Senior Director, Service Design

Senior Director of IT, Service Design

The Company is one of North America’s leading sales and marketing agencies specializing in outsourced sales, merchandising, category management and marketing services to manufacturers, suppliers and producers of food products and consumer packaged goods. The Company services a variety of trade channels including grocery, mass merchandise, specialty, convenience, drug, dollar, club, hardware, consumer electronics and home centers. We bridge the gap between manufacturers and retailers, providing consumers access to the best products available in the marketplace today.

What We Offer:

• Full-Time Benefits (Medical, Dental, Vision, Life)
• 401(k) with company match
• Training and Career Development
• Generous Paid Time-Off
  
  

Responsibilities:

Advantage Solutions IT in Chicago, IL is looking for a Service Design Leader to work a hybrid role; onsite potentially 1-3 days/week. Advantage Solutions IT is a newly-established shared service capability within Advantage Solutions, and the Strategy & Architecture function is an entirely new concept within Advantage Solutions IT. Our IT organization is focused on driving a significant amount of simultaneous IT & Business transformation while preparing for next new innovations in technology as those transformations take place. The Strategy & Architecture team is responsible for driving technology strategies and architectures to connect and achieve those transformations while also innovating on new technology concepts to embed into the business at scale.

We work in a matrixed environment alongside portfolio technology leaders / delivery teams and business stakeholders. Together we are planning and implementing technology solutions that align with Advantage Solutions strategic goals and objectives. The Strategy & Architecture team is a common shared IT service at the center of this journey. The Service Design Leader role will focus primarily on partnering across Strategy & Architecture, IT Portfolio Leaders (Data, Commercial, Enterprise Systems), and Business Executives. This partnership will involve conceptualizing new business strategy demand, defining IT investment opportunities, and guiding stakeholders through the Service Design process to shape that demand into business solution proposals for investment.

This is a new practice area for Advantage Solutions IT, and so this Service Design Leader will define a service design process, method, tools, and techniques – pilot those with early demand opportunities to prove success, and with success lead in building Service Design skills and practices within the IT organization and with business partners. The Service Design lead will educate the organization, coach emerging practitioners, and creatively build the service design practice and team. The Service Design leader will communicate in plain language, visually, and with stories that drive toward consensus and understanding of new service concepts for the Advantage business strategy. Together, with the wider team, the Service Design leader will build enabling processes that allow service design to flourish in the Advantage organization. The role will also serve as a node of management responsibility for building Service Design people and capabilities within Advantage Solutions IT – to include defining priorities across the Architecture function, interfacing with other common service teams (IT Portfolio Teams, Process Excellence, and Business stakeholders).

• Be a shared practice expert and leader, partnering and facilitating across executives in the business, product, core IT, and architecture domains
• Contextualize service design demand and lead definition of needs
• Personalize design approach to the demand and business / IT stakeholder audience using Service Design techniques
• Facilitate internal communication in order to build understanding of business opportunities, service options, and impacts among stakeholders involved
• Work with the involved teams to guide toward and shape different options to conceptualize new services
• Keep Advantage business strategy always in perspective as service design processes unfold
• Build Service Design awareness, understanding, and skillsets within the Advantage IT organizations and the business groups with which it partners
  
  

Qualifications:

• 10 years of experience in a Technical Role (software engineering, architecture, portfolio management, etc.)
• 4 years in a Design role (application, user experience, etc.)
• Experience with user experience architecture concept definition and use
• Experience with design thinking / workshop / facilitation with business and IT executives
• Experience with team staffing, building, development and coaching
• Exposure to enterprise / data architecture and IT delivery excellence
• Bachelors Degree Local to Chicago, IL (willing and able to go onsite a couple days/week)
  
  

Additional Experience Required:

• Service design leadership: Customer Journey Mapping, Service Definition and Design, Service Blueprint Definition, Continuous Improvement Design, Voice of the Customer
• Design Thinking: Cross-Team Collaboration, Workshop Facilitation, System Thinking and Coaching, Stakeholder Relationships
• User Experience: User Research, User Experience Architecture Standards and Design Definition, Customer Experience Design, Rapid Prototyping
• IT Delivery: Program and Project Management, Communication, Team Building, IT Architecture Principles, IT Delivery Processes
• Change Management: Education, Coaching, Relationship Building and Executive Communication
• Strong and influential voice with the ability to facilitate meetings with all levels of individuals (including senior leaders) to empower open discussions, discern critical information, and stay on track with meeting intention and come to decisions
  
  

Job Will Remain Open Until Filled