Director, CX Research

About the role  

At Pfizer, our mission is to create breakthroughs that change patients’ lives. As part of the Customer Experience function in the Chief Technologist Organization, we are seeking a Director, CX Research to own the evidence behind Pfizer’s AI experience, and to build and lead the research team that produces it.  

Pfizer is putting AI in front of 80,000 colleagues. This role owns the answer to whether it works: whether colleagues adopt it, whether they trust it, and what has to change when they don’t. You will set the research agenda across enterprise AI assistants, agent experiences, and the internal platforms colleagues depend on in every function and market  

The deliverables are working systems, not studies. Continuous feedback loops wired into the platforms themselves. Telemetry and behavioral data joined to qualitative evidence so patterns surface before they become complaints. Evaluation methods for agent quality and trust calibration, a discipline that barely exists yet and that you will help define. Evidence that reaches decision-makers fast enough to change what ships.  

Few researchers get to study AI adoption at this scale inside a regulated industry. This is a hands-on leadership role: you will personally design, execute, and analyze research and experiments, not solely direct others, while championing the responsible adoption of AI within the team’s workflow. You will report to the head of Customer Experience and Adoption organization.  

You will lead an initial team of 4 researchers supporting 8 transformative AI-driven internal platforms.  

Role responsibilities  

• Provide leadership, development, and direction to the CX Research capability, building and mentoring a high-performing team of researchers and fostering a culture of curiosity, rigor, and evidence-based advocacy for colleagues  

• Serve as a hands-on leader who personally designs, executes, and analyzes qualitative research, user interviews, usability testing, contextual inquiry, concept testing, and experiments, applying quantitative and statistical analysis to behavioral and telemetry data where it strengthens the findings  

• Mine and analyze telemetry and behavioral usage data (e.g., product usage, clickstream, and in-app interaction data) alongside qualitative research and experimentation to build a holistic, evidence-based understanding of how colleagues behave  

• Champion and operationalize AI-enabled research methods and continuous feedback loops including automated research workflows, persona-based insight extraction, and synthetic data where appropriate to accelerate time-to-insight while maintaining rigor, quality, and ethical standards  

• Evaluate and pilot emerging AI research tools, designing quick tests to gauge their value and defining metrics that track AI adoption and its impact on team productivity and insight quality  

• Define and own the measurement strategy for AI and solution adoption enterprise-wide, establishing the metrics leadership uses to assess impact  

• Partner in the development of a cross-functional planning process to identify, prioritize, and resource opportunity areas for investment across colleague experience  

• Collaborate with data and analytics colleagues to mine telemetry and behavioral usage data, continuously advancing the understanding of colleagues, their needs, and behaviors, with a focus on improving colleague experience and anticipating needs  

• Drive innovation by instilling an organizational focus on what colleagues ultimately need to accomplish, rather than on making existing processes incrementally better  

• Bring deep understanding and knowledge of research trends and end-to-end CX methodologies and practices  

• Partner with Experience Management to define and communicate colleague experience metrics across the colleague journey, balancing colleague needs and business goals to identify and monitor leading and lagging indicators of performance  

• Continuously monitor emerging trends in human behavior, workplace technology, AI adoption, and colleague expectations, translating those insights into actionable recommendations that help Pfizer anticipate future needs and design experiences that stay ahead of changing expectations  

Qualifications.  

Basic qualifications  

• Bachelor’s degree in a research or human-centered field (e.g., user experience, human-computer interaction, psychology, human factors, anthropology, or applied behavioral research) required  

• 8+ years of experience in user experience or behavioral research  

• 2+ years of experience leading or managing researchers  

• Experience designing and executing both qualitative and quantitative research  

Preferred qualifications  

• Advanced degree in a human-centered field  

• 10+ years of research experience, including experience in life science, healthcare, or another regulated industry  

• 5+ years in a leadership capacity with increasing scope of responsibility  

• Deep expertise in core UX research methods, including usability testing, contextual inquiry, and concept testing, complemented by an applied statistics foundation for experimentation (e.g., experimental design, power analysis, and significance testing)  

• Experience adopting and applying AI-driven research tools and analytics platforms, including experimenting with and measuring the impact of AI on research workflows  

• Experience with AI-enabled continuous discovery, automated research workflows, or extracting insights from synthetic data and personas  

• Experience analyzing telemetry, product usage, or other behavioral data (e.g., clickstream, in-app analytics, log data) from internal platforms to inform research findings and decision-making  

• Proficiency with behavioral analytics and quantitative analysis sufficient to interpret, pressure-test, and act on telemetry findings  

• Experience building and transforming CX capabilities  

• Hands-on practitioner able to personally plan, execute, and analyze research and experiments, using tools such as Python or R for behavioral and telemetry analysis, usability-testing platforms, and survey or statistical software (e.g., Qualtrics, SPSS)  

• Demonstrated ability to identify and synthesize emerging behavioral, technology, and experience trends, translating external insights into strategic recommendations, innovation opportunities, and future experience concepts.  

• Demonstrated ability to create and implement high impact strategic plans in a large, matrixed organization  

• Demonstrated business acumen and ability to stay abreast of and incorporate industry trends  

• Excellent communication skills and the ability to influence partners and stakeholders without direct authority  

Leadership  

Candidate demonstrates a breadth of leadership experiences and capabilities including the ability to influence and collaborate with peers, develop and coach others, and oversee and guide the work of other colleagues to achieve meaningful outcomes and create business impact, while remaining personally hands-on in the design, execution, and analysis of research and experimentation.  

Non-standard work schedule, travel or environment requirements  

Minimal travel required.