Senior Immersive Experience Facilitator
Ernst & Young AE
8–12 years of experience
Job description
Your key responsibilities
Executive facilitation in immersive environments
- Lead high-stakes sessions for C-suite executives, board members and ministerial audiences, including plenary discussions, structured activities, breakout conversations, synthesis and outcome development.
- Facilitate intensive, inquiry-led conversations that challenge assumptions, uncover the underlying issue and guide senior stakeholders toward informed decisions.
- Integrate immersive spaces, live demonstrations, simulations and data visualizations into the client conversation rather than using them simply as presentation elements.
- Create an inclusive and psychologically safe environment that encourages meaningful participation throughout the experience.
- Apply strong listening skills, emotional intelligence and executive presence to manage energy, ambiguity, conflict and politically sensitive viewpoints in real time.
- Guide stakeholders toward alignment while preserving the complexity of the challenge and ensuring that all relevant perspectives are considered.
Experience shaping and curation
- Shape each engagement before detailed design begins by aligning with account, sector and alliance leaders on the client problem, audience, intended decisions and measures of success.
- Design the end-to-end client journey across discovery, co-creation and transformation formats.
- Select the spaces, content, demonstrations, activities and prototypes that best support the client s objectives.
- Brief the hub s immersive designer, technical lead and engineering team on what should be developed, adapted or visualized.
- Direct external content or experience agencies when required.
- Lead sessions delivered alongside technology alliance partners while ensuring EY retains ownership of the agenda, narrative and client outcomes.
- Ensure that every activity has a clear purpose, intended outcome and connection to the overall client challenge.
Applied innovation and prototype direction
- Translate ambiguous challenges into clearly defined opportunity areas, hypotheses and use cases grounded in business value and human needs.
- Prioritize AI and technology use cases using criteria such as desirability, feasibility, viability, responsible AI and adoption readiness.
- Translate technical possibilities into executive-relevant narratives, choices and investment decisions for both business and technology audiences.
- Define what each prototype should prove, including its purpose, assumptions, success measures, guardrails and appropriate level of fidelity.
- Direct designers and engineers to ensure that prototypes remain connected to the client problem and intended user experience, without being required to act as the primary software engineer.
- Embed responsible AI, data privacy, security, governance and ethical considerations into concept and prototype decisions from the outset.
Commercial conversion and handover
- Produce clear outputs from each engagement, including a sharpened problem statement, prioritized use cases and a recommended prototype or proof-of-concept pathway.
- Prepare structured handover packs with clear recommendations, agreed success criteria, a proposed funding route and a named owner within the relevant EY service line.
- Connect experience outcomes to qualified client opportunities, proposals, pilots and follow-on work.
- Build trusted relationships with senior clients, ecosystem partners and technology providers.
- Work with account and service line teams to maintain momentum following each engagement.
Hub practice contribution
- Maintain and continuously improve the hub s session library, experience journeys and facilitation assets.
- Retire outdated formats and recommend new experiences based on client demand, technology developments and market priorities.
- Feed client insights and recurring demand themes into the hub s use-case and prototyping backlog.
- Codify reusable facilitation formats, journey designs and prototype playbooks.
- Contribute to thought leadership, market eminence and the external visibility of the Riyadh Innovation Hub.
- Share lessons and leading practices across EY s broader wavespace and innovation center network.
Skills and attributes for success
To be successful in this role, you will bring:
Executive presence: The credibility and confidence to lead C-suite, board and ministerial audiences through intensive discussions and contested topics toward clear decisions.
Immersive experience design: The ability to design journeys across physical spaces, content, live technology and key experience moments rather than relying primarily on presentation materials.
Facilitation expertise: Strong command of facilitation, Design Thinking and co-creation methods, with the judgment to adapt approaches to the client problem.
Applied technology fluency: The ability to explain generative AI, agentic AI, digital twins, simulation, automation and data-enabled products in practical business terms, including their capabilities and limitations.
Prototype direction: Experience defining and directing prototypes and proofs of concept in collaboration with designers and engineers.
Commercial mindset: The ability to connect client experiences to measurable outcomes, qualified opportunities and follow-on work for EY.
Strategic thinking: Strong problem-framing, storytelling, synthesis and decision-support capabilities.
Global client perspective: The ability to work effectively with multinational executive teams and international technology partners, adapting your approach across cultures, sectors and levels of seniority.
Stakeholder management: The confidence to collaborate with senior account leaders, sector teams, service lines, alliance partners, technical teams and external agencies.
Responsible innovation: An understanding of responsible AI, security, privacy, governance and ethical considerations within technology-enabled transformation.
Executive presence: The credibility and confidence to lead C-suite, board and ministerial audiences through intensive discussions and contested topics toward clear decisions.
Immersive experience design: The ability to design journeys across physical spaces, content, live technology and key experience moments rather than relying primarily on presentation materials.
Facilitation expertise: Strong command of facilitation, Design Thinking and co-creation methods, with the judgment to adapt approaches to the client problem.
Applied technology fluency: The ability to explain generative AI, agentic AI, digital twins, simulation, automation and data-enabled products in practical business terms, including their capabilities and limitations.
Prototype direction: Experience defining and directing prototypes and proofs of concept in collaboration with designers and engineers.
Commercial mindset: The ability to connect client experiences to measurable outcomes, qualified opportunities and follow-on work for EY.
Strategic thinking: Strong problem-framing, storytelling, synthesis and decision-support capabilities.
Global client perspective: The ability to work effectively with multinational executive teams and international technology partners, adapting your approach across cultures, sectors and levels of seniority.
Stakeholder management: The confidence to collaborate with senior account leaders, sector teams, service lines, alliance partners, technical teams and external agencies.
Responsible innovation: An understanding of responsible AI, security, privacy, governance and ethical considerations within technology-enabled transformation.
To qualify for the role, you must have
- Between 8 and 12 years of progressively senior experience across consulting, strategy, client-facing innovation or a related field.
- At least three years of experience within an innovation center, executive briefing center, customer experience center or comparable immersive client environment.
- A proven record of leading high-stakes sessions for C-suite executives, board members or ministerial-level audiences.
- Significant experience supporting multinational organizations and international clients, ideally within a global network of innovation or experience centers.
- External consulting, advisory, innovation studio or senior client-facing experience. Experience limited solely to internal program facilitation will not be sufficient.
- Demonstrated experience designing client engagements in which live technology, demonstrations or immersive media were central to the experience.
- A proven record of directing prototypes or proofs of concept with designers and engineers, from initial problem framing through validation.
- Working fluency in generative AI, agentic AI, automation and data, at the level required to frame use cases and constructively challenge solution choices.
- Strong storytelling, structured thinking and synthesis skills.
- The ability to operate effectively in situations involving uncertainty, complexity and changing priorities.
- Evidence of converting client sessions into practical commercial next steps, such as proposals, pilots or follow-on engagements.
- Excellent written and spoken English, with the executive presence required to lead senior international audiences.
Ideally, you ll also have
- A degree or recognized qualification in innovation, Design Thinking, service design, product management, artificial intelligence, technology, business or a related discipline.
- Experience establishing, launching or relaunching an innovation or client experience center.
- Experience working with clients in the energy, infrastructure, industrial or public sectors.
- Experience collaborating with technology alliance partners, including cloud providers, software companies and hardware vendors.
- Hands-on familiarity with low-code, no-code, generative AI or rapid prototyping environments.
- A recognized facilitation certification.
- A visible contribution to thought leadership, innovation communities or relevant industry forums.
- Arabic-language capabilities.
- Current residence in Riyadh. Candidates based elsewhere may be considered on a case-by-case basis.