Organisational Change Manager — AI Adoption (Copilot)

<p><b>Organisational Change Manager — AI Adoption (Copilot)</b></p><br /><p><b>Practice</b></p><p>Advisory &amp; Change Enablement, Avanade India</p><p><b>Location</b></p><p>Bengaluru/NCR, India (Hybrid, with client travel)</p><br /><p><b>Experience</b></p><p>10–14 years overall in organisational change management, adoption and enablement, with proven delivery of at least one enterprise-wide Microsoft 365 Copilot, GitHub Copilot or comparable technology rollout — from executive sponsorship through to measured end-user adoption</p><br /><p><b>Role Summary</b></p><p>Avanade India is looking for an Organisational Change Manager to own the people side of AI adoption on our client engagements. Training alone does not change how an organisation works; this role exists to make sure that once we have enabled a client on M365 Copilot, GitHub Copilot or the wider AI toolset, the organisation actually adopts it — from the leadership team down to every team that has to change how it works day to day.</p><p>You will design and run the change and adoption programme end to end: stakeholder and impact assessment, sponsorship and leadership alignment, a change champion network, communications and campaigns, role-based enablement alongside our technical trainers, resistance management, and adoption measurement against agreed outcomes. The role is strongly client-facing — you will be in the room with sponsors and executives one week and running floor-level workshops the next — and it carries a presales element, shaping the change and adoption workstream in Avanade’s AI proposals.</p><p><b>Key Responsibilities</b></p><ul><li>Own the change management and adoption strategy for client AI engagements, using a recognised methodology (Prosci ADKAR, Kotter or equivalent) rather than an improvised approach.</li></ul><ul><li>Run change impact and readiness assessments — who is affected, how their work changes, where the resistance will sit, and what the organisation is capable of absorbing.</li></ul><ul><li>Secure and sustain executive sponsorship: work directly with CxO, business unit head and functional leadership to agree the case for change, the adoption ambition and their visible role in it.</li></ul><ul><li>Coach leaders and people managers so they can lead the change with their own teams — one-to-one executive coaching, sponsor briefings and manager toolkits.</li></ul><ul><li>Build and run a change champion network across business units and geographies, and keep it active through the life of the programme.</li></ul><ul><li>Design and deliver the communications plan — launch campaigns, leadership messages, newsletters, weekly nudges, intranet and Viva content — written in plain language for the people receiving it.</li></ul><ul><li>Define role-based adoption journeys and persona-specific use cases (for example sales, finance, HR and operations for M365 Copilot; developers, leads and QA for GitHub Copilot) so each group sees value in their own work.</li></ul><ul><li>Work alongside the technical trainers and Copilot Studio team: shape the curriculum, sequence the enablement, and make sure training lands where the change plan says it should.</li></ul><ul><li>Facilitate workshops, floor-walks, drop-in clinics, champion sessions and leadership forums, including full-day workshops with large groups.</li></ul><ul><li>Establish the adoption baseline and measurement framework — usage and adoption dashboards (M365 Copilot adoption reports, Viva Insights, GitHub Copilot metrics), sentiment surveys and business outcome measures — and report progress against it.</li></ul><ul><li>Identify and manage resistance and blockers actively, escalating what needs leadership intervention rather than letting adoption quietly stall.</li></ul><ul><li>Address the concerns that come with AI specifically — job impact, trust in outputs, data security and responsible AI — honestly and in the organisation’s own language, in step with the client’s policy and governance teams.</li></ul><ul><li>Embed sustainment: hand over the champion network, the content, the measurement approach and the operating rhythm so adoption continues after the engagement closes.</li></ul><ul><li>Support presales and pursuits — shaping the change and adoption workstream, effort and approach, and presenting it in client workshops and proposals.</li></ul><ul><li>Contribute reusable change assets, playbooks, campaign kits and templates to the practice IP library.</li></ul><br /><p><b>Required Skills &amp; Experience</b></p><ul><li>10–14 years of overall experience in organisational change management, adoption and enablement, with a substantial recent focus on technology-driven change.</li></ul><ul><li>Certified change management practitioner — Prosci ADKAR or equivalent; formal methodology is a requirement, not a preference.</li></ul><ul><li>Proven delivery of at least one enterprise-wide adoption programme end to end, ideally Microsoft 365 Copilot, GitHub Copilot or a comparable AI or digital workplace rollout.</li></ul><ul><li>Demonstrated ability to work with senior leadership — securing sponsorship, running executive sessions, coaching leaders one to one, and holding a credible conversation with a CxO.</li></ul><ul><li>Experience cascading change from leadership through middle management to end users, and building and sustaining a change champion network across a distributed organisation.</li></ul><ul><li>Strong group facilitation — comfortable running multi-hour workshops with large groups, not just presenting slides.</li></ul><ul><li>Strong writing skills — adoption campaigns, leadership communications, newsletters and nudges produced continuously, in plain language rather than consultancy prose.</li></ul><ul><li>Measurement literacy — able to set a baseline, work with adoption dashboards and tie activity to business outcomes rather than to attendance numbers.</li></ul><ul><li>Microsoft 365 fluency sufficient to demonstrate Copilot confidently and discuss real use cases; comfortable with the AI subject matter even though the technical build sits with the delivery team.</li></ul><ul><li>Experience working with resistance, cultural differences and business units that respond to very different things.</li></ul><ul><li>Excellent spoken and written English, and the confidence to hold a room of senior client stakeholders.</li></ul>

<p><b>Preferred / Good to Have</b></p><ul><li>Prosci certification specifically, plus a second credential such as CCMP, APMG Change Management or an agile change qualification.</li></ul><ul><li>Experience with GitHub Copilot adoption in engineering organisations — developer workflow change, measurement and engineering leadership engagement.</li></ul><ul><li>Awareness of Copilot Studio, agents and the wider Microsoft AI stack, sufficient to position what is possible.</li></ul><ul><li>Familiarity with responsible AI, data governance and acceptable-use policy work, and with the questions employees raise about AI and job impact.</li></ul><ul><li>Learning and development background — curriculum design, train-the-trainer, or building enablement content.</li></ul><ul><li>Experience in large federated or multi-entity organisations (many semi-autonomous business units, campuses or geographies).</li></ul><ul><li>Industry depth in one or more of BFSI, manufacturing, healthcare, energy, retail, public sector or higher education.</li></ul><ul><li>Experience in a consulting, global delivery or SI environment (Avanade, Accenture, or similar), including presales contribution.</li></ul><ul><li>Willingness to travel to client sites across India and the region as the programme requires.</li></ul><ul><li>Prior contribution to reusable change playbooks, adoption frameworks or practice-building initiatives.</li></ul>