Experience Strategist

**Experience Strategist**

At Cognizant, our global community sets us apart—an energetic, collaborative and inclusive workplace where everyone can thrive. And with projects at the forefront of innovation, you can build a varied, rewarding career and draw inspiration from dedicated colleagues and leaders. Cognizant is right where you belong.

**Role overview**

Idea Couture is a carefully assembled studio of human-centered design practitioners from a wide range of educational backgrounds, international settings, and professional experiences within Cognizant Digital Experience. We help organizations navigate and innovate in complex and uncertain environments. Using design thinking methodologies, we solve problems and identify business opportunities—generating new growth, meaningful differentiation, and economic value, while improving everyday lives. The transformative solutions we provide our clients are born of transdisciplinary thinking, balanced research, and inventive methods, based in business rationale and good design.

**What you’ll do**
- Be a significant contributor in large and high complexity project engagements for large enterprise clients across a range of industries and project types
- Lead experience strategy and service/product design engagements for clients
- Direct, inspire, and lead cross-functional teams (strategy, insights, design, technology), providing effective team direction and guidance
- Act as a trusted client partner and human-centered design expert, relied on for strategic POVs
- Understand and incorporate complex business, strategic, and technical requirements into engagement outcomes
- Design and facilitate successful presentations and workshops for senior executive level clients
- Lead project design across a range of project types and be responsible for the end-to-end creation of winning proposals
- Lead organizational business development activities from opportunity identification to sold work
- Inspire and develop the skills of supporting team members
- Lead development of new strategy practice tools and processes
- Actively lead a broad network of stakeholders across the client organization, and within Idea Couture and Cognizant

**What you bring to the role**
- Undergraduate or graduate degree in service design, strategic design, innovation strategy, business administration, or a related field
- 8-12+ years experience in agency/consulting
- Digital agency experience or MBA is considered a strong asset
- Proven track record to critique, analyze, and elevate strategies and ideas
- Expert understanding of cross-functional resources and building effective teams
- Strong client leadership and facilitation skills with the ability to command and guide a room
- Demonstrated experience growing projects into long-term client partnerships
- Diverse strategic skills spanning industry categories
- Broad strategy and/or design experience spanning products, services, processes, and systems
- Proficient in creating personas, design principles, experience maps, ecosystem maps, journey maps, service blueprints, and rapid prototyping methods
- Conversant in the principles and practices of human-centered design and design thinking, including qualitative research methods (e.g., in-context interviewing)
- Expect up to 25% travel

**What we offer**
- **The chance to work with impact.** Here, you’re empowered to bring your biggest thinking to help our company and clients improve everyday life.
- **Ownership over your career.** Stay at the top of your game through our award-winning learning and development ecosystem. And when your ambitions change, or we offer new opportunities, we help you change directions by providing reskilling, on-the-job learning and guidance to find new roles that might be a better fit.
- **The opportunity to flourish with a high caliber team with heart.** We celebrate each other’s experiences and perspectives and promote a sense of belonging through our affinity groups and diversity and inclusion initiatives.
- **A comprehensive total rewards package,** **including a competitive salary and pension plan with matching contributions.
- **Flexible health and financial benefits** **to support you and your eligible dependents**—from day one.
- **True work-life balance.** Be at your best through paid time off, flexible work arrangements, volunteering opportunities, social events, and so much more.

**Working arrangements**

We believe hybrid work is the way forward as we strive to provide flexibility wherever possible. Based on this role’s business requirements, this is a hybrid position requiring 3 days a week in a client or Cognizant office in Toronto, ON. Regardless of your working arrangement, we are here to support a healthy work-life balance though our various wellbeing programs.

Note: The working arrangements for this role are accurate as of the date of posting. This may change based on the project you’re engaged in, as well as business and client require