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.
• Proactively identify improvement opportunities on live platforms, fostering a continuous improvement mindset.
• Translate complex business needs into phased, outcome-led roadmaps for near-term delivery and long-term transformation.
• Serve as the internal voice of the client and external voice of the product, connecting deliverables to a clear vision, prioritized roadmap, and measurable business value.
• Provide strategic direction to delivery teams, partnering with design, tech, and delivery leads while stepping back from daily management.
• Support clients with go-to-market strategies, service propositions, and business design initiatives during early-phase engagements.
• Shape commercial models and prioritization in partnership with clients, aligning budgets, ambition, and investment phasing across multi-stage programs.
• Build credibility with senior stakeholders, flexing communication between corporate polish and startup hustle.
• Connect across disciplines (delivery, strategy, design, content, data, technology).
• Steer multi-disciplinary teams to achieve digital transformation objectives.
• Lead workshops, stakeholder interviews, and discovery engagements to uncover goals, pain points, and opportunities.
• Work with technologists and platform specialists on best-in-class solutions.
• Support proposal writing, scoping, and pre-sales activities.
• Maintain an informed point of view on AI, emerging tech, composable platforms, and customer experience best practices.

Requirements

• ~10+ years in digital strategy, product, delivery, or consultancy roles in an agency environment.
• Proven leadership in complex transformation and continuous improvement programs.
• Strong grasp of agile and waterfall delivery methodologies.
• Hands-on experience with DXP & MarTech ecosystems (enterprise CMS: Sitecore, Adobe, Optimizely, Acquia, LifeRay).
• Senior stakeholder management and high-stakes conversation skills.
• Time spent working on-site with clients; comfort with hybrid on-site/office/home structure.
• Strong collaboration and communication; able to rally cross-functional teams.
• Experience with service blueprints, customer journey mapping, organizational change facilitation.
• Curiosity and awareness of AI, emerging tech, and evolving customer experience.

Preferred Qualifications

• Platform certification (CMS or MarTech).
• Experience in hospitality, tourism, logistics, or transport industries.
• Strong professional network within UAE.
• Ability to present two recent case studies demonstrating impact.

Benefits

• Not specified explicitly; subject to company standard UAE full-time packages (health insurance, paid annual leave, visa, etc.).

About the Company

Horizontal Digital is an experience-forward consultancy building exceptional website, mobile, ecommerce, and portal experiences for Fortune 500 companies. The agency fuses strategy, data, design, and technology, focusing on every digital touchpoint by leveraging customer data and delivering meaningful, impactful digital solutions worldwide. Their values—lock arms, show hustle, embrace change, elevate empathy, never settle—drive superior results while solving complex challenges for recognizable brands.