Director, Growth & Customer Experience Strategy

Job Description:

Upbound Group 

Director, Customer Growth (On-site – Plano, Texas or Draper, Utah)

Upbound Group, Inc. (NASDAQ: UPBD) is a technology and data-driven leader in accessible and inclusive financial solutions that address the evolving needs and aspirations of underserved customers. The company’s operating units — Acima, Brigit, and Rent-A-Center — enable consumer transactions across both digital and store-based channels, including more than 2,300 retail locations in the U.S., Mexico, and Puerto Rico.

Upbound Group, Inc. is headquartered in Plano, Texas.

JOB OVERVIEW:

The Director, Customer Growth leads Upbound’s enterprise-wide customer-focused growth, turning customer understanding into business action across brands.  This role reports to the Vice President of Customer Experience and Insights.

This leader guides a team of Customer Experience and Growth Specialists responsible for key stages of the customer journey, partnering across Product, Design, Marketing, and Data to orchestrate seamless, insight-driven experiences. This role partners closely with the Customer Insights peer team that owns understanding the customer through research, VOC, segmentation, and market intelligence.  The leader translates customer understanding into business action: journey orchestration, experimentation, and measurement frameworks that fuels customer growth and loyalty.

DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES:

Business Strategy Alignment & Customer-Centricity

• Pace enterprise and brand strategy to evolving customer needs, ensuring Upbound’s Growth Office and brand goals reflect customer-centric priorities.

• Translate customer understanding delivered by Customer Insights into a multi-year roadmap that improves ease, engagement, and lifetime value.

• Embed customer-centric business design into enterprise planning, innovation, and transformation efforts; including pricing, policy, process, and operating-model decisions, not just journey touchpoints.

Journey Leadership & Orchestration

• Lead a team of Customer Experience and Growth Specialists who own the business POV of the customer and coworker journey across Upbound’s brands

• Support the team in developing key customer initiatives and roadmap that document the current state customer experience of key moments, the future state, and the change needed to drive improved experience and business outcomes

• Partner with Product, Design, and Marketing to create cohesive, data-informed customer journeys and orchestration maps, applying personas and segments

• Influence design direction to align with journey strategy and customer insights.

Experimentation & Continuous Improvement

• Champion a test-and-learn culture that promotes data-driven decision making.

• Use rapid prototyping and concept validation to make future-state journey or business concepts tangible and testable within days, before committing to a full build.

• Translate experimentation results into scalable improvements across digital and service touchpoints.

Insight Activation & Measurement Partnership

• Partner with Customer Insights to receive and set a roadmap for VOC, analytics, and research findings, that generate actionable journey and business improvements.

• Partner with Customer Insights on data collection and integration requirements needed to support personalization, measurement, and feedback loops.

• Own the measurement framework for business and activation outcomes, KPIs and dashboards tracking the business impact of customer-centric changes 

• Build the business case and ROI models to set roadmap priority for customer-centric investments

Leadership & Collaboration

• Represent the business and activation point of view in executive discussions, linking customer growth metrics to business results, and establish a structured cadence of executive governance holding the organization accountable to customer-growth commitments.

• Partner with Brand and Marketing teams on cross-channel consistency

• Foster a collaborative, customer-centric culture, including equipping, training, and incentivizing frontline and operational teams to deliver improved experience.

ADDITIONAL / SHARED RESPONSIBILITIES:

• Collaborate with key business stakeholders on strategic initiative development and execution, ensuring alignment to customer expectations

• Partner with Product and Digital teams to embed experimentation into agile delivery cycles.

• Align with Brand and Marketing on cross-channel consistency, personalization, brand voice, and value prop

SKILLS AND QUALIFICATIONS:

• 10+ years of experience in customer growth, business strategy, or digital strategy leadership; 5+ years in senior management leading teams that drive project execution

• Bachelor’s degree required; MBA or advanced degree preferred.

• Proven success activating large-scale customer-centric initiatives within business strategy and operations, with measurable results.

• Strong understanding of journey orchestration, experimentation, measurement, and business case/ROI modeling; ability to translate customer insight into execution.

• Experience leading multi-brand or cross-functional growth and activation initiatives.

• Executive communication and influence skills; ability to align across diverse teams.

• Experience in fintech, retail, or financial services preferred.

Upbound Group is an equal opportunity employer. We celebrate diversity and are committed to creating an inclusive environment for all employees.