Driving AI innovation for business impact

The role of the Engagement Manager is to triangulate between our clients, our scientists, and our Advanced Prototyping Team to drive innovation in AI with clients. Over the course of a three-year member contract, our clients need to achieve and demonstrate fruitful engagement with the lab that (1) contributes to institutional learning and insight for the company and (2) builds meaningful pathways from research to bottom-line impact. As an Engagement Manager, you will play a hybrid role that is both well-informed on the technical specifics of our portfolio and creatively business-minded as you stand in the shoes of the client. Working with a subset of our members, you will need the ability to learn quickly, listen empathically, and lead effectively to construct flexible operational and relational frameworks tailored for each client and each project team that client engages with.

Required Technical and Professional Expertise

• Demonstrated ability to engage effectively with innovation teams within large organizations
• Proven understanding of business strategy and early product development
• Proven professional etiquette and relationship development sensibilities
• Demonstrated leadership and teamwork qualities
• Demonstrated creativity in connecting dots across disciplines for innovative solutions
• Bachelor’s Degree

Preferred Technical and Professional Experience

• Publication record of applied research and/or software prototyping 
• Product management experience in AI and/or data science
• Educational background or demonstrated knowledge in computer science, data science, and business
• Experience consulting for major organizations
• Formal training in communication and negotiation
• Proven communication and presentation skills
• Master’s Degree

About IBM Research and the MIT-IBM Watson AI Lab

This position is for the IBM Research side of the MIT-IBM Watson AI Lab. IBM Research is a community of over 3,000 people across 19 locations on six continents. We are the organic growth engine of IBM, grounded in the scientific method as we pioneer what’s next on the horizon for IBM and for the world.

The MIT-IBM Watson AI Lab is an academic-industry partnership focused on advancing fundamental AI research for real-world impact in business and society. We fund 50 active projects per year, each jointly executed by MIT faculty and IBM Research scientists publishing in the top peer-reviewed venues. We then work with IBM business units and member companies to bridge this scientific work to transformative domain applications.

Our membership program consists of seven deep relationships with global leaders across multiple industries: finance (Wells Fargo and Refinitiv), construction (Grupo ACS), consumer technology (Samsung), medical devices and diagnostics (Boston Scientific), transportation (Delta), and energy (Woodside). As we deepen these engagements and grow our membership further, we are looking for outstanding client engagement managers with a rare skillset: the ability to effectively traverse the worlds of Ph.D. scientists in research and business leaders in their respective domains.