Digital Engagement Strategist

Horizontal Digital; United Arab Emirates; On-site; AED 250,000 - 350,000; Full time

Job summary

A digital consultancy firm in the UAE is looking for a Digital Engagement Lead. In this role, you will guide clients through various phases from strategy to delivery, ensuring that projects align with client needs and goals. Ideal candidates will have over 10 years of experience in digital strategy, strong collaboration skills, and a proven ability to manage complex client relationships. Hybrid work arrangements are expected.

Qualifications

• 10+ years of experience in digital strategy or consultancy roles.
• Ability to lead complex transformation programmes.
• Strong understanding of delivery models like agile and waterfall.

Responsibilities

• Act as primary digital engagement lead across strategic accounts.
• Translate complex business needs into outcome-led roadmaps.
• Support clients in shaping go-to-market strategies.

Skills

Digital strategy

Client relationship management

Agile methodologies

Communication

Collaboration

Tools

Sitecore

Adobe

Optimizely

Job description

At Horizontal Digital, we hold ourselves to one key belief: You’re only as good as your worst customer experience.
This mantra is what drives our digital consultancy to think beyond the easy answers and instead create websites, apps, portals and other experiences that solve customer needs for Fortune 500 companies in intuitive and empathetic ways.
And we make this lofty standard a reality by fusing strategy, data, design and technology together to arrive at solutions that set the bar higher for everyone.
We use these values to fuel superior results: Lock arms We forge relationships that make our impact 1,000x stronger.
This means working across departments and engaging both our clients and our communities to deliver the greatest good.
Show hustle We’re not ones to sit on our hands and wait.
Instead, we anticipate opportunities, collectively roll up our sleeves and find ways to execute the exceptional.
Embrace change From new technologies to workplace philosophies, we welcome the unexpected and constantly anticipate what’s next.
Elevate empathy We listen before we take action.
This means understanding a variety of perspectives and holding ourselves to a higher standard of accountability.
Never settle We motivate each other to push past the easy answers and collectively arrive at bigger, more inspiring ideas.
But enough about us.
Let’s talk about you.

What you’ll do:

• Act as the primary digital engagement lead across one or more strategic accounts—guiding clients through Discovery, Strategy, Design, Development and Delivery
• Proactively identify improvement opportunities on live platforms, ensuring our work evolves through a Continuous Improvement (CI) mindset
• Translate complex business needs into phased outcome‑led roadmaps that guide both near‑term delivery and long‑term transformation
• Act as the internal voice of the client and the external voice of the product—ensuring everything we deliver is connected to a clearly defined product vision, prioritised roadmap, and measurable business value
• Provide clear strategic direction to delivery teams—partnering with Design, Tech, and Delivery Leads to ensure alignment on capacity, velocity, and value, while stepping back from day‑to‑day delivery management
• Support clients in shaping go‑to‑market (GTM) strategies, service propositions, or business design initiatives—particularly during Discovery or early‑phase engagements
• Help shape commercial models and prioritisation trade‑offs in partnership with clients—aligning budgets, ambition and investment phasing across multi‑stage programmes
• Build credibility with senior stakeholders—offering a clear, structured point of view while flexing between corporate polish and startup hustle
• Operate as a connector across disciplines: delivery, strategy, design, content, data and technology
• Shape and steer multi‑disciplinary teams to deliver experience‑led digital transformation programmes
• Lead workshops, stakeholder interviews and discovery engagements to uncover goals, pain points and opportunities
• Work with technologists and platform specialists to determine the best in class technical solutions to business problems
• Support proposal writing, scoping and pre‑sales activities
• Maintain an informed POV on AI, emerging tech, composable platforms and customer experience best practices

Who you are:

You are a hybrid thinker and doer—someone with one foot in strategy, one in delivery.
You’re confident navigating complex client relationships, and you bring a sharp commercial lens to digital transformation programmes.
You have an agency background with a history of time spent on‑site with clients and you know how to build trust in the room.
You have history of a variety of work in the UAE and have a strong professional network.
You thrive when working across disciplines—creative, technical, strategic—and are equally comfortable whiteboarding ideas or writing a scope.
You’re curious about what’s next in technology, passionate about customer experience, and collaborative by nature.
You can pivot between the structure of large programmes and the pace of startup‑style initiatives.
You have excellent communication, organisation and presentation skills—and enjoy managing complexity with clarity.
You thrive on collaboration but know how to take ownership and drive outcomes.

What you bring:

• ~10+ years of experience in digital strategy, product, delivery, or consultancy roles in an agency setting
• Proven ability to lead complex transformation programmes and Continuous Improvement (CI) programmes.
• Strong understanding of agile‑based and waterfall delivery models and are comfortable flexing between traditional and adaptive methodologies
• Hands‑on knowledge of DXP & MarTech ecosystems and extensive experience working with at least one enterprise CMS (e.g. Sitecore, Adobe, Optimizely, Acquia, LifeRay) preferably with at least one relevant platform certification or qualification
• Confidence in managing senior stakeholders and leading difficult, high‑stakes conversations
• Experience spending meaningful time working on‑site with clients and are comfortable committing to a hybrid working week of client‑side office days, agency office days and working from home.
• Strong collaboration and communication skills—able to guide and inspire cross‑functional teams
• Experience with service blueprints, customer journey mapping and organisational change facilitation
• Curiosity for AI, emerging technologies and evolving customer experience trends
• Preferred experience industries such as hospitality, tourism, logistics or transport
• Two recent case studies you can share in interview to demonstrate your impact

The above description is not designed to cover or contain a comprehensive listing of activities, duties or responsibilities that are required of the employee for this job.
Duties, responsibilities, and activities may change at any time with or without notice.