Head of AI and Technology

Pathfinders Consulting Pty Ltd; Cape Town; Hybrid; ZAR 1,500,000 - 2,100,000; Full time

Job summary

Pathfinders Consulting Pty Ltd in Cape Town is seeking a Head of AI and Technology to lead the firm's AI-native transformation and own the secure technology backbone, building the platform behind our subscription products.

The role works directly with the Managing Director and leadership team to reimagine operating models as AI capabilities advance, while delivering integrated systems that turn knowledge into leadership insight.

Qualifications

• Deep practical AI fluency including LLM workflows and agentic automation.
• Ability to design coherent systems and make build-vs-buy decisions.
• Experience shaping leadership-level strategy for knowledge-driven firms.
• Proven track record prototyping and directing multi-disciplinary teams.
• Strong emphasis on client confidentiality, data security and reproducibility.

Responsibilities

• Lead AI transformation and operating-model reinvention across the firm.
• Co-conceptualise AI-enabled offerings and build production platforms.
• Set target architecture to consolidate internal systems into a single source of truth.
• Provide strategic direction with MD and leadership team.

Skills

AI fluency

Architecture & product judgement

Strategic leadership

Hands-on prototyping

Data engineering

Job description

The next generation of knowledge firms will not simply use AI. They will be built around it. Our Client, a respected boutique energy economics consultancy and think tank at the centre of South Africa's power sector transition, is looking for a Head of AI and Technology to help create that future. The firm publishes a subscription market intelligence product built on its own proprietary modelling suite, advises investors, developers, banks and large energy users, and produces independent research that shapes national energy policy. As the team grows, the firm intends to grow its impact even faster, and this role is central to that: transforming it into an AI-native consultancy where exceptional human judgement is amplified by intelligent systems, and building and owning the technology platform at the heart of the business.

Who you are

A senior technologist-strategist who came up as a builder and has gone deep into AI in recent years. You will have a minimum of five years' experience in a similar senior role, such as AI or data leadership in professional services, senior engineering or CTO in a small tech firm or start-up, or digital transformation leadership in a knowledge-intensive organisation.

The Role

This is not a conventional technology leadership role. It is a senior strategic seat working directly with the Managing Director and the leadership team. The mandate is twofold: to continuously reimagine how the firm should operate as AI capabilities advance, and to own the secure technology backbone on which the firm runs today. As AI reshapes the economics of expert work, turning an analyst-week into an afternoon and bespoke assignments into scalable products, you will design and then build what a small, elite consultancy can become.

You will own three connected accountabilities:

• AI transformation and operating model reinvention: own the AI strategy with the leadership team, stay at the leading edge of AI developments and translate them into how the firm researches, models, writes, reviews and delivers. Build the knowledge base, model operations and AI workflows, and grow AI fluency across a team of exacting experts.
• New products and services: co-conceptualise AI-enabled offerings with the technical heads (you bring what is technically possible, they bring the domain depth), and build, run and evolve the production platforms behind the subscription products. This includes data pipelines, dashboards, data viewers, subscriber-facing tools and the compute environment the models run on (the platform around the model, not the model itself).
• Integrated systems and business insight: set the target architecture that replaces fragmented internal systems (finance, timesheets, CRM, project and contract management, reporting) with one coherent whole, a single source of truth that turns what the firm knows about itself into leadership insight. Here you direct rather than build. Implementation and day-to-day infrastructure operations are outsourced under your architecture and standards, so your own building time stays on AI and products.

Requirements

• Deep practical AI fluency: LLM workflows, agentic automation and data engineering as things you build, not concepts you present.
• Architecture and product judgement: you design coherent systems, make pragmatic build-versus-buy calls, and aim instinctively at commercially relevant products rather than technically elegant ones.
• Strategic weight: you can hold your own in a leadership-level debate about the future of a firm and help shape that future.
• Player-coach range: you will prototype hands-on one day and set direction the next, and excel at both.
• The ability to earn expert trust: you build credibility with economists, engineers and modellers who are persuaded by evidence, through clear thinking, practical demonstrations and technology that delivers.
• Rigour where it matters: client confidentiality, data security and reproducibility are non-negotiable.

Benefits

Our Client offers a canvas very few technologists are offered: the mandate to help reinvent how an entire firm works, in a business small enough to transform and prominent enough for the results to be visible on a national scale. You will sit at the leadership table of one of South Africa's most influential energy economics firms, setting the benchmark for what an AI-native professional firm looks like. The position is based in Cape Town with hybrid flexibility.