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EY GDS – Commercial Architect – Associate Director

As an Associate Director in the Strategic Pricing & Insights team under Commercial Excellence, you will provide strategic financial and commercial leadership for EY’s most complex and high-value opportunities. This role combines pursuit leadership with commercial transformation responsibilities, requiring you to architect innovative pricing strategies, influence senior stakeholders, and lead a high-performing team to optimize winnability and profitability. You will also contribute to EY’s broader commercial transformation agenda by driving adoption of best practices, tools, and thought leadership initiatives.

You will act as a trusted liaison for onshore engagement leaders and business leaders, building trust-based relationships to ensure seamless collaboration and alignment on pursuit priorities.

Your key responsibilities

Strategic Pursuit Leadership

• Own the end-to-end pricing and commercial strategy from qualification to closure for large, complex deals. Develop business cases, design commercial constructs, optimize deal price positioning, and ensure alignment with EY’s profitability and risk frameworks.
• Lead and govern development of client-facing proposals and commercial narratives, ensuring strategic alignment and executive-level positioning; actively support high-stakes negotiations and articulate EY’s differentiated value proposition.
• Integrate solution intelligence and competitive insights to refine price positioning using price-to-win analysis, market benchmarks, and behavioral economics principles (e.g., prospect theory, loss aversion, anchoring and adjustment, choice architecture).
• Proactively identify, communicate, and manage competitive and commercial risks by collaborating with the Deal Leader/Manager, Lead Negotiator, Solution Architect, Legal, Risk Management, QRM, and Independence.
• Function as a trusted bridge between pursuit leaders and delivery teams—establishing trust-based influence and ensuring consistent deal shaping, monetization approaches, and commercial terms and conditions.

Commercial Transformation & Governance

• Drive activation and adoption of best‑practice pricing methods, tools, dashboards, and analytics platforms - spanning MS‑Excel models, SaaS/web tools, and EY digital assets - bringing together external observations, solution design, modeled pursuit economics, and historical peer performance to accelerate value‑based pricing; flex engagement approach to meet pursuit or project team needs.
• Establish KPIs and accountability metrics for the team, ensure compliance with internal policies, risk management requirements, and pursuit hygiene standards.
• Contribute to thought leadership through development of pricing frameworks, training programs, and knowledge capital - e.g., immersive sites, newsletters, white papers, articles, presentations, and learning assets.

Team Leadership & Development

• Lead assigned team; mentor and coach team members to enhance technical and commercial capabilities. Function as a regional or sector pod lead when needed, driving consistent pricing strategies across multiple pursuits and geographies.
• Cultivate a culture of growth and design transformative career journeys for team members by delivering structured feedback and orchestrating capability-building programs. Support the firm’s performance management process with open, constructive developmental feedback and capability‑building plans.
• Mentor teams in authoring client‑facing materials - value estimation and articulation, pricing proposal narratives, commercial assumptions, MS‑Excel‑based price/solution templates, and applicable sections of the Statement of Work (SOW)
• Serve as a technical subject‑matter resource (SMR), providing constructive peer review and risk mitigation across financial modeling, analysis, and documentation for select pursuits.
• Ensure compliance with pursuit hygiene and operational requirements, including time recording, capacity tracking, and deal intake documentation.

Skills and attributes for success

• Proven expertise in value-based pricing, commercial strategy, and competitive intelligence for professional services.
• Strong leadership and coaching skills—able to influence without authority, manage conflicts, and inspire high-performing teams.
• Ability to direct advanced financial modeling and analytics, ensuring insights drive strategic decisions; Adept at synthesizing large volumes of internal and external data (primary, secondary, third‑party) into actionable intelligence for diverse stakeholders.
• Demonstrated empathy and collaborative agility across diverse social styles; influences without authority to achieve target outcomes.
• Executive presence with effective communication, negotiation, and stakeholder management skills.
• Innovative mindset with a track record of transformative impact on commercial outcomes.

Leadership attributes

Demonstrate a growth mindset and the following leadership behaviors:

• “Gold Standard Champion - execute with discipline and rigor, improving consistency and leading practices to win.”
• “Innovation Driver - differentiate EY through innovative strategies, experiences, and deliverables at scale.”
• “Trusted Strategic Advisor - guide stakeholders toward outcomes that deliver compelling, sustainable results.”
• “Inspirational Change Agent - invest in developing world‑class talent, methods, tools, and capabilities.”

Others

• Contribute to internal initiatives (e.g., townhalls, CSR projects, mandatory learnings) and advance knowledge capital through newsletters, white papers, and articles.

Qualifications for the role:

• Graduate in finance, accounting, economics, engineering, or related fields; MBA or financial certifications (CFA, CMA, CPA) preferred.
• Minimum 12 years of relevant experience in pricing, commercial strategy, or financial planning within professional services or SaaS/cloud environments.
• Project management certifications (e.g., PMP, Agile, Scrum) preferred.
• Advanced MS Excel and commercial modeling skills.
• Familiarity with solution architecture and advanced analytics platforms is an advantage.
• Fluency in English (oral and written); flexibility to work across global time zones and occasional travel.

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