Frontier Transformation Lead

Cognizant; Chennai; On-site; INR 3,500,000 - 5,500,000; Full time

Job summary

Cognizant in Chennai is seeking a Frontier Transformation Lead to drive AI-native ways of working and accelerate frontier capabilities across client engagements. You will collaborate with senior business, delivery, solutioning, operations, talent, and capability leaders to translate AI offerings into new delivery models, strengthening workforce capability and enabling outcome-based delivery.

You will steer workforce planning, staffing, and talent mobility at scale, while guiding senior

Qualifications

• 20+ years of experience in IT services and senior leadership across global environments.
• Enterprise-scale workforce transformation and capability programs.
• Delivery leadership with cross-functional stakeholder credibility.
• Experience managing large workforce planning and talent mobility.
• Strong understanding of Generative AI and AI-enabled delivery models.

Responsibilities

• Lead transformation of software engineering toward AI-native roles and ways of working.
• Advance adoption of AI offerings, assets and accelerators in client engagements.
• Build frontier delivery teams and capability communities across opportunities.
• Own workforce planning, staffing, fulfilment, utilization and mobility.
• Lead senior stakeholders to accelerate workforce transformation and scalable delivery.
• Demonstrate Cognizant Way to Lead: Personal, Organizational and Business Leadership.

Skills

IT leadership

Workforce transformation

Delivery leadership

Workforce planning

Generative AI

Cognizant leadership

Job description

Leading at Cognizant

This is a Leadership role at Cognizant. We believe how you lead is as important as what you deliver. Cognizant leaders at every level: Drive our business strategy and inspire teams around our future. Live the leadership behaviors , leading themselves, others and the business. Uphold our Values , role modeling them in every action and decision. Nurture our people and culture , creating a workplace where all can thrive.

At Cognizant, leadership transcends titles and is embodied in actions and behaviors. We empower our leaders at every level to drive business strategy, inspire teams, uphold our values, and foster an inclusive culture.

About the role

As a Frontier Transformation Lead , you will make an impact by leading the transformation of a global engineering workforce toward AI-native ways of working and accelerating the adoption of frontier capabilities across client engagements. You will work collaboratively with senior business, delivery, solutioning, operations, talent, and capability leaders to translate AI offerings and accelerators into new ways of working, strengthen workforce capability, and enable outcome-based delivery.

In this role, you will:

• Lead the transformation of software engineering talent toward AI-native roles and ways of working , including career pathing, reskilling, certifications, and capability development.

• Drive the adoption and diffusion of AI offerings, assets, toolkits, and accelerators into live client engagements, working closely with sales, solutioning, and account management teams.

• Build and scale frontier delivery teams and capability communities , enabling effective deployment of talent across new and existing client opportunities.

• Own workforce planning, staffing, fulfilment, utilization, and talent mobility , partnering across a highly matrixed global organization to align capability supply with business demand.

• Lead and influence senior stakeholders to accelerate workforce transformation, AI adoption, and the transition toward scalable, outcome-based delivery models .

• Consistently demonstrate the Cognizant Way to Lead , which means operating with Personal Leadership (building trust, collaboration, and inclusion), Organizational Leadership (driving vision and purpose, demonstrating a strategic and enterprise mindset, and creating and communicating a bold direction that inspires purpose), and Business Leadership (exemplifying client focus, managing ambiguity with accountability and results, and operating with financial acumen)

What you need to have to be considered

• 20+ years of experience in IT services , including 12+ years leading talent, capability, workforce, or delivery organizations across large and complex global environments.

• Demonstrated experience leading enterprise-scale workforce transformation , including career pathing, reskilling, certification, and transition toward AI or emerging-technology capabilities.

• Strong delivery and transformation leadership , with the credibility to drive changes in ways of working across live client accounts in partnership with sales, solutioning, and delivery organizations.

• Proven experience managing workforce planning, staffing, fulfilment, utilization, bench, and talent mobility at significant scale.

• Strong understanding of Generative AI, Agentic AI, AI-native engineering roles, and emerging AI-enabled delivery models .

• Embodiment of the Cognizant Way to Lead : Leading Self, Leading Others, & Leading the Business

• The embodiment of Cognizant’s Values of: Work as One, Dare to Innovate, Raise the Bar, Do The right Thing, & Own It

These will help you succeed

• Experience owning a large-scale workforce strategy or capability community of 2000-3000 professionals .

• Demonstrated ability to lead large, distributed talent populations through senior leadership layers and drive measurable capability transformation.

• Experience taking new intellectual property, accelerators, or technology capabilities into live client environments and embedding them into delivery.

• Strong executive stakeholder management experience across business, sales, delivery, operations, HR, and technology organizations .

• Experience building enterprise reskilling, certification, talent mobility, or AI capability programs that connect workforce transformation with business demand.

Work model

At Cognizant, we strive to provide flexibility wherever possible, and we are here to support a healthy work-life balance through our various wellbeing programs. Based on this role’s business requirements, this is an onsite position requiring 4 days a week in a client or Cognizant office in [Chennai/Hyderabad/Bangalore/Mumbai] .

The working arrangements for this role are accurate as of the date of posting. This may change based on the project you’re engaged in, as well as business and client requirements. Rest assured; we will always be clear about role expectations.

Cognizant is an equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, race, color, religion, national origin, disability, protected Veteran status, age, or any other characteristic protected by law.