Associate Director

• 15+ years of experience in design, digital product, or UX-led services environments.
• Proven track record in senior client-facing roles, leading accounts, managing relationships, and growing engagements.
• Strong background in presales: contributing to pitches, proposals, workshops, and RFP responses.
• Experience working within or leading a design agency, consultancy, or digital services company.
• Demonstrated success delivering complex, multi-disciplinary digital products on time and to a high standard.
• Experience building or significantly maturing a design practice, including quality standards and craft programmes.
• To adhereto ISMS policies and procedures

Skills & Capabilities

• Exceptional communication and executive presence, you can adapt your message for designers, engineers, clients, and C-suite alike.
• Strong design fluency: you understand UX, visual design, design systems, accessibility, and front-end constraints well enough to lead and assess quality.
• Commercially minded: you connect design decisions to business outcomes and understand how to demonstrate ROI on design investment.
• Comfortable with AI tools in a design context, and experienced in driving adoption of new technology across teams.
• Natural coach and mentor, you bring out the best in people and create environments where designers grow.
• Operationally disciplined: you know how to build systems that make delivery predictable without bureaucracy slowing teams down.
• Strategic and long-range thinker who can hold the big picture while staying close to execution detail when it matters.

Duties and Responsibilities

1.Delivery Leadership

•Oversee end-to-end design delivery across engagements, ensuring projects are scoped accurately, governed effectively, and consistently meet quality and timeline commitments.

•Establish scalable delivery frameworks, risk escalation protocols, and team rituals that create predictability at scale.

•Drive the integration of AI-assisted workflows to enhance team efficiency without compromising design quality.

2.Practice & Quality Standards

•Define and own design quality standards — spanning UX, visual design, accessibility, and design systems — and embed them across all engagements.

•Institutionalise craft excellence through structured design reviews, cross-project audits, and reusable frameworks.

•Lead design maturity assessments and drive continuous improvement initiatives that measurably raise the bar.

3.AI Integration & Innovation

•Evaluate and champion AI-powered design tools that meaningfully improve workflow efficiency and output quality.

•Develop enablement programmes and practical guidelines that build team-wide AI fluency, regardless of prior experience.

•Foster a culture of experimentation by tracking productivity gains, sharing success stories, and scaling what works.

4.Presales & Business Development

•Lead the design function's contribution to new business pursuits — pitches, RFP responses, and client proposals — positioning design as a strategic differentiator.

•Develop compelling case studies, pitch assets, and proof-of-concept workshops that strengthen win rates.

•Partner closely with sales leadership to build reusable commercial materials and ensure design is represented credibly in every major pursuit.

5.Brand & Thought Leadership

•Build external reputation through thought leadership, speaking engagements, award submissions, and active participation in the design community.

•Develop differentiated service propositions that set the agency apart in a competitive market.

•Represent the agency's design capabilities at a senior level to prospective clients, partners, and industry peers.

6.Internal Advocacy

•Champion the strategic value of design across the organisation, building allies in leadership and non-design functions.

•Present design outcomes and client successes to internal stakeholders to reinforce design's business impact.

•Cultivate a network of design advocates across departments to embed design thinking into business decision-making.

7.Client Partnership

•Develop and sustain executive-level relationships with key clients, acting as a trusted strategic advisor beyond the scope of individual projects.

•Lead client innovation workshops and strategic planning sessions that position the agency as a long-term partner.

•Proactively surface industry insights, emerging trends, and opportunities that add value to clients product strategies.

8.People Development

•Lead, mentor, and grow a high-performing, multi-disciplinary design team, setting clear expectations and creating space for progression.

•Define career development frameworks, mentorship structures, and learning pathways that retain top talent and build future leaders.

•Build a culture of craft pride, psychological safety, and continuous professional development.

9.Operational Excellence

•Ensure the design function operates with rigour across resource planning, project allocation, and administrative compliance.

•Model the standards of accountability expected of the team, in reporting, scheduling, and cross-functional coordination.

•Maintain the operational hygiene that enables accurate forecasting, reliable delivery, and organisational trust.

10.Stakeholder Communication

•Maintain proactive, transparent communication with clients and internal stakeholders on project progress, risks, and outcomes.

•Establish escalation practices that surface issues early, protect delivery confidence, and prevent avoidable crises.

•Build a culture of open dialogue through regular team syncs, structured 1:1s, and cross-functional alignment forums.