Customer Advisory Lead

Job Description

• The Customer Advisory Lead defines the customer strategies that modernise and transform client organisations, and converts those strategies into propositions, products, services and operating models that deliver measurable commercial growth.
• This is a senior advisory position operating at executive level. You will advise C suite and C minus one leadership within the largest corporates in South Africa and across EMEA, and will be expected to establish credibility quickly in both commercial and technical discussions.
• Strategy alone is not the deliverable. The role is accountable for activation: designing the structures, capabilities and technology decisions that allow a strategy to be implemented, adopted and sustained by the client long after the engagement concludes.
• Reports to the Value Stream Lead, Digital, Experience and Strategy.
• Partners with the Technology Strategy Lead on platform, architecture and modernisation decisions.
• Partners with the Sales and Go to Market Lead on go to market strategies aimed at executive buyers.
• Partners with the Data and AI Lead on data strategy and the responsible application of artificial intelligence.
• Partners with Marketing Operations on the integration, governance and measurement of customer facing systems.
• Leads multidisciplinary engagement teams spanning strategy, research, experience design, product and technology.

Responsibilities & Deliverables

Advise at Executive Level

• Build and sustain trusted relationships with executive leadership across priority accounts.
• Shape client agendas ahead of formal briefs, and remain accountable for outcomes beyond the close of an engagement.
• Present tradeoffs and challenge assumptions so that leadership teams make informed strategic decisions.
• Facilitate executive forums that conclude with decisions and agreed actions.

Modernise and Transform

• Lead organisational and departmental transformation across product, marketing, service, digital and operations functions.
• Read client organisations as systems, addressing structure, incentives, data, technology and culture, and identify the levers that will deliver change.
• Define target operating models, capability requirements and transition roadmaps the client is able to execute.
• Establish performance measures based on the complete customer journey rather than isolated functional metrics.

Design Products and Services

• Direct the design and validation of propositions, products and services from concept through to market launch.
• Run discovery, research and design programmes that produce decisions supported by evidence.
• Consolidate fragmented portfolios into coherent offerings supported by a clear platform strategy.
• Establish commercial viability alongside customer desirability and technical feasibility.

Connect Strategy to Platform and Operations

• Advise on experience and product architecture, working with the Technology Strategy Lead to align customer strategy to modernisation decisions.
• Ensure platform, data and integration choices are determined by customer and commercial outcomes.
• Work with Marketing Operations so that campaigns, content and customer data systems support the strategy in practice.
• Define measurement frameworks linking experience performance to commercial results.

Grow Clients, Teams and Market Position

• Develop go to market strategies with the Sales and Go to Market Lead that engage executive buyers.
• Drive industry narratives that shape the agenda of major corporates in South Africa and across EMEA.
• Expand client relationships through demonstrated outcomes, and support pursuits and proposals.
• Coach practitioners, maintain delivery standards, and build client capability that outlives the engagement.

Requirements

Essential Experience

• At least 15 years across customer strategy, digital transformation, customer experience, and product or service innovation, gained in professional services, consulting or senior client side roles.
• At least 5 years leading multidisciplinary teams or complex transformation programmes under senior client sponsorship.
• Growth you can evidence: revenue, acquisition, retention, lifetime value or cost to serve outcomes delivered for clients.
• A track record advising executive committee members and their direct reports as a trusted advisor.
• Target operating model design, and leadership of organisational or departmental transformation.
• Propositions taken from hypothesis through validation and prototyping to market launch.
• Breadth across B2B, B2C and B2E contexts, ideally spanning telecommunications, financial services, retail, resources or the public sector.
• Exposure to South African and broader EMEA markets is advantageous.

Capability and Technical Fluency

You will need the depth to advise on enterprise technology decisions and to challenge them. Implementation level expertise is not required.

• Journey mapping, service blueprinting, value proposition design and commercial modelling.
• Qualitative and quantitative research, including segmentation, market sizing, behavioural insight and hypothesis validation.
• Experience measurement frameworks, including customer lifetime value, journey level indicators and voice of customer instrumentation.
• Enterprise platforms including Adobe Experience Cloud, Microsoft Azure, Amazon Web Services and SAP, together with customer data, campaign and content platforms.
• Applied artificial intelligence in products, services and operations, and a clear view of where it creates advantage and where it does not.
• Figma, Miro, analytics and voice of customer platforms, and AI assisted research applied with appropriate rigour.

Education

• A relevant undergraduate degree, or equivalent professional experience, in business, design, technology, behavioural science or a related discipline.
• A postgraduate qualification, executive education or relevant certifications are advantageous.

Success Looks Like

Within your first 12 months you will have

• Earned trusted advisor status with executive leadership across priority accounts.
• Led at least one organisational or departmental transformation from strategy through to delivery.
• Launched or validated propositions with measurable commercial and customer impact.
• Influenced platform and technology decisions alongside Technology Strategy, Data and AI, and Marketing Operations.
• Grown revenue and scope on existing accounts and contributed to new client acquisition.
• Developed team members capable of leading engagements independently.

What We Offer

• A senior leadership position within a value stream that is being built and scaled, with genuine influence over its direction.
• Access to enterprise clients across banking, financial services, insurance, retail, mining, telecommunications, manufacturing and the public sector.
• The scale of a group of more than 1,500 practitioners spanning consulting, technology, cloud, data and managed services.
• A culture that values execution and measurable outcomes over presentation, and that invests in the growth of its people.

Employment Details

• Location: Johannesburg or Cape Town.
• Working model: hybrid, with regular presence at client sites.
• Travel: periodic travel across South Africa and the broader EMEA region as client requirements dictate

Closing Date 29 July 2026