Lead Strategic Designer

At NTT DATA, you have endless opportunities to think big, act bold and take ownership. As a $30+ billion business and technology services, AI and digital infrastructure leader, we co-innovate solutions with clients and partners globally for business and societal impact. Serving 75% of the Fortune Global 100, with experts in over 70 countries, we encourage experimentation and recognize great work. Proudly a Global Top Employer, NTT DATA is part of NTT Group, which invests over $3 billion annually in R&D. Make this the place where you belong, learn, and build your network. Make this the place where you grow.

The Role

We are looking for a Strategic Designer with 8+ years experience of human centred service design at their core with the range to go beyond end to end to operate top to bottom.  Moving upstream to influence and shape strategy and downstream to drive delivery and evaluate outcomes for business growth.

This role will work in agile, cross-functional teams across public and private sectors. Helping clients make confident, design-led decisions through a consultative, evidence-based approach. This role sits within a strategic design practice working across client engagements that span proposition development, product and service design, and technological change. You will lead engagements with a range of clients and teams from Tangity including researcher’s and product designers. Alongside our colleagues from NTT Data including product managers, engineers, BAs and delivery teams. 

You will combine human centred service design craft with strategic business thinking and hands-on delivery partnership. You are as comfortable facilitating a senior-level problem framing workshop, as you are running user research or helping to prioritise product backlog with a product team.

You are excited about driving the future of Tangity by exploring, experimenting and expressing new ideas in the communities of practice. Alongside helping Tangity grow by helping with business development with clients and our colleagues at NTT Data proving the power of strategic design.  

What You'll Do

• Frame strategic business challenges as design opportunities and develop actionable recommendations for senior stakeholders.
• Lead end-to-end projects from research and strategy to design and delivery — to uncover needs and opportunities in complex ecosystems.
• Develop new propositions and defining what a product or service is, for whom, and why it matters
• Build alignment across teams, championing the value of strategic design with clients and collaborators.
• Run user research activities and turn research insights into blueprints, prototypes, and delivery roadmaps that deliver measurable impact.
• Analysis of data and analytics to evidence along the design process to uncover opportunities, quantify business value, support decision-making, and foster continuous improvement.
• Collaborate with product, design and delivery teams to prioritise backlogs into roadmaps and pull through high quality delivery.
• Develop and support the responsible use of AI and emerging technologies.
• Contribute to the growth of Tangity’s strategic design practice and business development
• Help with business development build client relationships creating points of view, presentations and proposals.

Responsibilities

• Lead projects with strategic clarity and design excellence across of your engagements from start to outcome.
• Manage key stakeholders across the engagements.
• Connect human insight to business value grounded in evidence to aid in driving decision making.
• Build business cases and value propositions that communicate that frame the commercial value for strategic design decisions
• Define and apply design principles that guide delivery teams and sustain quality beyond the engagement
• Contribute to agile delivery pulling strategy through to the sprint planning, shaping backlogs, and providing continuous design input
• Evaluate output of the work identifying where to improve, optimise, extend, or retire
• Mentor designers and coach client teams, building their capability and confidence
• Support business development including identifying opportunities and contributing to proposals and pitches

Expected Behaviours

• Curious about people, organisations, and the systems that connect them
• Strategically ambitious — you want to shape the problem, not just respond to the brief
• Confident enough to challenge a client, and humble enough to learn from them
• Comfortable in ambiguity — able to bring structure and clarity without closing down creative range
• Systems thinker who sees beyond individual touchpoints to root causes and leverage points
• Generous collaborator who makes multidisciplinary teams better
• Outcome focused — you stay engaged through delivery and care whether the thing you designed actually works
• Clear communicator who adapts their register from boardroom to research debrief

• 8+ years experience in service design, strategic design, or a closely related discipline
• Proven ability to lead complex strategic design engagements end-to-end, from research and framing through to delivery.
• Strong research and synthesis skills being able to generate insight and turn it into clear strategic and design direction
• Experience working with and influencing senior client stakeholders
• Demonstrated ability to connect design to business strategy and high quality delivery
• Strong workshop facilitation and co-design skills across varied audiences
• Experience working in or alongside agile delivery teams
• A portfolio that shows strategic range, service design craft, and commercial value
• Curiosity and experimentation into the role of AI in your job and clients future
   
• It would be great if you had;
• Experience in financial services, insurance, or other regulated industries for clients
• Understanding of product management principles and delivery methodologies
• Experience running structured innovation methods such as design sprints
• Public speaking, thought leadership, or published work on design and strategy
• Experience mentoring designers or building design capability within client organisations.

We offer a range of tailored benefits that support your physical, emotional, and financial wellbeing. Our Learning and Development team ensure that there are continuous growth and development opportunities for our people. We also offer the opportunity to have flexible work options.

You can find more information about NTT DATA UK & Ireland here: https://uk.nttdata.com/

We are an equal opportunities employer. We believe in the fair treatment of all our employees and commit to promoting equity and diversity in our employment practices. We are also a proud Disability Confident Committed Employer - we are committed to creating a diverse and inclusive workforce. We actively collaborate with individuals who have disabilities and long-term health conditions which have an effect on their ability to do normal daily activities, ensuring that barriers are eliminated when it comes to employment opportunities. In line with our commitment, we guarantee an interview to applicants who declare to us, during the application process, that they have a disability and meet the minimum requirements for the role. If you require any reasonable adjustments during the recruitment process, please let us know. Join us in building a truly diverse and empowered team.

Lead Strategic Designer (P3) – AI Enthusiast

Tangity, part of the NTT DATA Design Network, is a global design studio dedicated to humanising complexity. We combine Strategy, Technology, and Design to create meaningful, inclusive, and impactful services that improve lives and systems. Our studios work closely with delivery teams to embed design deeply into every project and across every touchpoint.