Job Opportunities API

Principal Consultant – CRM & Next-Best-Action Decisioning The Role We’re looking for a Principal Consultant specialising in CRM & Next-Best-Action Decisioning (NBA) to join our growing Customer Strategy & Engagement team. This is an exciting opportunity for somebody with 4+ years’ consulting or relevant in-house experience, who is eager to make an impact at the intersection of marketing, technology and customer experience. As part of our project teams, you will help leading organisations modernise how they plan, deliver and measure customer engagement, collaborating with clients to design future-fit customer engagement strategies, martech roadmaps, and marketing ops models, that drive real business outcomes and deliver more personalised and effective customer experiences. This a role that offers variety, challenge and the chance to learn from senior experts, while shaping the future of customer-centric marketing with some of the UK’s most ambitious and well-known brands. Key Responsibilities Shape and own enterprise-level customer engagement and NBA strategies that connect marketing, data, and technology to deliver business growth and customer value. Set the strategic direction for client maturity progression - architecting the roadmap from campaign-based engagement to fully autonomous, real-time decisioning ecosystems. Define the vision and guardrails for the use of AI, adaptive models, and contextual data - ensuring responsible, value-driven application of advanced NBA capabilities. Oversee translation of business strategy into decisioning blueprints, prioritised use cases, and measurable success outcomes across multiple channels and lifecycle stages. Influence data and martech strategies to ensure readiness, integration, and scalability of NBA capability within the client’s ecosystem. Establish enterprise measurement frameworks that quantify customer and commercial impact, embedding experimentation and continuous optimisation as business-as-usual. Govern experimentation and value measurement across programmes, ensuring rigour, comparability, and clear executive storytelling of performance and ROI. Articulate and simplify complex decisioning concepts for senior stakeholders, influencing investment and operating model decisions. Design and embed governance and operating models that enable sustainable NBA management, continuous learning, and cross-functional alignment. Lead and mentor multi-disciplinary teams, developing consultants and client practitioners to build enduring NBA capability. Develop and evolve Optima’s intellectual property, accelerators, and methodologies that enhance market differentiation and delivery excellence in NBA decisioning. Act as a senior client partner, trusted advisor, and thought leader across accounts and industry forums, shaping the future direction of data-driven engagement. Skills & Experience Essential 8+ years’ experience delivering data-driven marketing, CRM, or decisioning initiatives at a consultancy, agency or relevant industry role. Experience with technical configuration or integration of NBA/CRM platforms, including understanding of data pipelines, APIs, and workflow automation. Proven ability to shape and lead large-scale decisioning transformation programmes from strategy to deployment. Demonstrated experience defining NBA operating models, governance, and measurement frameworks. Skilled at advising senior stakeholders on how to scale NBA and AI-driven engagement. Leads teams of consultants and client personnel to design and implement NBA frameworks. Expertise in arbitration design, decision strategies, and business prioritisation. Shapes roadmaps and maturity progression — guiding clients from campaigns to always-on NBA decisioning. Strong client relationship and delivery management experience across complex, multi-stakeholder environments. Coaches and mentors teams to build client capability and ad