Design Strategy & Research Lead

The Principal Design Strategy and Research role is a senior practitioner role within Experience Design and Research (EDR). It helps Northern Trust make better decisions faster by using human-centered design, strategic facilitation, service design, systems thinking, and evidence-based strategy to frame the right problems, uncover meaningful opportunities, align stakeholders, and move from ambiguity to action.

This role is designed for senior human-centered design practitioners who can flex across research, strategy, facilitation, service design, product discovery, and engagement leadership while maintaining depth in at least one core capability. Based on project needs, the Principal Design Strategy and Research practitioner may lead research, drive strategy, facilitate executive alignment, shape service models, guide discovery, or manage transformation outputs, helping business, product, technology, operations, risk, and transformation partners make evidence-based decisions.

Design Strategy engagements are typically delivered through small, dedicated teams assembled around a defined strategic question, transformation objective, or opportunity area. Team composition varies based on the challenge and may require research-heavy, strategy-heavy, facilitation-heavy, or delivery-readiness leadership. The model is intentionally flexible so senior practitioners can play the highest-value role required by the engagement.

As part of Experience Design and Research (EDR), this role ensures transformation work is grounded in client, partner, employee, and stakeholder needs while connecting to broader design, product, technology, and operating model outcomes. The role directly supports our transformation initiatives while remaining anchored in EDR practice standards, methods, communities of practice, talent development, and quality expectations.

This Chicago-based role requires candidates to share work, process, and outputs during the interview process, including how they frame problems, select methods, conduct or guide research, facilitate alignment, synthesize evidence, create strategic recommendations, and influence outcomes.

Major Duties

• Lead Design Strategy and Research engagements from intake through problem framing, discovery, synthesis, recommendations, delivery readiness, handoff, and organizational adoption.

• Serve as a senior human-centered design practitioner who can flex across research, strategy, facilitation, service design, product discovery, and transformation leadership responsibilities based on project needs.

• Partner with Transformation Office leaders, business sponsors, product teams, technology partners, operations, risk, clients, and subject matter experts to clarify objectives, define success criteria, and align decision-making.

• Translate ambiguous business questions into focused learning agendas, opportunity frames, research plans, workshop designs, service design activities, and executive-ready recommendations.

• Lead or guide qualitative and mixed-method research across discovery, evaluation, strategy, innovation, stakeholder understanding, and service/system mapping efforts.

• Facilitate synthesis, sense-making, executive reviews, co-creation sessions, decision workshops, and stakeholder alignment activities that build shared understanding and drive action.

• Synthesize business goals, client needs, operational realities, technical constraints, risk considerations, and research insights into actionable experience strategies and roadmaps.

• Develop experience concepts, service models, journey maps, service blueprints, ecosystem maps, experience principles, prioritization frameworks, and decision narratives that shape future-state experiences.

• Help teams understand implications, tradeoffs, dependencies, adoption needs, and implementation considerations that emerge from the work.

• Build trusted relationships with senior leaders while maintaining momentum, accountability, and clarity across complex engagements.

• Develop executive-ready readouts, strategic narratives, recommendations, decision frameworks, and artifacts that influence priorities, investments, and transformation outcomes.

• Capture reusable methods, assets, playbooks, templates, and organizational knowledge that strengthen Experience Design & Research (EDR) and support the Transformation Office.

• Mentor practitioners and elevate the quality, consistency, and impact of research, strategy, facilitation, and human-centered transformation practices across EDR.

Knowledge/Skills

• Expertise in a combination of human-centered design, design thinking, qualitative and mixed-method research, service design, systems thinking, product discovery, transformation strategy, or related disciplines.

• Strong facilitation, stakeholder engagement, executive alignment, and organizational navigation capabilities.

• Ability to frame complex business challenges, identify strategic opportunities, and guide teams from ambiguity to action.

• Strong synthesis, critical thinking, insight-generation, and problem-structuring skills.

• Excellent storytelling, communication, executive presentation, and strategic narrative skills.

• Ability to influence decisions and drive outcomes through evidence, facilitation, trust, and leadership rather than authority.

• Experience leading multidisciplinary teams across business, design, research, product, technology, operations, risk, and transformation contexts.

• Strong business acumen and ability to connect human insight to business priorities, operating realities, technical constraints, and delivery pathways.

• Bias toward experimentation, learning, iterative problem solving, and pragmatic translation of strategy into action.

• Ability to build trust across EDR, business sponsors, clients, product teams, and technology partners.

• Ability to mentor other practitioners and strengthen methods, standards, assets, and communities of practice across EDR.

Experience Required

• 12+ yearsin experience strategy, design research, service design, product strategy, innovation, consulting, transformation, or related human-centered design disciplines.

• Proven leadership of complex cross-functional initiatives with executive stakeholder engagement and measurable strategic impact.

• Experience moving work from discovery through recommendations, delivery readiness, implementation planning, and organizational adoption.

• Demonstrated ability to flex across research, strategy, facilitation, service design, product discovery, and transformation support based on the needs of the engagement.

• Portfolio or case study body of work demonstrating process, outputs, decision-making, stakeholder leadership, and business or client impact.

• Enterprise transformation, financial services, consulting, or complex regulated industry experience a plus.

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