Emerging Strategist

We made history and now we work to transform the future – for our customers, our communities and our families. You'll see your work on the road every day, helping people move freely and pursue their dreams. At Ford, you can build more than vehicles. Come build what matters.

The Customer Experience (CX) team delivers owner and user experiences that save time, improve lives, and create personal connections. We strive to build lifelong relationships and turn customers into brand advocates by ensuring they are treated like family.

Advanced Product Strategy & Planning sets the experience vision for Global Digital and helps teams plan 6 to 18 months out and beyond, across retail and Ford Pro, in every market. We work collaboratively with product, design, user research and analytics to set strategy and vision and influence the roadmaps.

This role is our outside-in view. You go out into the world and experience the best shopping, buying and owning journeys firsthand: a Tesla test drive, buying a car on Carvana, shopping with an AI assistant, ordering accessories and service from the best retailers, the best stores and apps. You document what you find, what the customer felt and what made it work, and bring it back to the Advanced Product Strategy & Planning team as something we can apply to vehicle and non-vehicle commerce on Ford.xx,

Lincoln and Ford Pro. You are proactive and curious: nobody assigns you the next experience to go see. You are obsessed with the best ways to deliver value to our customers and to Ford, and every finding ends with what we should do about it.

• Go out into the world and experience best-in-class shopping, buying and owning firsthand: test drives, deliveries, showrooms, online purchases, accessory and service purchases, AI shopping assistants.
• Document each experience in a consistent format (the journey, what the customer felt, what made it work, what we would apply) and keep a benchmark library the team pulls from.
• Benchmark how the best companies handle big, considered purchases and ownership, in automotive (Tesla, Carvana, Car Max, Toyota) and beyond (homes, travel, luxury, electronics), for retail and commercial customers.
• Track trends in how customers shop, buy and own, including AI, and explain what they mean for Ford.
• Bring findings back to the Advanced Product Strategy & Planning team as use cases tied to a space, a strategic bet and the value it delivers to the customer and to Ford; pitch them with the team to journey managers, PMs and product leaders; help prototype and shape the test.
• Feed outside-in input into the quarterly strategy refresh and roadmap alignment sessions.
• Represent Global Digital in the industry (conferences, partners, retail peers) and share what you learn with the team every month.

Minimum Qualifications:

• Education:
  
  Bachelor’s Degree
• 5+ years in customer experience, retail, e-commerce or digital product, with direct retail experience (in-store and online). Automotive retail a plus.
• Proactive and curious: you seek out new experiences on your own, try them first and ask how they work.
• Customer obsessed: you start from what the customer experiences and are relentless about the best ways to deliver value to customers and to Ford.
• Subject matter expert on what makes a shopping, buying or owning experience best in class; sets that bar for the team and mentors others to it.
• Documents experiences clearly and consistently, so a finding is usable by someone who was not there.
• Fluent with current AI shopping tools and how digital and physical journeys connect, enough to judge what is real and what is a demo.
• Has taken observations to tested customer experiences and presented findings to senior leadership.
• Strong storytelling and an active industry network.
• Leads…