Forward Deployed Policy Architect (FDPA)

About Whiteshield

Whiteshield is an AI-native sovereign intelligence company helping governments move from insight to action, and from periodic policymaking to continuous adaptation.

Originating from the Harvard and OECD communities, Whiteshield was founded in 2011 to help governments navigate increasing economic and societal complexity through better policy, better intelligence and better decisions. Today, it combines world-class public policy and AI-economics expertise, proprietary data assets and AI-native applications to help leaders build more competitive economies, more resilient institutions and more adaptive societies.

Its sovereign intelligence platform combines workforce intelligence, economic intelligence and adaptive policy applications to equip decision-makers with real-time intelligence, AI reasoning and adaptive decision capabilities across workforce development, economic competitiveness and societal transformation. Complementing the platform, Whiteshield's experts work alongside governments to design, deploy and scale high-impact policies and sovereign AI solutions that deliver measurable national outcomes.

Operating from Dubai (DIFC) and Riyadh, with a global footprint spanning the Middle East, Europe, Africa, Eurasia and Asia, Whiteshield partners with governments, sovereign institutions, multilateral organisations and leading corporations to turn intelligence into action, with speed, evidence and trust.

By combining economics, systems thinking and artificial intelligence, Whiteshield is transforming policy from a periodic planning exercise into a continuously adaptive capability, bringing policy to the speed of compute and enabling governments to anticipate change, evaluate alternatives and continuously improve national outcomes.

Whiteshield's mission is to help build adaptive societies where every citizen can learn, provide and connect.

About the role

The Forward Deployed Policy Architect (FDPA) acts as a bridge between high-profile government stakeholders and digital delivery teams to ensure that policy intent is accurately translated into practical, citizen-centric digital solutions. The role combines policy advisory, business analysis, and agile delivery skills to clarify objectives, shape digital requirements, and support execution.

The role owns the full loop from policy intent to measurable outcome, and treats AI as both a subject of the role (how it changes policy) and a tool of the role (how services are designed, delivered and improved). Working closely with government leaders, product managers, and technical teams, the Policy Architect helps prioritise initiatives, manage dependencies, and ensure that solutions align with digital government agenda and regulatory environment.

POLICY TRANSLATION AND ADVISORY

• Engage with senior government stakeholders to understand policy objectives, regulatory constraints, and strategic priorities related to digital government services.
• Analyse and interpret policies, laws, and regulations to distil clear, actionable requirements for digital products and platforms.
• Translate complex policy and client needs into structured problem statements, user journeys, and high-level solution options for technical teams.
• Identify policy risks, compliance implications, and required governance controls, and flag these to relevant stakeholders in a timely manner.
• Prepare concise policy briefs, options papers, and decision-support materials to facilitate alignment between policy owners and delivery teams.

AI AND POLICY INNOVATION

• Assess how AI changes the assumptions, instruments, and delivery models of client policies, and advise policy owners on what should adapt.
• Identify where AI, automation, and decision support belong within government services, and shape solution designs with technical teams accordingly.
• Help clients re-imagine policy instruments from periodic interventions into continuously adaptive capabilities that use real-time data and AI reasoning.
• Configure and demonstrate Whiteshield's platform and AI applications as part of solution delivery, alongside written advice.
• Apply responsible AI, data privacy, and sovereignty considerations to every recommendation, in line with the client's AI policies and regulatory environment.

BUSINESS ANALYSIS AND REQUIREMENTS MANAGEMENT

• Conduct discovery sessions, workshops, and interviews with client and internal stakeholders to gather and validate business and user requirements.
• Document functional and non-functional requirements, use cases, and acceptance criteria in a clear and structured way that can be readily consumed by product and technical teams.
• Develop business cases with client stakeholders, defining problem statements, key outcomes, and indicative benefits and measures of success.
• Map end-to-end processes and target-state journeys, highlighting pain points, improvement opportunities, and necessary policy and procedural changes.
• Work with data and research inputs to ensure requirements are evidence-based and aligned with user needs and service performance goals.

AGILE PRODUCT AND DELIVERY SUPPORT

• Act as product owner for assigned initiatives, owning backlog creation, refinement, and prioritisation based on policy intent, impact, and feasibility.
• Clarify requirements and answer policy and business questions for developers, designers, and other delivery team members during sprints.
• Track dependencies, risks, and issues across workstreams, escalating where required and proposing pragmatic options to keep delivery on track.
• Support sprint planning, review, and retrospective ceremonies, ensuring policy and client perspectives are represented and understood.
• Monitor delivery progress against agreed milestones and outcomes, providing structured updates to client stakeholders and internal leadership.

OUTCOME MEASUREMENT AND POLICY ADAPTATION

• Define outcome metrics and measures of success with policy owners at the start of each initiative, linked to the policy's intent.
• Ensure services are instrumented so that policy effect can be observed through service performance and citizen-outcome data.
• Run evidence feedback loops: report what the data shows, and translate findings into concrete policy and service revisions.
• Support the client's shift from periodic evaluation to continuous policy adaptation.

STAKEHOLDER ENGAGEMENT AND ALIGNMENT

• Build strong working relationships with policy owners, client representatives, product managers, and technical leads to maintain alignment on goals and priorities.
• Facilitate discussions between business and technical stakeholders to resolve ambiguities, negotiate trade-offs, and agree on practical implementation approaches.
• Tailor communications and presentations to different audiences, ensuring clarity of intent, approach, and expected impact.
• Support change management activities by contributing to communications, training materials, and stakeholder engagement plans related to new or updated digital services.
• Represent the delivery team in selected client and governance forums, ensuring accurate, timely, and professional communication.

DIGITAL GOVERNMENT AND CONTINUOUS IMPROVEMENT

• Stay informed about digital government trends, service design practices, and relevant technologies to inform discussions and recommendations.
• Apply understanding of platforms, data, and integration concepts to help shape feasible solution approaches with technical teams.
• Contribute to the refinement of internal methods, templates, and tools for policy translation, business analysis, and agile delivery.
• Capture lessons learned and feedback from projects to improve how policy is translated into digital delivery over time.
• Participate in relevant training, knowledge-sharing sessions, and communities of practice to develop capabilities across policy, digital, and agile delivery domains.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in public policy, public administration, law, economics, business, information systems, computer science, or a related field; a relevant postgraduate qualification is an advantage.
• Demonstrated experience in a policy advisory, public sector consulting, business analysis, product owner, or similar role, ideally within government, digital government, or large transformation programmes.
• Experience translating policy or strategic objectives into structured business and technical requirements for digital products, platforms, or services.
• Familiarity with agile delivery methods (e.g. Scrum, Kanban) and the role of product owner or scrum master in digital initiatives.
• Practical AI fluency: able to direct, evaluate, and verify the outputs of AI tools, with a working understanding of their capabilities, limits, and data-privacy implications in a government context.
• Proven ability to structure problems, analyse information, and propose logical, evidence-based recommendations.
• Comfort working with data and outcome metrics to evidence whether a policy or service is working.
• Strong written and verbal communication skills, with the ability to prepare clear briefs, requirement documents, and presentations for different audiences.
• Ability to collaborate effectively in cross-functional teams and comfort using standard digital and productivity tools.
• Fluency in English and Arabic, (written and spoken) is required.
• Ability to be on-site at the client’s offices at least three to four days a week.

What we offer

• Opportunity to work closely with high-profile government stakeholders on impactful digital government initiatives that shape citizen and resident experiences in Abu Dhabi.
• A role at the intersection of policy, technology, and service delivery, with exposure to complex, multi-stakeholder programmes.
• One of the firm's signature client-facing roles as Whiteshield scales its sovereign intelligence platform, with a defined growth path as the role family expands.
• Collaborative, cross-functional environment with product, technology, and policy experts, offering structured opportunities to develop new skills.
• Scope to grow policy advisory, business analysis, and agile delivery capabilities through hands-on project work and targeted learning.
• A mission-driven context focused on enabling innovative government services and building the government of the future.