Design Strategy & Research Lead

Design Strategy & Research Lead

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Design Strategy & Research Lead

locations

Chicago, IL

time type

Full time

posted on

Posted Yesterday

job requisition id

R158920

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 transformation initiatives while remaining anchored in EDR practice standards, methods, communities of practice, talent development, and quality expectations.

• The Chicago-based role requires candidates to share work, process, and outputs.