Design Strategy & Research Lead

About this role

About Northern Trust

As a global leader in innovative wealth management, asset servicing, asset management and banking services, Northern Trust (Nasdaq: NTRS) is proud to guide the world’s most successful individuals, families, corporations and institutions.

Since 1889, we have aligned our efforts with our three guiding Principles That Endure: Service, Expertise, and Integrity. Together, they reflect the three cornerstones of business conduct which we strive to instill in our employees, whom we call partners, and to provide to our clients and the communities we serve worldwide.

With more than 135 years of financial experience and over 24,000 partners, we serve the world’s most sophisticated clients using leading technology and exceptional service.

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 tr ansformation  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 em erge f rom 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 presentati

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