Experience Strategist

Client - Major Financial Firm
Duration - 12 + months (possible extension)
Location - Long Island City, NY 11101
Rate - $77.78/hr on W2 (OT past 40 hours = $116.67/hr)

Job Description:

As an Experience Strategist, you will partner closely with a cross-discipline team of product managers, creative talent, and developers to invent and execute innovative omni-channel, brand experiences across a diverse range of channels including digital, mobile and bank branches. You will personally lead and conduct cultural trend reports, competitive reviews, opportunity assessments, target analyses, cross-channel audits, customer journeys, user research and usability studies, contact strategies and other CRM programs, as well as consult on business requirements, marketing plans, digital roadmaps and much more.

You will work directly with key internal stakeholders to understand their business, reach a shared vision of how to solve their problems while serving their customers, and ultimately to help them to succeed. You will be expected to lead by example by constantly developing your own craft skills and stay ahead of new trends and techniques. You will also be empowered to build trusted relationships with internal stakeholders through regular engagement and strategy presentations.

The responsibilities of the Experience Strategist include:
Lead the continuous learning process for Client FinTech in partnership with key analytics partners and trusted agency vendors.
Design & execute user research and usability studies, producing remarkable insights and transformational business recommendations.
Partner with a cross-discipline experience design team (and Agencies/vendors) to invent and execute breakthrough solutions that our customers love.
Manage all projects using Design Thinking principles with agile methods ensuring that every project large or small starts with strategy and a well-defined problem to solve.
Uncover rich insights from primary research, NPS data, digital analytics, and third party analysis that will fuel remarkable solutions.
Design & work with internal analytics partners to track the performance of the team's solutions and use that data to inform the next iteration.
Manage multiple workstreams with varying timelines and complexity with authority and passion.
Partner with other strategists, analysts, and researchers at Client to create Design briefs and set expectations for deliverables.
Help package concepts and present to internal stakeholders in persuasive, articulate and compelling ways -- charismatic storytelling skills are a must.
Be a go-getter with an entrepreneurial attitude and passion for innovative solutions and brand experiences that enable progress for our customers.
Be a motivating and inspiring force in the group that gets the best performance out of people.
Be the voice of the customer, the oracle of cultural trends, and a champion for authentic brand experiences.

Qualifications:
15+ years of experience developing, testing and implementing strategies that drove measureable results.
Extensive experience (10+ years) designing various qualitative and quantitative research studies
Must be a trained usability research moderator comfortable and adept at conducting task-based usability studies as well as in-depth customer interviews, surveys, stakeholder interviews, and more.
Must have experience designing and leading research for agile methodology development, including rapid turnaround of topline findings.
Proven management (at least 5 years) of research vendors including recruiters, rental facilities, consumer panels, usability and UX research providers
Must have traditional planning experience, i.e., identifying customer, cultural and competitive insights and writing creative briefs.
Expert in various digital/mobile research technologies, software and equipment, including UserZoom, eyetracking, online panels, and other digital / mobile research technologies, as well as iWork and Office.
Bachelors Degree or Equivalent. MBA or MS in human-computer interaction or human factors in information design preferred.

Experience:
Strong understanding of interaction design, site architecture, and designing intuitive user interfaces and navigation that align to an ideal customer journey
Knowledge of the Design Thinking methodology and experience working with teams through the process of investigation, ideation and implementation.
Consulting experience either management consulting or marketing consulting is preferable.
Strong business acumen and comfort performing strategic analyses both quantitative and qualitative.
Experience in both website and mobile app development and digital marketing including content strategy, social marketing, video storytelling and static advertising. A background in non-digital marketing (Brand and promotional TV and print) is a plus.
Able to work independently and solve problems creatively.
Can manage to a budget.
Experience with technical facets of financial or eCommerce platforms
Candidates should have an award-winning portfolio of projects that they contributed to
Proven expertise in time and project management
Strong communication (written and verbal) and public speaking skills
100% reliable.


About You
You represent the end-user when designing a solution.
You posses a strong curiosity and desire to make the complex clear.
You have the ability to learn from mistakes and a willingness to revisit past solutions for further improvements.
You have a collaborative working style; focused on getting the best solution rather than your solution.
You are open, honest and direct in your approach to feedback and asking for assistance.
You are flexible, steady under pressure, and willing to switch gears quickly.
You are organized, self-directed, efficient and able to manage complex projects in a timely manner.
You are detailed oriented and can find clarity despite ambiguity.
You have superior written and verbal communication skills and are comfortable presenting.