Commerce Strategy & Platform Lead in London

The Commerce Strategy & Platform Lead will help shape Merkle's Commerce pre-sales capability within the Design Experience, Content Platforms & Commerce (DXC) solutions team. This transformation role will be responsible for driving change in how clients create, capture, and compound value across Commerce ecosystems. The successful candidate will own strategic business led solutioning across RFPs, RFIs, proactive client engagements and existing programs to build multi-year commerce / trading strategies, while ensuring Merkle stays ahead of platform innovations and new monetisation opportunities from commerce technology vendors. The successful candidate will partner and work closely with design, content, CRM, and orchestration leaders to ensure commerce strategies and solutions are seamlessly integrated into end-to-end customer transformation programs, balancing business outcome, innovation with execution feasibility.

Key Objectives

• Revenue Growth Co-own Revenue Growth opportunities across Net-New Logo and Existing Clients. Underpin Existing Client commerce program strategy and revenue growth; including deep involvement in renewal strategies.
• Commerce Solution Leadership Lead Commerce transformation and solutioning powered by commerce ecosystems (Salesforce Commerce, Adobe Commerce/Magento, Shopify Plus, SAP Commerce, commerce tools, and other composable stacks). Shape digital strategy that underpin commerce scale, flexibility, and integration with broader DXC capabilities. Ensure solutions align to measurable outcomes such as conversion uplift, omnichannel enablement, speed-to-market, and operational efficiency.
• Pre-Sales Excellence Drive and own the commerce dimension of RFPs, RFIs, and pitches. Translate platform features (e.g. headless commerce, composable services, dynamic pricing, real-time inventory) into compelling business cases. Develop reusable commerce frameworks, demos, and accelerators that improve speed, consistency, and win rates.
• Innovation & Product Evolution Stay informed and ahead of product roadmaps, quarterly releases, and innovations from commerce vendors. Rapidly assess monetisation opportunities from new product launches and embed them into GTM propositions. Build strong relationships with platform partners (Salesforce, Adobe, Shopify, commerce tools, SAP, etc.) to co-create GTM plays and strengthen ecosystem positioning. Stay well informed and up to date on Emerging Technologies and Tools that complement this space.
• Client Advisory & Market Engagement Serve as a trusted advisor to client CIOs, CTOs, CDOs, and CMOs on commerce and digital engineering strategy. Lead and facilitate client workshops on commerce architecture, operating models, and innovation roadmaps. Represent Merkle externally at commerce partner events, industry forums, and client roundtables.
• Team Leadership & Capability Development Contribute to building a high-performing pre-sales community of commerce specialists. Drive and support enablement on commerce certifications, vendor releases, and emerging technologies. Help foster a culture of innovation, collaboration, and measurable client impact across the DXC solutions team.

Key KPIs

• Growth Impact: Contribution to new business revenue and existing account expansion.
• Solution Reuse & Scalability: Percentage of solutions reused across accounts and markets.
• Customer Impact: Evidence of transformation outcomes delivered to clients (NPS, cost-to-serve reduction, revenue uplift).
• Win Rate: Improvement in RFP / pitch win rates.
• Team Engagement & Development: Measured through internal engagement surveys and career progression of team members; as well as shoring strategy and cross-border teaming.

Core Competencies & Experience

• Commerce Expertise: Expertise in commerce platforms (Salesforce, Adobe, Shopify Plus, SAP Commerce, commerce tools, BigCommerce, etc.). Strong understanding of digital engineering practices: composable architectures, headless services, API-first integration, cloud-native development.
• Pre-Sales & Solutioning: Track record leading pre-sales pursuits for large, complex commerce transformation programs (£1M–£10M+). Skilled at translating commerce and platform complexity into clear business outcomes and ROI-driven propositions.
• Innovation & Ecosystem Awareness: Familiarity with commerce vendor product roadmaps and ability to identify monetisation opportunities from launches. Awareness of trends such as composable commerce, agentic AI in commerce, hyper-personalisation, and algorithmic CX.
• Commercial Acumen: Skilled at structuring commerce solutions into profitable, ROI-focused business cases. Strong ability to influence pipeline growth and win rates.
• Client Engagement: Executive presence; able to advise senior stakeholders on commerce transformation and technology strategy. Confident facilitator of roadmap workshops and innovation sessions at CxO level.
• Leadership: Experience in building, mentoring and inspiring communities of Commerce and UX pre-sales professionals. Team-orientated mindset with the ability to connect commerce, engineering and experience design disciplines.

Ideal Candidate Profile

• 6+ years' experience in business transformation and commerce technology, in either pre-sales or consulting roles.
• Strong working relationships with leading vendors, for example: Salesforce, Adobe, Shopify, commerce tools, or SAP.
• Demonstrated success in supporting or leading commerce transformation engagements.
• Demonstrated ability to integrate commerce with design, content, and CRM into cohesive client propositions.
• Future-focused: excited by composable commerce, AI-driven decisioning, automation, and agentic models.

What this role isn't: You will be working with experts from our practices and delivery teams. However, this is not a delivery role. Experience of solution architecture and program management is useful, but this is not what the role is.

Inclusion and Diversity At Dentsu, we embrace diversity and inclusion, valuing the unique perspectives and contributions of every individual. We believe that diversity fuels creativity and innovation, benefiting our employees, partners, and communities. We welcome applications from all individuals, regardless of race, ethnicity, nationality, religion, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, age, disability, marital status, or any other protected characteristic. Beyond recruitment, we strive to create an environment where everyone feels respected, supported, and empowered to bring their authentic selves to work. We recognise the importance of work-life balance and are open to discussing flexible working arrangements for all roles. If you need reasonable adjustments due to a disability or medical condition during our recruitment process, please contact us at accommodations@dentsu.com, quoting the reference number of the role that you are applying for. Your needs will be handled with respect and confidentiality to ensure an inclusive and accessible experience.