CX Strategy Director

CX Strategy Director

Seniority: Director Level

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thelab is looking for a strategic leader who can complement creative vision with logic, rigor, and data-driven thinking. As Director of CX Strategy, you'll own the foundation of how we approach customer experience: translating business goals and customer insights into clear direction, managing our product roadmap from a design perspective, and confidently representing our design thinking to clients and stakeholders.

You'll build the foundation for how we make design decisions—ensuring they're grounded in research, validated by data, and aligned with business outcomes. You'll be the bridge between our creative vision and the rigor required to execute at scale across ecommerce, B2B platforms, and along customer journey touchpoints.

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Core Responsibilities

Your role is to be the strategic operations partner—the person who ensures design is grounded in reality (customer needs, business metrics), strategically aligned, and outcomes-focused.

• Strategy & Roadmap — Build design-informed roadmap; ensure design has early input
• Research Integration — Synthesize customer insights into design briefs
• Client Communication — Run discovery session, lead design strategy, present roadmaps with research-backed rationale
• Cross-Functional Leadership — Bridge alignment with design, product, engineering around outcomes
• Domain Expertise — Deep ecommerce knowledge; B2B fluency

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Key Areas of Expertise

Strategy & Roadmap

• Partner with the ECD, product leadership, analytics leadership, and design team to build a design-informed product roadmap that balances creative vision with business goals
• Engage design as an input to early-stage planning
• Document design strategy, rationale, and key decisions for transparency and team alignment

Research Integration & Insights Translation

• Lead research synthesis workshops to turn raw customer data into actionable design directions
• Translate quantitative data (analytics, conversion metrics) and qualitative insights (user interviews, testing) into CX journey maps and use cases
• Support clients and designers in understanding the connection between research findings and design decisions

Client Communication & Presentations

• Lead and collaborate with design presentations to clients—articulating why we made decisions, grounded in research and strategy
• Lead discovery calls and strategic workshops to uncover true customer needs
• Translate client feedback into design direction without losing creative intent
• Build client confidence through clear communication and documented rationale
• Establish success metrics with clients upfront; report on design impact post-launch

Cross-Functional Leadership & Alignment

• Help align design, product, and engineering around shared outcomes and design direction
• Partner with copy and content to ensure messaging supports design decisions
• Facilitate design critique sessions focused on strategy and outcomes (not just aesthetics)
• Mentor design team on data-driven thinking, research literacy, and client management

Domain Expertise

• Develop deep ecommerce expertise (conversion optimization, funnel clarity, personalization, product discovery)
• Help build secondary B2B experiences (user adoption, workflow clarity, enterprise workflows)
• Stay current on industry trends, competitive landscape, and design patterns
• Advise on best practices and emerging opportunities

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Required Experience

• 8+ years in design, product strategy, or UX leadership roles
• 5+ years of hands-on executional experience with ecommerce and/or B2B digital products
• Proven track record managing stakeholder relationships and presenting to senior leadership
• Strong research literacy — can read analytics, synthesize user research, and translate findings into strategy
• Portfolio or case studies demonstrating strategic thinking (not just beautiful design)
• Excellent communication skills: explain design rationale clearly to non-designers and clients
• Comfortable with ambiguity — can shape direction without requiring perfect specs upfront
• Understanding of design principles and craft — you respect design and understand what excellence looks like, even if you don't execute it

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Nice-to-Have

• Experience with design systems and how to maintain consistency at scale
• AI/automation fluency — curious about design-to-code tools and research synthesis with AI
• Conversion optimization background
• Data analysis skills — can interpret metrics and identify patterns
• Workshop facilitation experience

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Team Structure

You'll be joining a design department with:

• Executive Creative Director focused on vision, culture, and strategic positioning
• UX/UI Design Director focused on design systems and visual consistency
• CX Design Director focused on customer journeys and experience execution
• Copy + Content Director
• Team of multi-disciplinary designers
• Data + Analytics Lead

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What We Offer

Culture

• Creative excellence with space to do your best work
• True work-life balance
• Collaborative team of UX designers, strategists, and developers

Benefits

• Salary: $155,000/year 
• Comprehensive health, dental, vision insurance
• 401(k) with company match
• Unlimited PTO 
• Hybrid work Tues-Thurs in Madison Square Office
• Latest UX tools and technology