Strategy Director – Loyalty Consulting

Collinson is the global privately-owned company dedicated to helping the world to travel with ease and confidence. The group offers a unique blend of industry and sector specialists who together provide market-leading airport experiences loyalty and customer engagement and insurance solutions for over 400 million consumers.

Collinson is the operator of Priority Pass the worlds original and leading airport experiences programme. Travellers can access a network of 1500 lounges and travel experiences including dining retail sleep and spa in over 650 airports in 148 countries helping to elevate the journey into something special. We work with the worlds leading payment networks over 1400 banks 90 airlines and 20 hotel groups worldwide.

We have been bringing innovation to the market since inception from launching the first independent global VIP lounge access Programme Priority Pass to being the first to sell direct travel insurance in the UK through Columbus Direct and creating the first loyalty agency of its kind in the travel sector with ICLP. Today we still invest heavily in innovation to ensure that we continue to deliver superior customer experiences.

Key clients include Mastercard American Express Cathay Pacific British Airways LATAM Flying Blue Accor EasyJet HSBC Chase HDFC.

Our mission is focused on doing good beyond profit which for us means we seek out opportunities for our people to share in our success and that we give back to the communities and people within which we work.

Never short of ambition the success of our business is delivered through the diverse and talented team of over 2200 global colleagues.

Purpose of the job

This is a senior strategy hire into our consulting business. You will work closely with the VP Loyalty Consulting owning major client workstreams from inception to delivery - leading the thinking shaping the narrative and ensuring that every piece of work reflects the depth and rigour that our clients require.

This is a strategy role that takes data seriously. We are evidence-led in everything we do: the commercial case for a programme lives or dies on the quality of the insight behind it and the best strategic work here is built on a genuine understanding of what the numbers are saying. You dont need to be a data scientist but you need to be someone who reaches for the evidence first who asks the right questions of analysts and who knows how to turn data into a compelling strategic argument.

Equally this role requires genuine creativity. Loyalty strategy is not a formula. The leap from insight to a proposition that will change customer behaviour or from a clients commercial problem to a programme design that solves it requires imagination as much as rigour. We are looking for someone who can make those leaps who produces work that surprises clients in the best possible way.

As a team we are operating in a rapidly maturing loyalty landscape: nearly 70% of programmes are now over three years old confidence in ROI is still patchy (only two-thirds of operators are fully confident in their measurement) and the gap between psychological design intent and actual execution is significant - fewer than a third of operators actively design for emotional connection. The consequence is that we are continually evolving our thinking and approach and you will help us continually challenges ourselves to understand of the landscape and bring that thinking to bear in service of our clients and prospects.

Key Responsibilities

Client strategy and programme design

Lead strategy development across major loyalty accounts from initial diagnostic and opportunity sizing through to programme design commercial modelling and go-to-market planning

Own the strategic narrative on client engagements - structuring complex problems commissioning research and data analysis synthesising those findings into clear recommendations and presenting with confidence at senior levels

Work with and enhance existing frameworks for programme evaluation including commercial modelling incrementality modelling headroom analysis share-of-wallet assessment and behavioural segmentation

Lead workshop design and facilitation with clients from discovery sessions that surface the real commercial question through to strategic alignment workshops that get the right people in the room making the right decisions

Have a point of view on what good looks like: understand how the strongest long-term programmes (Clubcard Avios Nectar others) have stayed relevant how non-traditional models are working (M&S Sparks) and how that applies to the client and prospect challenges we are exploring

Experience & Skills

Experience

Experience in loyalty CRM consulting or customer engagement strategy you dont need to have spent your career in loyalty but you should have worked with loyalty clients and have a clear sense of what makes programmes succeed or fail

A track record of leading complex multi-stakeholder strategy projects from brief to delivery including direct client involvement at senior level (Account handling and Programme Management will run the project but the Strategy Director will have significant client exposure and involvement)

Experience designing or advising on loyalty and/or customer engagement programmes not just optimising activities but engaging with the more difficult strategic questions: what should this programme fundamentally be what behaviour is it trying to change and what does it need to be/become to achieve this

Strong relationship with data and insight: you are someone who starts with the evidence who knows how to interrogate analysis and who builds arguments on a foundation of proof rather than instinct alone

Comfort with commercial modelling: you dont need to build the models yourself but you need to understand them pressure-test them and know when the numbers are telling the right story

Experience in transport financial services retail or travel is an advantage though intellectual curiosity and the ability understand a new sector quickly matters more than category expertise Skills and capabilities

Outstanding written and verbal communication: you write clearly structure arguments rigorously and can take a complex brief and turn it into a narrative that moves a room

Strong facilitation: you can run a workshop with a room full of senior clients hold the space and extract genuine strategic insight from the conversation

A genuine creative instinct - you can make the leap from insight to idea from problem to proposition. Strategy at its best is inventive and we expect this person to produce work that is genuinely surprising as well as intellectually sound

Data literacy and insight-driven thinking: you have an instinct to reach for evidence strong experience with data as a strategic tool and the ability to translate analytical output into clear strategic direction

Intellectual curiosity and range: you read widely have genuine views on loyalty and are interested in the psychology economics and behavioural science that underpin how programmes actually work

A bias for clarity over complexity: the best strategy work makes the difficult simple not the simple complicated

Commercial instinct you understand that loyalty is ultimately there to solve business problems About you

You are a self-starter who can create excellent work in a consultancy environment it is a relatively autonomous environment you are happy to work independently

You are collaborative without being passive: you have a point of view you will argue for it but you bring people with you

You are comfortable in a fast-paced environment

You are curious and not afraid to challenge the fundamentals but in a way that ensures clients feel supported and understood

You are using AI tools in a supportive and intelligent way the work remains indelibly yours but with the aid of tools that provide depth challenge and insight

You take quality seriously - the work that goes to clients reflects what Collinson is capable of and you feel that responsibility

Why Join Us

This is an opportunity to work on some of the organisations most strategic and visible client programmes partnering with globally recognised brands and major transport and travel organisations. The role offers the opportunity to combine strategic client leadership with programme delivery in a fast-paced and collaborative environment.

Col

linson is an equal opportunity employer and welcomes differences in all their forms including: colour race ethnicity gender identity sexual orientation neurodivergence family status age individuals with disabilities and people from all backgrounds cultures and experiences as we strongly believe this contributes to our on-going success.

We are focused on continually evolving our purpose driven high performing culture providing an environment where our people have the opportunity to achieve their full potential and do interesting and meaningful work. Our company values are: Take Action Do the right thing One team and Be insight led. These help guide everything we do internally in terms of how we think act and interact right through to how we deliver value to our customers and clients.

In your application please feel free to note which pronouns you use (For example - she/her/hers he/him/his they/them/theirs etc).

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