Lead Research Strategist

This role is fully remote. Candidates must be based in the United States or Canada. We are Fantasy. For over two decades, we’ve partnered with the likes of Google, Microsoft, Nike, Spotify, and Peacock to build digital products used by billions of people every day. We’re now entering our most ambitious chapter: designing and building the next generation of intelligent experiences, where AI isn’t a chatbox but the orchestrator of truly personal products and brand experiences. Your Role. As a Lead Research Strategist at Fantasy, you will think beyond the ordinary to uncover the signals, trends, and emerging forces shaping the world, and translate them into strategic insight that moves clients forward. This is a role for someone who sees research not as a deliverable, but as a catalyst: a way to reframe how clients understand their customers, their industry, and their future. You will design and lead research programs from end to end, from generative discovery and trends analysis through to concept validation and detailed design, operating with minimal supervision while collaborating closely with cross-functional teams. You will also be among the first to explore and shape Fantasy’s emerging AI-powered research tools and processes, helping define how we work in a new era of intelligent product experiences. What You’ll Do. Research Strategy & Planning

• Diagnose undefined or ambiguous problems and define a research approach that can creatively solve for unique challenges.
• Lead the design, planning, and execution of research programs that support business goals and best-in-class experiences.
• Craft novel research approaches and adaptive plans, including templates and frameworks for future use.

Trends, Foresight & Strategic Intelligence

• Monitor, synthesize, and translate emerging trends, cultural signals, and market shifts into actionable strategic insight for clients.
• Leverage and shape Fantasy’s trends intelligence tool to surface opportunities and inform client strategy and product direction.
• Proactively identify and frame new strategic opportunities for clients based on trend analysis and foresight work.

Research Execution

• Lead projects using a breadth of established qualitative and quantitative methods, while adapting approaches to suit unique project challenges.
• Conduct research including in-depth interviews, surveys, and usability assessments.
• Leverage AI-powered tools and processes to accelerate research workflows, synthesis, and insight generation and experiment with new approaches as the toolset evolves.

Synthesis & Storytelling

• Identify significant insights and synthesize them into actionable reports with minimal oversight or revision.
• Weave together findings to create compelling human stories through behavioral personas, customer journey maps, insights frameworks, and other strategic artifacts.
• Effectively communicate research findings and prioritized recommendations for product management, UX design, marketing, and executive decision makers.

Collaboration & Client Partnership

• Serve as a trusted insight partner to client teams, proactively anticipating research needs and delivering clear recommendations that guide decision-making.
• Partner cross-functionally with designers and strategists to embed insights throughout the creative development process.
• Collaborate successfully with teams across clients, building empathy and shared understanding of real customers.

Experience and Skills

• 7+ years of professional experience in user research, strategic research, or a related insights-driven discipline.
• Ability to lead research projects end-to-end with minimal supervision, across multiple workstreams.
• Strong expertise in mixed-method research methodologies, with clear judgment on methodology selection.
• A genuine curiosity about trends, cultural signals, and foresight, and a track record of translating these into strategic impact.
• Experience with or enthusiasm for AI-powered research tools and a comfort level with experimentation and emerging processes.
• Proficient in data analysis and synthesis, with the ability to distill complex information into clear, compelling narratives.
• Excellent verbal, written, and visual/presentational skills, with the ability to communicate effectively to diverse audiences.
• Experience in an agency or innovation environment is a plus.

Our Commitment. Fantasy has been building diverse, inclusive teams since 1999. We believe the range of perspectives in this building is inseparable from the quality of what we ship. Fantasy is an Equal Opportunity Employer.