Chief Citizen Experience Officer

This senior leadership role involves spearheading the citizen experience strategy for PDA, overseeing the end-to-end public service journeys to ensure they are user-friendly, inclusive, and effective. The successful candidate will develop practical approaches to understanding citizen needs, redesign services across multiple institutions, and implement measurement frameworks to track improvements. This position requires collaboration with various stakeholders to break down barriers, embed human-centred design principles, and lead multidisciplinary initiatives that enhance public service delivery.

Key Responsibilities
Develop and implement the National Citizen Experience Strategy, focusing on life-event journeys such as starting a business or accessing family services. Collaborate with service owners to map citizen journeys, identify policy and operational obstacles, and agree on improvements while establishing accountability across institutional boundaries. Lead the creation and enforcement of service design standards, accessibility guidelines, and reusable design resources, ensuring research and testing are integral to service development. Build and manage a human-centred design capability through an approved centre-of-excellence model, providing journey owners and product teams with expert research and design support. Partner closely with the Chief Product Officer to translate journey priorities into product roadmaps, maintaining oversight of both digital and non-digital service components. Establish and monitor citizen experience metrics including completion rates, satisfaction, accessibility, waiting times, and effort, using segmented data to identify exclusion or poor outcomes. Lead cross-functional improvement initiatives with ministries and delivery partners, reporting progress and unresolved challenges through PDA’s governance structures.

Required Qualifications
A bachelor’s degree in Human-Computer Interaction, Service Design, Design, Psychology, Social Sciences, Public Policy, or a related field is required. A relevant master’s degree is preferred. All qualifications must meet PDA’s recognition and equivalence standards. Candidates must have at least 15 years of progressively responsible experience in citizen or customer experience, service design, or human-centred transformation, including senior leadership roles. A minimum of five years’ experience building and leading a design centre of excellence, journey management capability, or a similar multidisciplinary service improvement function is essential. Proven success in redesigning complex journeys across organisational boundaries and measuring improvements in service outcomes is required. Candidates should be able to present a portfolio or case studies demonstrating research-led design, stakeholder engagement, and implementation within complex institutional environments.

Preferred Qualifications and Benefits
Experience leading service design, experience strategy, or transformation projects within consulting, professional services, or technology advisory firms is desirable. Equivalent achievements within public services, regulated organisations, technology companies, or specialist design firms will also be considered. Experience addressing accessibility issues related to disability, language barriers, digital literacy, and assisted services is advantageous. Key competencies include service design, mixed-method user research, journey governance, accessibility and inclusion, experience measurement, influence without direct authority, and design leadership.

Grade: 13
Vacancies: 1
Experience Required: 15+ years
Maximum Age: 55
Application Deadline: November 9, 2026