Innovation & Experience Strategy Manager - Specialist

Company Description About Publicis Sapient Most companies in the AI era do one of two things: they advise, or they sell you a tool. We do both. Publicis Sapient is a technology company that provides enterprise AI platforms and services, which means we build our own AI platforms and bring the strategists, product thinkers, designers and engineers who make them work inside the world's most complex businesses. It is where people and products shape the future of enterprise, and where your ideas actually reach the organizations that run the world. If you want to question how things are done, learn continuously and do the best work of your career alongside 20,000 people across 28 countries, you're in the right place. Come build with us. Our Commitment to Inclusive Hiring We are committed to fostering and encouraging an inclusive and welcoming environment for everyone and we believe great talent comes from many different backgrounds, experiences, and perspectives. That is why we are committed to creating a hiring process where everyone has an equal opportunity to succeed and feel safe. We welcome applications from all backgrounds and identities including: race, ethnicity, nationality, gender, disability, sexual orientation, gender identity, or religion and value the diverse experiences, perspectives, and strengths they bring to our teams. If there is anything we can do to make our recruitment process more accessible or comfortable for you, please let us know. We are happy to provide reasonable adjustments throughout the application and interview process. You can contact us anytime at emeahiringteam@publicissapient.com. Your Safety Matters To Us At Publicis Sapient, we are committed to protecting candidates throughout every step of their journey with us. To help you stay safe from recruitment scams, please remember that our recruiters will only ever contact you from a Publicis Sapient email address. In some cases, we may partner with trusted, vetted recruitment agencies who will clearly identify themselves as working on behalf of Publicis Sapient. If you receive communication from any other domain claiming to represent us, please treat it with caution and contact us at emeahiringteam@publicissapient.com. Overview
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• Why This Role Matters As a Manager within the Innovation & Experience Strategy team, you will lead workstreams and multidisciplinary teams across Growth Innovation and Customer Experience engagements for leading French and international organizations. You will help clients frame complex business and customer challenges, identify new growth opportunities and translate evidence into strategies, value propositions, experience concepts and actionable roadmaps. You will work from opportunity discovery through research, concept development, prototyping, validation and implementation planning. You will collaborate with consultants, designers, researchers, product specialists, data experts and technologists. You will also manage project delivery, build client relationships, contribute to new business opportunities and support the growth of junior team members. Where You’ll Make an Impact Frame problems & uncover opportunities
• Structure complex and sometimes ambiguous business, customer and market challenges.
• Define hypotheses, research questions and problem-solving approaches for projects and workstreams.
• Lead market, customer, competitor, startup, technology and business-model analysis.
• Combine qualitative, quantitative and secondary evidence to identify trends, unmet needs and demand spaces.
• Guide teams in turning evidence into clear insights, strategic implications and growth opportunities. Shape innovation & growth strategies
• Lead the design of new products, services, experiences and business models.
• Create and validate differentiated value propositions across customer desirability, business viability and technological feasibility.
• Define strategic visions, North Stars, opportunity portfolios, prioritization frameworks and roadmaps.
• Connect recommendations to practical experiments, prototypes and implementation pathways.
• Make assumptions, risks, dependencies and trade-offs explicit so clients can make informed decisions. Design connected experiences & services
• Lead the creation of customer journeys, ecosystem maps, personas, experience models and journey architectures.
• Develop current-state and future-state service blueprints connecting experience with people, process, data and technology.
• Identify critical moments, pain points and value-creation opportunities across channels and touchpoints.
• Translate experience opportunities into requirements, capabilities, metrics and change backlogs.
• Work with product, technology and operating-model specialists to connect experience strategy with delivery.
• Ensure proposed experiences are inclusive and consider accessibility from the outset. Use AI to create & accelerate innovation
• Use generative AI to accelerate research, analysis, synthesis, ideation, prototyping and storytelling.
• Explore how AI is changing customer behavior, markets, industries, organizations and business models.
• Design AI-enabled products, services and experiences that solve meaningful customer and business problems.
• Help teams distinguish viable AI applications from technology-led experimentation without a clear purpose.
• Apply a responsible, critical and human-centered perspective to AI-enabled innovation. Lead workshops & communicate recommendations
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• Design and facilitate collaborative workshops with multidisciplinary teams and client stakeholders.
• Build agendas, select appropriate methods and adapt sessions in response to emerging needs.
• Create clear, persuasive narratives connecting customer needs, business ambition, technology and operational reality.
• Develop executive-ready presentations and professional-quality deliverables.
• Present recommendations confidently to management-level and senior stakeholders.
• Provide direction and constructive feedback on deliverables produced by other team members. Manage delivery & multidisciplinary teams
• Lead a substantial workstream or a small-to-medium engagement from planning through completion.
• Define activities, deliverables, roles, dependencies and quality expectations.
• Coordinate consultants and specialists from across the SPEED capabilities.
• Manage progress, risks, issues and changes while maintaining a clear focus on outcomes.
• Act as a day-to-day contact for client stakeholders.
• Ensure deliverables are completed on time, within agreed scope and to a high standard.
• Contribute to estimates, proposals, statements of work and engagement planning. Grow our clients, people & capability
• Build trusted relationships with peer-level and management-level client stakeholders.
• Identify opportunities to extend the value and impact of ongoing client work.
• Contribute to pitches, proposals, RFP responses and opportunity-shaping conversations.
• Support the development of Innovation & Experience Strategy offerings, methods, tools and points of view.
• Coach junior colleagues through project feedback, practical guidance and career conversations.
• Help create an inclusive, supportive and intellectually demanding team environment. Qualifications What You’ll Bring to the Team
• Intellectually curious, with a strong interest in human behavior, business transformation, innovation and emerging technologies.
• Analytical and creative, with the ability to structure complex problems and work confidently through uncertainty.
• Comfortable leading a workstream, coordinating multidisciplinary contributors and engaging directly with clients.
• A clear written, visual and verbal communicator who listens carefully and challenges constructively.
• Proactive, collaborative and committed to learning and helping others grow through feedback.
• A T-shaped professional with depth in one or more relevant areas and curiosity for adjacent disciplines.
• Fluent in French and English, written and spoken.
• Professional experience in innovation strategy, customer experience strategy, service design, product strategy, business design, management consulting or a related field.
• Demonstrated experience leading a project workstream or small multidisciplinary team.
• Strong experience in customer and market research, innovation and growth strategy, value proposition design, service design, product discovery or strategic foresight.
• Experience developing customer journeys, ecosystem maps, personas, service blueprints, opportunity portfolios, North Stars or strategic roadmaps.
• Experience translating research and analysis into decisions, concepts and actionable recommendations.
• Confidence facilitating workshops and presenting to management-level client stakeholders.
• Experience working with designers, researchers, product managers, data specialists, engineers and business stakeholders.
• Practical experience using generative AI in research, analysis, ideation, prototyping or communication. Additional Experience We Value
• Experience connecting customer experience strategy with product management, technology or operating-model change.
• Experience applying Agile, Lean or experimentation-based approaches.
• Experience with AI-enabled product or service innovation.
• Experience on international or multi-market engagements.
• Familiarity with commercial modeling, business cases, opportunity sizing or portfolio prioritization. Additional Information What You'll Get in Return
• Lead real-world engagements from strategy through experimentation and implementation planning.
• Work alongside experts across strategy, product, experience, engineering, data and AI.
• Build a combined business, customer, experience and technology perspective.
• Use AI both to improve how consulting work is delivered and to imagine new sources of value.
• Develop your leadership through client responsibility, team management and capability-building opportunities.
• Work in an international, multidisciplinary and supportive environment. As part of our dedication to an inclusive and diverse workforce, Publicis Sapient is committed to Equal Employment Opportunity without regard for race, color, national origin, ethnicity, gender, protected veteran status, disability, sexual orientation, gender identity, or religion. We are also committed to providing reasonable accommodations for qualified individuals with disabilities and disabled veterans in our job application procedures.