Client Development Advisor - Tech & AI
McKinsey & Company · Tokyo, Japan · 3d ago
Mid levelOn-siteMachine Learning & AI
You will work closely with Digital Practice leaders, client service teams (CSTs), solution leaders, and broader Firm stakeholders to expand McKinsey’s impact across Digital, AI, GenAI, Agentic AI, Physical AI, and AI-enabled transformation opportunities in Japan and bring the best of McKinsey’s Digital and AI capabilities to clients.
Who you'll work with
Driving lasting impact and building long-term capabilities with our clients is not easy work. You are the kind of person who thrives in a high performance/high reward culture - doing hard things, picking yourself up when you stumble, and having the resilience to try another way forward.
In return for your drive, determination, and curiosity, we'll provide the resources, mentorship, and opportunities you need to become a stronger leader faster than you ever thought possible. Your colleagues—at all levels—will invest deeply in your development, just as much as they invest in delivering exceptional results for clients. Every day, you'll receive apprenticeship, coaching, and exposure that will accelerate your growth in ways you won’t find anywhere else.
When you join us, you will have:
- Continuous learning: Our learning and apprenticeship culture, backed by structured programs, is all about helping you grow while creating an environment where feedback is clear, actionable, and focused on your development. The real magic happens when you take the input from others to heart and embrace the fast-paced learning experience, owning your journey.
- A voice that matters: From day one, we value your ideas and contributions. You’ll make a tangible impact by offering innovative ideas and practical solutions, all while upholding our unwavering commitment to ethics and integrity. We not only encourage diverse perspectives, but they are critical in driving us toward the best possible outcomes.
- Global community: With colleagues across 65+ countries and over 100 different nationalities, our firm’s diversity fuels creativity and helps us come up with the best solutions for our clients. Plus, you’ll have the opportunity to learn from exceptional colleagues with diverse backgrounds and experiences.
- World-class benefits: On top of a competitive salary (based on your location, experience, and skills), we provide a comprehensive benefits package to enable holistic well-being for you and your family.
What you'll do
You will play a central role in expanding the firm’s Tech and AI impact in Japan by driving opportunity creation, strategic client development, and AI transformation activation across priority accounts and sectors.
As Tech and AI engagements evolve toward AI-first transformation models, clients increasingly expect executive-level strategic dialogue, working demos and AI-enabled use cases, ecosystem-enabled delivery models, and end-to-end transformation orchestration.
Increasingly, this also includes Physical AI use cases such as robotics, autonomous operations, digital twins, simulation environments, industrial AI systems, and AI-enabled operational transformation. In this environment, you will help shape how McKinsey engages clients across Digital, AI, GenAI, Agentic AI, and Physical AI topics.
You will work closely with Partners, CSTs, engineers, experts, and ecosystem partners to identify and prioritize high-potential opportunities across sectors such as industrials, mobility, energy, public sector, financial institutions, healthcare, telecom, manufacturing, and advanced engineering domains. You will support the development of strategic client activation plans, manage opportunity pipelines, identify whitespace opportunities, and accelerate AI transformation discussions with senior executives.
In addition, you will help create and deploy executive demos, AI transformation narratives, client development materials, and thought leadership content that differentiate McKinsey in the market. As opportunities mature, you will support capture management, proposal orchestration, competitive positioning, and teaming strategies, while helping ensure the right internal and external capabilities are aligned to priority opportunities.
Ultimately, you will help McKinsey bring differentiated Digital, AI, and Physical AI capabilities to clients in a scalable, repeatable, and impact-driven way.
Core Responsibilities include, but are not limited to, driving Digital and AI business development efforts by identifying, shaping, and advancing strategic transformation opportunities across priority sectors and client teams; supporting executive-level client engagement, managing opportunity pipelines, and coordinating the deployment of Digital/AI capabilities, thought leadership, and transformation narratives; collaborating with internal experts and external ecosystem partners to develop and capture opportunities across areas such as GenAI, Agentic AI, Physical AI, robotics, digital twins, and AI-enabled operations, while enabling scalable client activation and growth across the Digital Practice.
Your background
- Undergraduate degree required; advanced degree preferred
- 5+ years of professional experience in consulting, technology, digital transformation, AI, client development, strategy, or related fields
- Strong understanding of Digital, AI, GenAI, Agentic AI, Physical AI, and enterprise transformation trends
- Experience supporting or driving complex client development efforts and strategic account management
- Ability to orchestrate across senior stakeholders, consultants, engineers, and external partners
- Strong problem-solving and project management capabilities
- Ability to create executive-ready narratives and client materials
- Entrepreneurial mindset with strong ownership and execution orientation
- Excellent written and verbal communication skills with native-level Japanese required; basic English proficiency is preferred, but strong technical capabilities are prioritized
- Candidates with advanced certifications from leading technology and AI platforms such as AWS, Microsoft, NVIDIA, and industrial/robotics ecosystems will have an advantage, particularly in areas such as Solution Architecture, DevOps, Security, LLMs, Agentic AI, Physical AI, robotics, and simulation technologies.
Examples include:
- MS/PhD in Computer Science (Strong Preference) or Mechanical Engineering
- AWS Certified DevOps Engineer – Professional
- AWS Certified Solutions Architect – Professional
- AWS Certified Security – Specialty
- Microsoft Certified: Azure Solutions Architect Expert
- Microsoft Certified: Azure DevOps Engineer Expert
- NVIDIA Certified LLM Professional
- NVIDIA Certified Agentic AI Professional
- NVIDIA Open USD Development
- Isaac GR00T
- Isaac Sim
- ROS2
- Sim2Real
- Digital twins
- Robotics platforms
- Industrial AI / autonomous operations environments