Chief Citizen Experience Officer

Role Purpose
Lead PDA’s citizen experience strategy and oversight of end-to-end public service journeys. Establish a practical approach to understanding citizen needs, redesigning services across institutions and measuring whether services become easier, more inclusive and more effective.

Key responsibilities

• Develop the National Citizen Experience Strategy and a life-event approach to priority journeys, such as starting a business or accessing family services.
• Work with responsible service owners to map journeys, identify policy and operational barriers, agree improvements and establish accountability across institutional boundaries.
• Lead service design standards, accessibility guidance and reusable design resources, embedding research and testing into service development.
• Build the human-centred design capability and an approved centre-of-excellence model, supporting journey owners and product teams with research and design expertise.
• Partner with the Chief Product Officer to translate end-to-end journey priorities into product roadmaps while retaining visibility of non-digital service steps.
• Establish citizen experience measures covering completion, satisfaction, accessibility, waiting time and effort; use segmented evidence to identify exclusion or poor outcomes.
• Lead multidisciplinary improvement initiatives with ministries and delivery partners and report progress and unresolved barriers through PDA’s governance arrangements.

Education

Bachelor’s degree in Human-Computer Interaction, Service Design, Design, Psychology, Social Sciences, Public Policy or a related discipline. A relevant master’s degree is preferred. Qualifications must meet PDA’s applicable recognition and equivalence requirements.
Essential experience

• At least 15 years of progressively responsible relevant professional experience in citizen or customer experience, service design or human-centred transformation, including senior leadership responsibility.
• At least five years building and leading a design centre of excellence, journey management capability or comparable multidisciplinary service improvement function.
• Evidence of redesigning complex journeys across organisational boundaries and measuring improvements in service outcomes.
• A portfolio or case studies demonstrating research-led design, stakeholder influence and implementation in complex institutional environments.

Desirable experience
Leadership of service design, experience strategy or transformation engagements in consulting, professional services or technology advisory is desirable. Equivalent achievements within public services, regulated organisations, technology companies or specialist design firms will be equally considered. Experience addressing disability access, language, digital literacy and assisted service needs is advantageous.
Key competencies
Service design; mixed-method user research; journey governance; accessibility and inclusion; experience measurement; influence without line authority; design leadership.