Job Description

Ankura is a team of excellence founded on innovation and growth.

The Experience and Service Design Director is a pivotal role within the Workforce AI Transformation practice in EMEA. This position sits at the intersection of experience, service and product design, shaping how organisations design and deliver AI-enabled ways of working.

Role Purpose

This is a senior design leadership role focused on shaping how AI-enabled work is structured and delivered in practice.

As organisations invest in AI, the challenge extends beyond capability to how it is embedded into workflows, tools, and ways of working.

This role defines the services, tools, and experiences that enable organisations to apply AI effectively, ensuring they are grounded in how people work and how organisations operate.

You will bring deep expertise across service design and product design, alongside a strong understanding of how AI informs decisions, actions, and workflows. You will help clients translate ambition into clearly defined services, tools, and experiences that are usable, reliable, and grounded in how work is carried out in practice.

Your focus will be on how AI is embedded within tools, workflows, and operational environments, ensuring that what is designed supports clarity, consistency, and effective decision-making.

Why Join Ankura

• Opportunities to work on some of the largest and most high-profile projects, providing advice at the highest level.

• To work in a dynamic and fast paced environment, alongside senior leaders of our business.

• The opportunity to learn quickly and influence the growth and development of our team.

• Fantastic personal and professional development opportunities and the ability to learn from experts in their fields.

• Exposure to senior clients and an opportunity to build your own client relationships.

Key Responsibilities

Service Design & Product Design

• Lead the design of end-to-end services, defining how front-stage interactions are enabled by underlying processes, tools, systems, and organisational capabilities

• Establish service blueprints, system views, and product structures that make complex work visible, understandable, and actionable

• Define direction for tools, platforms, and interfaces that support AI-enabled work across operational contexts

• Shape workflows, interaction models, information structures, and decision points with a focus on usability, clarity, and value

• Translate research and strategic direction into structured design outcomes

• Set the standard for clarity, coherence, and quality across all design work.

AI-Enabled Workforce Transformation

• Define how AI capabilities are embedded into services, tools, workflows, and operational environments

• Shape how AI informs decision-making, task execution, collaboration, and outcome delivery

• Establish a clear point of view on the role of design in enabling effective use of AI

• Ensure alignment between technology capability, human need, organisational context, and delivery realities

• Design for moments where clarity, accountability, and confidence are critical.

Proposition & IP Development

• Define the design-led proposition for AI-enabled workforce transformation, establishing how the practice approaches the structuring of work, decision-making, and organisational experience

• Lead the development of frameworks, methods, tools, and reusable assets that shape how engagements are delivered and how value is created

• Establish a differentiated point of view on how design operates within AI-enabled environments

• Drive coherence across disciplines by integrating design with research, strategy, and technology into a unified and recognisable approach

• Position design as a core driver of how AI-enabled work is defined, structured, and delivered.

Client Engagement & Market Visibility

• Lead senior client engagements, shaping how organisations design, structure, and apply AI-enabled ways of working

• Present direction, models, and concepts with clarity and authority at executive level

• Build trusted relationships with stakeholders across design, HR, technology, transformation, and business leadership

• Work in close partnership with clients to ensure decisions reflect their priorities, context, and workforce needs

• Represent the practice through events, publications, and industry engagement

• Establish a credible external voice on service design, product design, and AI-enabled experience.

Requirements:

• Significant experience across service design, product design, experience design, or related disciplines

• Strong track record leading design work in complex organisational, digital, or transformation contexts

• Proven ability to define and scale design approaches across services, tools, systems, and teams

• Experience working in AI, digital transformation, or emerging technology environments

• Experience working with senior stakeholders in large, complex organisations

• Strong understanding of how design creates value across strategy, delivery, and adoption

• Exceptional ability to articulate complex design concepts and system relationships in a clear and actionable way for executive audiences

• Strong design leadership presence, able to set direction and maintain clarity across complex environments

• Deep systems thinker, able to connect interactions, workflows, tools, and organisational context into a coherent whole

• Proven track record operating at the intersection of design, technology, and business

• Confident working in evolving and ambiguous environments, bringing structure and clarity

• Recognised voice within the design community, with a track record of thought leadership through speaking, writing, or industry engagement

• Strong commercial awareness, able to position design as a driver of measurable outcomes

• Builds trust quickly with senior stakeholders through clarity of thinking and credibility of approach.

Success Measures

• Quality and impact of design within client transformation programmes

• Adoption of service and product design approaches, frameworks, and tools

• Contribution to revenue through design-led engagements and proposition development

• Strength of client relationships with senior stakeholders

• Growth and development of design capability within the team

• External visibility through publications, events, and industry presence

• Effective collaboration across research, strategy, AI, and digital teams.

Ankura is an Affirmative Action and Equal Opportunity Employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, or protected veteran status and will not be discriminated against based on disability. Equal Employment Opportunity Posters, if you have a disability and believe you need a reasonable accommodation to search for a job opening, submit an online application, or participate in an interview/assessment, please email accommodations@ankura.com or call toll-free +1.312-583-2122. This email and phone number are created exclusively to assist disabled job seekers whose disability prevents them from being able to apply online. Only messages left for this purpose will be returned. Messages left for other purposes, such as following up on an application or technical issues unrelated to a disability, will not receive a response.