Vice President - Customer Strategy

Landmark Group: Our journey started in 1973 with a single store in Bahrain. Since then, we have grown into a global retail and hospitality group. The proud creator of 50 plus value led, own-built brands across retail, hospitality, food, and leisure. Over the years, our UAE-based group has evolved into a comprehensive retail and hospitality entity, with over 2400 retail stores, leisure, and hospitality outlets, spanning the GCC, Middle East, India, Southeast Asia, and Africa.Landmark Group headquartered in Dubai, UAE is one of GCC's largest omnichannel retailers and India's top home and fashion retailer. We take immense pride in the organic growth of our retail brands, which have blossomed into household names. From Max, Splash, Babyshop, Centrepoint, Shoemart, Home Centre, Emax, Fitness First, to Fun City, to name a few, our brands span across a multitude of categories, enriching the lives of countless families over the past decade.Csi (Customer Strategy Intelligence):Csi is a newly established strategic business unit within Landmark Group, bringing together the organization's most critical growth-driving capabilities into one integrated engine. Designed to shape the next phase of retail innovation, Csi unifies Data & Analytics, Loyalty (Shukran), Partnerships & Co-brands, Performance & Digital Marketing, and Customer Product & Martech under one vision. At its core, Csi stands for Customer, Strategy & Intelligence—placing customer experience at the center, enabling smarter business decisions through data, and leveraging AI and Business Intelligence to power every interaction and outcome.Joining Csi means becoming part of a high-impact team where Product, Data, AI, and Customer Experience converge to build solutions that serve millions of customers across multiple brands. This is an opportunity to work on meaningful business challenges, take ownership of strategic initiatives, and help redefine how modern retail operates in the region. We are looking for individuals who think customer-first, enjoy solving complex problems through data and technology, and are passionate about AI, Martech, Product, or Analytics. If you're looking to contribute to a fast-paced, highly visible environment where your work drive real business impact, Csi offers the opportunity to build the future of customer intelligence on a scale.The role of Vice President, Customer Strategy & Activation is a senior leadership role and is accountable for setting the strategic direction and driving the execution of the Group's Shukran Loyalty program, which is Landmark's primary engine for customer acquisition, repeat purchase, and lifetime value across all concepts and territories. The role is also accountable for developing customer strategies for each of Landmark's brands, grounded in primary customer research and segmentation, and translated into concrete plans that the brand and concept teams can execute against. This role also involves working closely with brands and co-develop and drive a clear customer strategy for each brand, translating customer insights into actionable implementation plans with defined levers to improve acquisition, engagement, retention, and business growth.The role owns the definition of the Shukran program (earn and burn rates, tier criteria, member benefits), the modernization of the Shukran brand, the onboarding of new partners onto the program, the education of retail and omni-channel teams on Shukran, and the expansion of Shukran into new geographies. Alongside this, the role develops the customer strategy for each of Landmark's brands and for each country in which the Group operates, grounded in customer research and insights.The role also owns the development and evolution of the Group's Customer Service Product portfolio and takes direct Business Relationship Management responsibility for one to two brands. The incumbent will translate Landmark's customer data into measurable revenue and engagement outcomes and will operate as a strategy-and-execution leader in equal measure, setting the multi-year customer thesis while maintaining operational rigor on program economics, engagement metrics, and delivery velocity.Location - DubaiScope of the RoleShukran Loyalty Program: End-to-end ownership of program definition, brand modernization, partner onboarding, internal education, brand-level customer strategy for Shukran, and geographic expansion.Brand & Group Level Customer Research & Insights: The in-house Customer Research and Customer Insights capabilities that sit within this function and inform strategy across the Group.Country Customer Strategy: The customer strategy and insight agenda for each country in which Landmark operates, run through a Quarterly Business Review cadence with each country head.Business Relationship Management: Direct BRM responsibility for one to two Landmark brands, acting as the CSi owner for their customer agenda end-to-end.Customer Service Product: Development and evolution of the Group's Customer Service Product portfolio, including automated conversational experiences, intelligent customer support, and AI-led service journeys.Qualifications:EducationBachelor's degree required. A postgraduate qualification (MBA, AI, Analytics, or a related discipline) is strongly preferred.Experience16 to 20 years of experience in customer-facing functions, with a primary focus on customer engagement, Data / AI driven customer product. At least 5 of these years must be in a senior leadership role managing multi-disciplinary teams.Demonstrable track record of quantifiable contribution to new customer acquisition, repeat purchase behavior, and customer lifetime value.Experience commissioning, interpreting, and acting on customer research, with the ability to translate research findings into brand strategy, segmentation, and customer value propositions.Hands-on experience of developing or utilizing AI agents and agentic frameworks to enhance customer value, whether in customer support, personalized engagement, journey orchestration, or commercial decisioning.Experience deploying advanced analytics and machine learning into commercial workflows, including customer segmentation, personalization, and campaign optimization.Prior experience operating in the GCC, preferably the UAE, or in a comparable multi-concept consumer environment such as retail, ecommerce, financial services, and/or hospitality.Experience running a P&L or P&L-influencing function, with the ability to build investment cases and challenge commercial assumptions in business reviews.Fluency in English is essential, Arabic language skills are a plus.Functional & Technical CapabilitiesDeep working knowledge of loyalty platforms, and campaign automation tools.Fluency in customer engagement economics, including cohort analysis, retention modelling, and customer lifetime value calculations.Working knowledge of customer research methods, including quantitative segmentation studies, qualitative discovery, U&A research, and customer journey mapping.Working knowledge of AI and agentic product development cycles, including how to scope, prioritize, and govern AI-led customer products.Strong commercial modelling skills, with the ability to interrogate a P&L, build investment cases, and quantify the value of customer activation programs.Familiarity with regional privacy, consent, and consumer protection frameworks.Leadership CapabilitiesStrategic thinking, with the ability to set a multi-year direction and translate it into quarterly executable plans.Executive presence, with credibility at C-suite, Board, and external partner levels.Talent magnet, with a proven ability to attract, develop, and retain senior leaders and to build diverse, high-performing teams.Decisive operator, comfortable making calls under ambiguity and disciplined on follow-through.Cross-functional orchestration, with the ability to align technology, marketing, commercial, and analytics agendas around shared customer outcomes.