insights.
• Provide clients and prospects with actionable advice aligned to their designated content area via virtual or face-to-face interactions.
• Create and deliver high value presentation materials on and off stage for Gartner events, industry and professional association conferences, and client briefings.
• Support BTI and Sales: Provide sales support serving as voice of the market to help Insights teams create content and to drive engagement with clients to make progress against their critical priorities to grow their business.
• Provide high quality and timely content peer review.
• Build credibility as an industry expert to represent Gartner insights, methodology and strategy.
• Actively participate in innovation, ideation, and research discussions and collaborate effectively with peers in the Insights community.
• Identify research process improvements or develop new processes that help the team and BTI provide excellent service delivery.
• Be a mentor and a coach by supporting more junior team members.
• Be client-centric while actively seeking to help clients engage regularly and often with Gartner insights and interactions.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree or equivalent experience.
• 10-12+ years of relevant experience working on finance function and technology topics, with 2+ years of AI for finance, with increasing scope and responsibility.
• Career exposure to major finance processes and workflows, data sources and technologies.
• Experience with AI technology, including machine learning, AI agents, predictive modelling, and retrieval-augmented generation (RAG).
• Experience with data science, quantitative analytics, statistics, probabilistic decision-making and coding languages (preferably Python) via on-the-job experience or formalized education (backgrounds in math, statistics and physics a plus).
• Demonstrate executive presence; can immediately establish credibility with executives and additional stakeholders.
• Strong organizational skills; ability to work under tight deadlines and produce high quality deliverables.
• Demonstrate excellence in research and writing ability.
• Strong written and verbal proficiency, analytical and presentation skills; ability to engage clients and respond effectively to questions.
• Proficient in analyzing and synthesizing data; can effectively apply patterns and frameworks while drawing and defending conclusions to client challenges.
• Strong communicator who is able to explain complex concepts concisely and simply.
• Subject matter expert comfortable presenting at large and small-scale speaking engagements.
• Strong business and financial acumen.
• Deep knowledge of the global and competitive landscape within subject area as well as the interplay in that market.
• Ability to work independently, while also being intrinsically motivated to collaborate across teams and support the workflow of others, in a multicultural global team.
• Learning agile and adept with navigating highly matrixed environments.
• Ability to represent Gartner's research methodology and strategies effectively at all levels.
• Willingness and ability to travel up to 10% (where applicable).

Benefits

• World-class benefits
• Highly competitive compensation
• Disproportionate rewards for top performers
• Flexibility to work virtually or in a vibrant community