Strategy & Experience Lead / Strategy & Experience Associate

About ember

ember is a luxury experiential studio shaping the future of travel, lifestyle and guest experience. We are the Middle East's first luxury experiential brand, endorsed by Forbes Travel Guide. From transformative journeys for ultra-high-net-worth individuals and families to high-impact experiences for governments, sovereign bodies and global corporations, we design journeys, worlds and moments people remember forever.

We operate across two divisions: ember Journeys (B2C luxury travel), and Studio ember (B2B experience strategy and consultancy). We are a small but mighty team, entering one of the most exciting growth phases in our history, and we are seeking people to join us in building it.

We create stories that you'll tell forever.

The Opportunity

These roles span strategy, brand, business development, experience design and creative execution, and they demand people who are genuinely excellent across all of them.

As Strategy & Experience Lead / Strategy & Experience Associate, you will be one of ember's most visible contributors. You will shape how we win new business, how we think about our clients' challenges, and how we bring ember's world to life, both for the brands, companies and governments we serve, and for the ultra-discerning individuals who travel with us.

These are roles for people who thrive under pressure, move fast without losing precision, and find genuine joy in the craft: whether that's the architecture of a pitch, the pacing of a journey, or the visual language of a brand.

What You'll Do

Business Development & Proposals

Lead and craft responses to inbound RFPs and briefs from governments, corporates and luxury brands. Proactively identify and pursue new business opportunities across ember's two divisions. Own the end-to-end pitch process: from brief interpretation and strategic framing to proposal writing, deck design and presentation. Develop compelling, beautifully designed pitch decks that reflect ember's cinematic aesthetic and strategic depth. Build and maintain relationships with key decision-makers across target sectors. Contribute to the development of ember's commercial pipeline and growth strategy.

Strategy

Lead experience and journey strategy for clients; defining what an experience should feel like, how it should flow, and what it should leave behind. Contribute to commercial strategy conversations, identifying growth opportunities and strategic directions for both clients and ember itself. Translate complex briefs and ambiguous challenges into clear, actionable strategic frameworks.

Brand & Brand Marketing

Support and evolve ember's own brand strategy: articulating and refining our vision, mission, brand essence and positioning as the business grows. Develop brand marketing thinking for clients, helping them identify how to communicate their offering to the right audiences. Ensure strategic consistency across all touchpoints, from client-facing materials to internal documents.

Travel & Experience Product Curation

Develop bespoke itineraries and experiential journey concepts for clients across ember Journeys and Studio ember. Bring strategic thinking to the product curation process, ensuring experiences are not just beautiful but purposeful, narratively coherent and aligned with client objectives. Collaborate with the product team to shape new journey collections and thematic experiences.

Creative & Design Execution

Design and produce client-ready decks, proposals and presentations to a high standard using Keynote at minimum, with Adobe Creative Suite or equivalent strongly preferred. Ensure all creative outputs are visually polished, brand-aligned and worthy of the clients we serve. Bring an editorial eye to everything you produce.

Who You Are

The strongest candidates will have 7–10+ years of experience working across luxury travel, lifestyle and brand strategy, with meaningful exposure to business development and the ability to own a pitch from brief to close. A travel editorial background, particularly in roles focused on building, designing, and curating bespoke luxury travel experiences, is highly advantageous and strongly preferred.

They will have worked in environments where the work had to be exceptional, whether that's a luxury travel brand, a boutique strategy consultancy, a creative agency, or a high-end lifestyle business. They understand the language of governments, corporates and ultra-high-net-worth clients, and know how to earn their trust.

They are strategic thinkers who can also make things beautiful. They write well, design well and present with confidence. They are as comfortable in a boardroom as they are building a deck at midnight when the brief just landed.

They don't need to be told what to do twice. They take a direction and run with it, anticipating what's needed, solving problems before they're raised, and delivering work that exceeds expectations. They are energized by ambiguity, not paralyzed by it.

They have high standards and a genuine appreciation for craft: in the experiences they design, the strategies they build and the materials they produce. They understand that in the world ember operates in, the detail is everything.

And beyond the skills, they are people who genuinely love this world. The travel. The design. The storytelling. The access. The people.

What You'll Need

Essential:

• 7–10+ years across luxury travel, lifestyle and brand or experience strategy
• Travel editorial background preferred
• Proven experience contributing to or leading business development, pitching and proposals
• Ability to develop and present strategic frameworks across experience, brand and commercial dimensions
• Outstanding written communication and storytelling skills
• Proficiency in Keynote; advanced design skills (Adobe Creative Suite, InDesign, Figma) strongly preferred
• Experience working with or for governments, corporates or UHNW clients
• A self-starter mentality with the ability to work with minimal oversight

Preferred:

• Agency, consultancy or start-up background
• Experience managing or mentoring junior team members
• Arabic language skills or deep familiarity with GCC markets

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