Strategy and Organisational Design Director in London

IDEO London is looking for a Strategy and Organisational Design Director who understands that strategy without activation is just intention — and that the gap between ambition and reality is where organisations most need a thinking partner.

This is a senior role for someone who reads organisations the way a designer reads a brief: with curiosity about what's really going on beneath the surface, and with a clear instinct for where the real levers for change are. You understand how systems work — how structure, incentives, culture, and leadership interact to make or break a strategy — and you know how to work with those forces rather than against them.

When organisations are navigating something genuinely hard or new — adapting to AI, restructuring how decisions get made, building new capabilities, shifting culture, or figuring out what to stop doing — they don't need more frameworks or slides. They need someone who can help them see the system clearly, make honest choices, and design a path forward that will actually stick. And they need the confidence to act.

You’ll spend most of your time leading complex client engagements, particularly in our Health portfolio, directing multidisciplinary teams and building trusted relationships with senior leaders. Alongside that, you’ll help build something: IDEO London’s strategy and organisational design practice, at a moment when the studio is intentionally investing in depth, expertise, and the kind of work that moves organisations forward rather than producing reports about them.

Organisations today are facing increasing pressure to evolve: adapting to new technologies, shifting customer expectations, changing workforce dynamics, and growing complexity across systems and markets. Strategy alone is not enough. Organisations need support translating ambition into the structures, behaviours, capabilities, and ways of working that make change real.

This role sits at the heart of that shift. The clients who need us most are navigating real transformation — health organisations reinventing how they deliver care, companies trying to embed AI into how their people work, leadership teams grappling with the human cost of change that's moving too fast. They need someone who can see the whole system, name what’s really holding things back, and design interventions that create lasting change rather than temporary momentum.

Strategy at IDEO is not just about the quality of the thinking in the room. It’s about what happens when the engagement ends. This role exists to make sure that gap closes.

Once here you will:

• Lead complex strategy and organisational design engagements from framing through to activation — not just defining the direction, but designing what needs to change for that direction to become real.
• Read organisations as systems: understand the structures, incentives, behaviours, and cultures that shape how things actually work, and identify the levers most likely to drive meaningful, lasting change.
• Act as a senior client partner — building trust with leadership teams over time, shaping the conversation before the brief is written, scoping opportunities, and staying invested in outcomes long after the engagement closes.
• Direct multidisciplinary teams across strategy, research, and design, holding both rigour and creativity, and keeping work grounded in what will genuinely move the organisation forward.
• Help clients make honest strategic choices — not just articulating ambition, but surfacing trade‑offs, challenging assumptions, and aligning leadership around what they’re actually committing to.
• Prototype strategic and organisational futures in practice: test ideas through experimentation and iteration so clients build real confidence before they scale.
• Facilitate executive conversations that advance decisions rather than defer them — bringing both structure and sensitivity to rooms where the stakes are high and consensus is hard.
• Contribute to IDEO’s strategy and organisational design practice: develop methods, build POVs, mentor colleagues, and help make the studio’s expertise visible and distinctive.
• Coach and mentor designers and project leads, modelling excellent client communication, facilitation, and strategic thinking.
• Help clients navigate the human dimensions of AI adoption — how organisations restructure for it, how teams build confidence with it, and how leaders model the change they’re asking of others.
• Represent IDEO externally through writing, talks, and relationships — contributing to how the studio is known in the market for the quality and seriousness of its strategy work.

We’re looking for someone with a strong track record leading innovation, strategy and organisational design engagements — in consulting, in‑house, or both — with the scars and the wisdom that come from seeing what it actually takes to make change stick.

A genuine systems thinker: you understand how organisations work as interconnected wholes, and you know how to identify the structural, behavioural, and cultural levers that matter most.

Someone who is as comfortable designing an organisational future as they are facilitating the difficult leadership conversation that makes it real — you move between strategy and making with ease.

Experience helping organisations navigate real transformation: not just documenting what needs to change, but designing the conditions — structures, capabilities, rhythms, behaviours — that allow change to take hold.

Strong facilitation and narrative skills, including the ability to hold senior executive rooms with clarity and care, and to build alignment across organisations where people genuinely disagree.

People leadership that creates conditions for good work — you know how to direct a multidisciplinary team, develop junior talent, and maintain creative rigour under pressure.

Experience scoping and building new client relationships — you’re comfortable writing a proposal, shaping a brief, and growing an.