Digital Engagement Strategist - Abu Dhabi

Responsibilities

• Act as the primary digital engagement lead across strategic accounts, guiding clients through Discovery, Strategy, Design, Development, and Delivery stages.
• Proactively identify improvement opportunities on live platforms, driving continuous improvement initiatives.
• Translate complex business needs into phased, outcome-led roadmaps for both near-term delivery and long-term transformation.
• Serve as the internal voice of the client and the external voice of the product, ensuring alignment with product vision and measurable business value.
• Provide clear strategic direction to delivery teams, partnering with Design, Tech, and Delivery leads.
• Support clients in shaping go-to-market (GTM) strategies, service propositions, and business design initiatives.
• Shape commercial models and prioritization trade-offs in partnership with clients across multi-stage programmes.
• Build credibility with senior stakeholders, offering structured points of view and balancing corporate polish with startup hustle.
• Operate as a connector across strategy, design, content, data, and technology functions.
• Shape and steer multi-disciplinary teams to deliver experience-led digital transformation programs.
• Lead workshops, stakeholder interviews, and discovery engagements.
• Collaborate with technologists and platform specialists to determine best-in-class technical solutions.
• Support proposal writing, scoping, and pre-sales activities.
• Stay informed on AI, emerging tech, composable platforms, and CX best practices.

Requirements

• ~10+ years of experience in digital strategy, product, delivery, or consultancy roles within an agency setting
• Proven ability to lead complex transformation and CI programmes
• Strong understanding of agile and waterfall delivery models; adaptable between methodologies
• Hands-on knowledge of DXP & MarTech ecosystems
• Extensive experience with at least one enterprise CMS (e.g., Sitecore, Adobe, Optimizely, Acquia, LifeRay), preferably with platform certification/qualification
• Confidence in managing senior stakeholders and leading high-stakes conversations
• Experience working on-site with clients and ability to commute to Dubai office twice per week
• Strong collaboration and communication skills
• Experience with service blueprints, customer journey mapping, and organizational change facilitation
• Curiosity for AI, emerging technologies, and customer experience trends
• Ability to present two recent case studies demonstrating your impact

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience in industries such as hospitality, tourism, logistics, or transport
• Strong professional network in the UAE
• Ability to pivot between large-scale and startup-style programs
• Excellent presentation and organization skills
• Passion for customer experience and strategic thinking

Benefits

(No explicit benefits listed in job posting)

About the Company

Horizontal Digital is an experience-forward consultancy that builds exceptional website, mobile, ecommerce, and portal experiences that meet customers with the right message, at the right moment. We fuse every digital touchpoint with customer data from sales, service, ecommerce, and marketing programs we design and implement. Our unwavering focus on delivering meaningful digital experiences at every touchpoint has allowed us to successfully solve complex challenges for some of the world's most recognizable brands.