Consulting Manager (Associate Manager to Senior Manager) Finance and Digital Platforms

Location: Ho Chi Minh City

Practice: Finance & Digital Platforms

Reporting to: Head of Practice

About Decision Lab

Decision Lab is an insights-driven consulting firm helping organisations succeed in Southeast Asia's next decade of growth. As consumer behaviour, media, and technology change faster than most organisations can adapt, we believe growth only succeeds when decision-making evolves as fast as the market itself.

We turn research into business decisions — not just findings. Our recommendations help clients decide who to target, what to launch, what to fix, how to position, and where to invest. We are curious by design and deliberate in how we use technology, including AI, to reach better answers faster.

We believe the region grows faster when good information is shared. So we make much of our research public and work to inspire students, government, and executives to act on it — because the truth matters.

Why this practice

In financial services and digital platforms, customer expectations and decision journeys are changing fast, and the question for our clients has shifted from winning acquisition to winning relationship value — primary-bank status, daily usage, affluent growth, and digital experiences that build trust. We help these organisations understand customer behaviour, strengthen brand positioning, and redesign decision journeys, with brand tracking that tells the C-suite what to do next, not just how scores moved. This is a practice at the core of our delivery model, and one we are actively growing across banking, fintech, and platform players.

About the role

This is a commercially weighted role. Like everyone in the practice you will lead client projects, but your distinctive contribution is growth: you will work closely with the Head of Practice to build proposals, support thought leadership, and partner with marketing to open new clients and convert demand. We are looking for someone who thinks like an owner of the practice's commercial momentum, not only its delivery. You are responsible for how problems are structured, how insight becomes action, and how the practice wins and keeps the right clients.

What you will do

▸ Work closely with the Head of Practice to shape and write winning proposals

▸ Support thought leadership — turning our work into content, rankings, and points of view that generate demand

▸ Partner with marketing to open new clients and convert inbound interest into conversations and pipeline

▸ Lead consulting and research projects end-to-end, from problem definition to final recommendation

▸ Own day-to-day client communication and hold clarity throughout the project

▸ Translate data into structured, decision-ready insight, and brand tracking into clear commercial actions

▸ Design and deliver brand tracking, segmentation, and brand development work

▸ Use AI tools fluently to improve the quality and efficiency of analysis — and raise the standard for how your team does the same

▸ Manage and coach team members at execution level

▸ Increasingly lead commercial discussions and take on multi-project delivery

What we're looking for

▸ 4–8+ years of experience, including at least 3 years with a leading market research agency

▸ Experience across consulting, market research, or financial services

▸ A genuinely commercial mindset — you enjoy building proposals, opening clients, and growing an account, not only delivering the work

▸ Rigorous thinking — well-structured, evidence-based, and honest about what the data does and does not show

▸ Ambitious about impact, not activity — you take ownership of outcomes and push for decisions that drive growth

▸ A working understanding of banking, lending, payments, fintech, or digital financial journeys

▸ Experience with brand tracking, brand strategy, or customer insight

▸ High AI fluency: you already use AI tools in your day-to-day analytical and consulting work — for desk research, synthesis, drafting, and quality-checking — and can show how it has made your output faster or sharper

▸ Ability to structure ambiguous problems and drive them to clear conclusions

▸ Confidence leading client discussions and presenting recommendations, and experience developing junior team members

How this role grows

This is a banded role — Associate Manager to Senior Manager — and we will place you at the level your experience supports. The path upward is explicit: you move from leading defined projects to owning client relationships and commercial outcomes as your scope and judgement grow. We will be clear with you from day one about what each level requires and what it pays.

What you'll get

▸ Real commercial involvement early — you lead client work and shape decisions years sooner than you would at a large global firm

▸ A modern, AI-native way of working, built for speed and sharpness rather than process for its own sake

▸ Direct exposure to senior stakeholders across leading financial institutions and platforms in Southeast Asia

▸ Sector breadth — you work across categories and business problems, not one company's internal function

▸ A steep learning curve in a high-standard, feedback-driven environment, with ambitious colleagues who challenge each other to improve

▸ Local and regional grounding — we are here for Vietnam and Southeast Asia, with the balance that comes from building close to home

▸ A flexible, semi-hybrid working model and a collaborative workspace in Ho Chi Minh City

▸ Compensation benchmarked competitively, with clear performance-based upside through quarterly bonuses

• This is not a role built around structure and hand-holding. It is built around responsibility, feedback, and progress.