Foresight & Future Design Lead

Born and based in Barcelona, Nacar is an award-winning Strategic Design Agency, impassioned by our agile and international team composed of over 90 creative professionals (design strategists, researchers, product and UX / UI designers, engineers, and overall creatives). We work with all-size clients from across multiple industries, collaborating in innovation and establishing solutions and product strategies that apply to Industrial, Digital, Brand and Service Design. We also contribute to their digitalization, by conceptualizing and prototyping new, human centered products and services around technological capabilities. With a hybrid-work model and flexible working hours, we are powered by a culture of communication, collaboration, proactivity and positivity, always aiming to humanize technology experiences and to transform into the phygital future. Our offices, an urban oasis, are located in the beautiful Palo Alto, an old factory in Poblenou, restored and converted into studios for designers and artists. Nacar was made to be a place where people can grow and impact the world, and we’re in continuous growth to always provide our best. Our team is connected by common challenges, eager to discover, envision and materialize new opportunities. Is this something you feel identified with? We're currently looking for a Foresight and Future Design Lead to lead our strategic vertical at Nacar. This is a role that combines two things that rarely go together: the ability to read the world before others do, and the discipline to translate that reading into rigorous and profitable projects. You'll lead with your centre of gravity in foresight: opening up territories of opportunity that others can't see. You'll be the strategic voice that clients look for when they don't yet know what to ask. -What will your day to day be like?- You will: • Act as the vertical's antenna — maintaining a live, first-hand reading of the landscape: trends, weak signals, emerging behaviours and technologies reshaping industries. • Own the Future Opportunity Radar methodology: opportunity radars, future scenarios, tech-to- value mapping and concept provocation cards. • Build editorial presence beyond decks — writing, speaking and publishing with your own voice to elevate the Nacar brand. • Lead the strategic quality of the services within the vertical: Future Opportunity Radar (your natural territory), Insight Engines (research that unlocks real needs)and Product Strategy (defining what to build, under what service logic, and how it evolves). • Provide strategic direction and elevate criteria in services where you're not the hands-on specialist — relying on strategists and researchers from the team to deliver. • Lead the most ambiguous projects within the vertical — those requiring reframing and vision, not just method. • Direct multidisciplinary squads activated by project, elevating the level of everyone working with you — leadership by gravity, not by hierarchy. • Ensure blueprints, roadmaps and research reports have real density and deliver actionable value. • Manage timelines, resources and expectations to keep the vertical profitable. • Act as a trusted advisor to C-level clients — sitting with CXOs, Heads of Strategy and Heads of Innovation, sustaining the conversation as an equal. • Open doors that the rest of the team can't. • Turn foresight findings into new service proposals — identifying where clients need more help before they ask. • Partner with the commercial team on pre-sales of strategic accounts, contributing brief reframing and methodological framing -What are we looking for?- • 5+ years of experience in strategic design or innovation consulting- Ideally with time spent at a generalist player that gave you fluency in business language. • Hybrid career path across the 3 disciplines of the vertical: foresight, user research, and product definition. You don't have to be an expert in all four — but you understand them deeply enough to lead and challenge. • Structural curiosity: you don't just read trends, you decode them. You connect seemingly disconnected signals and build solid arguments. • Authority without arrogance: you can hold your ground with a C-level client without needing to impose your view. • Editorial mindset — you have your own voice and you use it. • Operational discipline: you know that inspiration without delivery doesn't generate recurring business. • Proven leadership in complex projects — activating, challenging and elevating the work of more junior strategists and researchers. Leadership by gravity, not by hierarchy. • Fluent in English (written and spoken); Spanish is a plus. What this role is NOT: • Not a Product Manager or Product Owner. • Not a pure UX researcher. • Not a trend forecaster from a marketing agency. • Not a traditional strategy consultant without design sensibility. • Not a purely intellectual profile that doesn't get hands-on with projects. • It's the rare hybrid between a foresight strategist with their own voice, and an operational lead who sustains the quality of the vertical -Why should you join?- This is a unique opportunity for someone looking for a challenge in the strategy and foresight area and to be part of a center of innovation that is impacting clients all over the world — leading a vertical with real editorial and commercial impact We also offer: Permanent contract. Competitive salary Hybrid working model - you can either work from home or enjoy our beautiful studio (with free coffee and a great garden!). Join a dynamic +15 nationalities community and enjoy our team-building activities. Keep challenging yourself with our Nacar Academy training program, aligned with the creation of personalized career paths. ✨26 paid vacation days. Monthly allowance for internet costs and a budget for working-from-home materials. Health Insurance. Flexible working hours. Free tickets for the Palo Alto Market