Edel MaddenCX Strategy & Design

Senior CX Strategy & Design Consultant

Senior CX and design leadership, on a retainer that fits.

I partner with organisations to solve complex customer experience challenges, shape digital and service experiences, and turn customer insight into strategic direction.

Fractional leadership · Part-time engagements · Ongoing retainers

Portrait of Edel Madden
Edel Madden · Melbourne

Organisations I've worked with

Where I help

Three situations that bring organisations to me.

Direction

The experience needs a clearer direction

Customer experiences are fragmented, customer needs are not well understood, or digital and service experiences are not meeting expectations. I help you see what is happening, find the opportunities and settle on a practical strategy for improvement.

Leadership

The team needs senior design leadership

I bring experienced strategic thinking and design leadership to guide initiatives, align stakeholders and help teams move important work forward.

Change

The organisation is navigating change

I bring a human-centred perspective to digital transformation, service improvement and emerging opportunities, so decisions are informed and ideas turn into action.

Services

Three capabilities that work as one.

Research shows what customers need. Strategy decides where to focus. Design turns both into better experiences. Use each on its own or combine them in a broader engagement.

Understand

Research & Insight

Customer needs, behaviours and experiences, so decisions rest on evidence.

  • Customer and user research
  • Interviews and usability research
  • Synthesis of needs, pain points and unmet needs
  • Recommendations people can act on
You getA stronger evidence base for product, strategy and experience decisions.

Decide

CX Strategy

A clear view of the current experience and a practical direction for improving it.

  • CX vision, assessments and experience reviews
  • Journey mapping and opportunity prioritisation
  • CX roadmaps and service improvement strategy
  • Stakeholder alignment and strategic workshops
You getClarity on which opportunities matter most and how to move forward.

Build

Experience Design

Human-centred design applied to digital and service experiences.

  • Service and experience design
  • Current-state and future-state journeys
  • Concept development and validation
  • Experience principles and design direction
You getExperiences that respond to customer needs and support organisational goals.

Also available: human-centred AI opportunity assessments for organisations deciding where AI can improve the customer experience.

Ways to work together

Senior expertise on a rhythm that suits you.

Most of my work is ongoing, with a partner who knows your organisation and supports your priorities as they change. Projects sit alongside that for defined challenges.

Ongoing

Strategic Design Retainer

Regular access to senior CX strategy and experience design expertise, for organisations that do not need a dedicated fractional lead.

  • Ongoing CX strategy and advice
  • Research and insight support
  • Experience reviews and recommendations
  • Workshops and stakeholder alignment
  • Design direction for internal teams
Agreed monthly fee, scope and timeRegular reviews of fit

Embedded

Fractional CX & Design Leadership

Strategic direction and design leadership without a permanent full-time role.

  • Set CX and design direction
  • Lead strategic initiatives
  • Guide research and design work
  • Build design capability

A typical week

2 to 3 days per weekAgreed period · remote-first

Defined

Strategic Projects

Focused expertise for a specific challenge with clear scope and deliverables.

  • CX assessments
  • Research and discovery
  • Journey and service reviews
  • CX strategy and roadmaps
  • Human-centred AI opportunity assessments
Defined scope and timeframeProject-based pricing

Fees depend on scope, responsibilities, time commitment and duration, so I do not publish a rate card. Engagements can be combined, and a project often grows into a retainer.

Discuss an engagement

Why work with me

What a senior partner brings that a task-based freelancer does not.

Nearly two decades of practice

Across customer experience, strategic design and digital experiences.

Led teams, not only projects

Seven to eight years of design leadership, including in enterprise organisations.

Research, strategy and design together

One practitioner who can move from customer insight to practical experience design.

Fluent in complex organisations

Comfortable with ambiguity, and practised at aligning stakeholders.

Customer needs tied to business priorities

A human-centred approach that connects what customers need with what the organisation is trying to achieve.

Senior, without the headcount

Flexible access to senior expertise without a full-time appointment.

Who I work with

Organisations that want a senior partner, not extra hands.

Corporates

Heads of CX, design and product, digital and transformation leaders, and programme directors with important initiatives and not enough senior capacity. They need experienced support to understand customers before investing, and to turn research into action.

Suits: retainer or fractional

Agencies & consultancies

Firms that need a senior practitioner for complex client work: discovery, research, strategy, stakeholder facilitation or design leadership on a programme. Flexible specialist capacity without a permanent hire.

Suits: retainer or project

Growing businesses

Businesses building their digital products, services or customer experience who want strategic guidance now and are not ready for a full internal team. A steady monthly arrangement keeps experienced judgement close.

Suits: monthly retainer

How it starts

A conversation first, then an arrangement that fits.

1

A conversation

We talk through what you are working on, where you need support and whether a retainer, a fractional role or a project fits.

2

A shape

I propose a scope, time allocation and fee based on the responsibilities involved and how long you need me.

3

A rhythm

We begin, with regular reviews so the arrangement keeps meeting your organisation's needs.

I work alongside your leadership, product, design and delivery teams, remote-first, with time on site when it adds value. The aim is an ongoing relationship, not one-off design production.

Experience

Nearly two decades inside the organisations I now advise.

Nearly 20years in customer experience, strategic design and digital experiences
7 to 8years of leadership experience, including leading teams in enterprise organisations
8sectors, from financial services and retail to energy and automotive

Sectors

TechnologyFinancial servicesRetailSportWageringHigher educationEnergyAutomotive

Selected work

How the work plays out inside organisations.

National retailer · Experience strategy

Showing leaders where experience investment would pay off most

Challenge

A national retailer was planning an experience transformation with no agreed view of where improving the customer experience would pay off most.

My role

Principal Experience Strategy Designer, shaping the experience strategy and transformation roadmap on a consulting engagement.

Approach

Customer research and experience assessments exposed where journeys let customers down. Journey mapping and a value range for each opportunity made them comparable, and stakeholder workshops turned the findings into shared priorities and a sequenced roadmap.

Outcome

$22.5M to $41M in annual recurring value opportunities identified, and a ranked, evidence-based roadmap showing where to invest first. Leaders had a shared, defensible basis for sequencing the transformation.

Experience strategy carries weight when it speaks the language of the business case.

Paints and building products group · CX leadership

Connecting customer research to commercial results

Challenge

A group of consumer and trade brands was investing in digital transformation and needed customer evidence to guide where to invest.

My role

Customer Experience Lead, leading the CX strategy and research team across the group's brands.

Approach

Qualitative research, customer behaviour analysis and iterative testing, with journey mapping, alongside product, marketing, technology and business teams. We produced experience frameworks, roadmaps and a central design system.

Outcome

On the consumer eCommerce site, conversion rose 40% and bounce rates fell 25%, contributing about $1M in annual revenue uplift. Research for the trade transformation was followed by a 20% rise in repeat orders and a 15% rise in Click & Collect adoption.

Research leadership can sit directly behind commercial outcomes.

Large university · AI experience strategy

Grounding an AI strategy in what people need

Challenge

A university wanted to understand how AI-enabled tools and services could improve experiences for students, educators and professional staff.

My role

Senior HCD Principal, leading human-centred design strategy for the university's AI capability project.

Approach

Research with students, educators and staff to find where AI would help. Co-design workshops with AI specialists, academics, data scientists and technologists to prototype and validate future services, with approaches to keep solutions ethical, transparent and inclusive.

Outcome

A complex AI strategy became human-centred experience frameworks and implementation recommendations, and teams adopted design thinking and service design practices.

Human-centred design can ground AI investment in real needs while keeping it responsible.

Contact

Have a customer experience challenge to solve?

Whether you need fractional design leadership, ongoing strategic support or an experienced partner to move a specific initiative forward, I’d welcome a conversation.

Tell me about your organisation, what you’re working on and where you need support.

Emailhello@edelmadden.com
BasedMelbourne, Australia · remote-first