UX Research Lead

Key Responsibilities

• Deliver & Operate Day-to-day and near-term research leadership that drives business outcomes through rigorous, credible insight.
  • Lead and manage the full research lifecycle for assigned product domains from scoping and methodology design through execution, analysis, synthesis, and stakeholder delivery.
  • Define and maintain an annual research roadmap aligned to business priorities, product roadmaps, and client experience goals; continuously reprioritize in response to emerging business needs.
  • Oversee mixed-methods research programs, deploying the appropriate methodology, including survey research, in-product intercepts, behavioral analytics, usability studies, longitudinal panels, regression and driver analysis.
  • Serve as the primary research partner to senior stakeholders across Product Management, Technology, Design, and Business leadership; build trust through rigorous methodology, reproducible findings, and consistent delivery.
  • Champion the voice of the client in product and strategy discussions; synthesize complex, multi-source data into clear, actionable recommendations that influence product roadmaps and design direction.
  • Ensure research quality and methodological integrity across all team outputs; establish peer review and documentation standards that maintain credibility at executive and regulatory levels.
  • Manage and mentor junior and mid-level researchers, providing guidance on methodology, communication, and professional development; foster a high-performing, learning-oriented research culture.
  • Track and communicate research impact, connecting insights to downstream product decisions, measuring the ROI of research investments, and reporting progress to leadership.
  • Collaborate with Data, Analytics, and CX teams to integrate behavioral and quantitative signals with self-reported research data, enabling richer, more holistic client understanding.
  • Present findings and recommendations to audiences ranging from product squads to Director-level and above; adapt communication style to build understanding and inspire action across functions.
• Transform & Innovate
  • Evolve the UX Research function in alignment with AI advancements and the digital delivery lifecycle.
    • Define the strategic vision for AI-integrated UX Research at Citi, identifying where AI tools, intelligent knowledge repositories, and automated synthesis can meaningfully augment (not replace) human research judgment.
    • Lead the design and implementation of a living research intelligence layer (e.g., a structured, queryable knowledge repository) that makes accumulated client insights accessible on-demand across the PDLC by shifting research from reactive to proactive.
    • Establish a proactive research cadence, including always-on behavioral data ingestion, rapid weekly insight dispatch, and quarterly foundational studies so that client intelligence is generated ahead of demand, not in response to it.
    • Drive the integration of AI-assisted research workflows, including AI-powered synthesis, automated transcript coding, survey quality flagging, longitudinal trend tracking, and concept pre-testing through synthetic panel methodologies.
    • Define governance standards for AI use in research, including confidence weighting, freshness models, PII scanning, hallucination detection, and researcher-in-the-loop review protocols to ensure responsible, auditable AI deployment.
    • Partner with Engineering, AI/ML, and Platform teams to architect the technical infrastructure required to support an intelligent, always-on research knowledge system built on Citi's internal infrastructure.
    • Establish or scale a UX Research Center of Excellence (CoE), building frameworks, playbooks, templates, and training materials that elevate research literacy and quality across the broader Design & Product organization.
    • Identify and evaluate emerging research methodologies and tools, including generative AI for insight synthesis, automated usability testing platforms, and synthetic user modeling, with a rigorous lens on methodological validity and responsible use.
    • Shape how UX Research integrates into Agile and AI-enabled delivery practices, defining clear research touchpoints at every PDLC gate (discovery, definition, design, development, and post-launch) to ensure decisions are grounded in client evidence at every stage.
    • Build organizational research literacy by coaching cross-functional partners, including Product Managers, Designers, and Technology leads on research fundamentals, interpretation of findings, and how to commission effective research.
    • Represent the UX Research function at the executive level, advocating for research investment, communicating strategic priorities, and positioning the function as a core driver of business value rather than a downstream support service.

Qualifications

• 10+ years of relevant experience
• Strong attention to detail & analytical skills
• Significant experience on complex, enterprise-scale design projects
• Excellent communication and presentation skills
• Excellent skills in professional design tools e.g., Sketch, Figma, AdobeXD, Axure, InVision etc.
• Significant experience using/creating design systems
• Significant aptitude for coaching and mentoring junior designers
• Keen interest in, or knowledge of, banking or finance