Location: London/ flexible working

Salary:  £40,000 - £45,000

Upside 

At Upside we are on a mission to tackle some of the world's biggest problems by challenging the norm and delivering a paradigm shift in innovation through the work we do. The Ventures team is at an exciting point in our growth and we are now excited to be looking for a Design Strategist to help mature this part of our business. This is a great opportunity for you to define this part of our capability and scope of our future ventures working in a multi-disciplined team to identify concepts. 

The role: 

We’re looking for a creative, entrepreneurial Design Strategist to play a key part in the identification and development of new venture ideas for Upside. We’re looking for someone with the ability to apply design thinking & human centred methodologies to research markets, identify new opportunities and create commercially viable solutions. This role has a focus on conducting discovery research, outlining problem areas and creating venture concepts. 

You should be self-propelled by relentless curiosity, resourceful in scouring the world for insight and comfortable in a fast-paced environment. You need to be a team player, your role is to find new and emerging problems, build a pipeline of concepts and potentially play a longer term role in their development and launch. You care about the impact your work has on the world and have been looking for a career path that is both high-performance and high-impact. You are passionate about working at the intersection of new technologies and the problems that matter along with working in some exciting and emerging markets. You also have a very entrepreneurial mindset, driven to find new problems and concepts with a motivating work ethic.

Responsibilities:

• Lead discovery research both primary and secondary to uncover needs, identify opportunities and pain points that generate insights and hypotheses with the goal of leading to future ventures.
• Provide analysis on strategic markets, identify trends, technologies and competitive landscapes. 
• Frame and identify problems and opportunities, that creates clear direction for innovation 
• Communicating research discoveries through compelling narratives and visualisations
• Working with a multidisciplinary team to communicate and develop ideas into venture concepts.  
• Plan, prepare and support the facilitation of stakeholder interviews and engaging workshops that support research, problem solving and hypothesis development.
• Maintain up to date knowledge of emerging startups, technologies and innovation processes
• Support wider business development and consulting projects as required.
• Build a professional network and represent the company externally.

Requirements: 

• Minimum 3 - 5 years working in Research, Design, strategy consulting or associated functions
• Have a good portfolio of past work that demonstrates your skills to the best of your ability 
• Thrives in a fast-paced and dynamic environment
• Strong grounding in human-centred design and empathetic design thinking methodology and experience applying these methodologies to research and workshops
• Outstanding experience with ethnographic research that feeds into ideation, divergent exploration, conceptual development and design.
• Ability to organise and simplify complex concepts and research using a range of frameworks and visual structures
• Experience with and interest in a range of design disciplines
• Superior attention to detail

Apply Now!

We are looking for those who have exceptional talents and who want to work with like-minded people,. If you’re interested then please upload a copy of your CV below and a cover letter.