SVP of Design

at  Star global technology company

QUALIFICATIONS

Must have:

• 15+ years of recent work experience as a group leader/general manager in a design consulting service company;
• Proven experience with developing and closing million-dollar customer deals;
• Deeply familiar with professional services delivery operations, including best practices for design/creative services;
• Track record of meeting/exceeding financial performance targets of the company, business unit, or department;
• Directly managed design agency/business unit revenues of at least $10M in annual revenues, and comfortable leading a design business to 50%+ annual growth over a multi-year period;
• Business line P&L management experience;
• Experience hiring and leading teams across multiple geographies, with a proven track record of hiring, managing, and developing high-performance and multicultural design leadership.

Should have:

• Inherent understanding of design disciplines across product, service, business, and brand design;
• Available to travel 30-60 days per year;
• Experience setting up new studio locations globally;
• Deep expertise within one or more of our focus industries – Automotive & Mobility, AdTech & MarTech, HealthTech, and Fintech; and
• Multicultural mindset, with experience in Asia, Europe, and North America.

Nice to have:

• Experience (academic and/or professional) as designer;
• Multilingual experience (in addition to English);
• Experience with integrating teams acquired through M&A;
• Experience building new Industry Practices (verticals) and/or Services Practices (horizontal areas of expertise);
• Past/recent role in sales/BD as an individual contributor and as a leader in building commercial teams; and
• MBA degree.

• Responsible for Star Design as a business unit including all financial, commercial, and operational KPIs;
• Define and execute Star Design’s growth strategy resulting in 50%+ annual growth over the next decade;
• Liaise with the CEO and other C-level team members to plan and execute commercial programs to fuel Star Design’s growth;
• Lead a team of Design Directors (studio leads) across global locations, and define and recruit for new roles within Star Design in commercial and operational functions;
• Partner with the Chief Technology Officer and the broader technology practice to ensure a unified end-to-end offering and delivery across both design and technology;
• Contribute to landing key accounts globally by leveraging existing relationships, overseeing BD/sales/pre-sales efforts, participating in strategy workshops, delivering proposal and pitch presentations, and facilitating deal structuring and negotiation;
• Establish and implement performance measures designed to track and report progress against the global design strategy;
• Implement best practices for design processes, tools, and methodologies, while ensuring a strong global baseline and shared foundation that gives studios the freedom to create and adopt practices to best suit their particular needs;
• Build a strong culture of design and be an internal thought leader and champion of the role and value design in technology innovation;
• Enable collaboration and cross-pollination across all global design studios, ensuring that they can operate and thrive independently, yet feel and act as part of a global design team;
• Explore M&A targets to fuel inorganic growth of 10-20% annually;
• Own executive and board-level reporting on design practice performance activities.