Financial Wellness Design Lead

Let's Write Africa's Story Together!

Old Mutual is a firm believer in the African opportunity and our diverse talent reflects this.

Job Description

As the Design Lead for the Financial Wellness Portfolio, the individual is accountable to manage the design of product experience across multiple financial wellness products and implementation streams, including Smart Goals and Rewards. The individual leads the design outcomes of the portfolio, from the design strategy for financial wellness, through the design-led exploration of digital propositions, through the implementation of solutions and to the realisation of value post-launch and the continuous improvement of solutions.

This role is pivotal in shaping the customer experience by ensuring every design decision is informed by a deep understanding of customer needs, backed by rigorous research, aligned with business objectives, and customer needs. This role reports into the Head of Design for Old Mutual, and works closely with the Business Owner of Financial Wellness, the Product Owners and multi-disciplinary design and development teams within the portfolio, and interfaces with a broad range of senior stakeholders across the organisation.

Key Responsibilities

Financial Wellness Design Leadership

1. Lead the design strategy for Financial Wellness, in support of the business strategy of the business owner of Financial Wellness. This involves responding to the strategic requirements in a design strategy, and supporting the business strategy development through design thinking and discovery.
2. Facilitate strategic design thinking, planning and collaboration sessions to build unified understanding, commitment and ability to realise the design strategy.
3. Manage the design strategy and its design execution over time, working with the business and technology leadership teams to learn from experiments, adapt to changing conditions and streamline execution.

Design Quality & Delivery Management

1. Establish quality management frameworks within the Financial Wellness design portfolio, ensuring strategic alignment, value orientation, best practices, user centricity and excellence in design processes and outcomes, across the portfolio.
2. Ensure the creative and functional design of the products in the portfolio meet the highest standards of experience design, and support the brand and customer experience objectives of the group.

Design Team & Stakeholder Management

1. Build and sustain effective relationships with key stakeholders, including business owners, segment heads, design partner leaders, product owners, digital marketing, and technical teams, to ensure design objectives are aligned with overarching business goals and integrated into operational processes and frameworks.
2. Present strategic design concepts, progress, and portfolio performance metrics to senior leadership, highlighting the role of design in driving business outcomes.
3. As a leader, emphasise mentorship and personal growth by dedicating time to teaching, guiding, and fostering the development of the design team, building a positive, engaging and progressive culture within the team.

Design Execution

1. As a principal designer, contribute to strategic design problems, structural design solutioning and high-impact customer research and experimentation.
2. Personally lead and facilitate strategic design thinking sessions, and own the creation and management of the design strategy.
3. Directly contribute to the formation and alignment of the design architectures that support financial wellness in conjunction with the Design Strategy and Architecture function within the Design CoE.

Minimum Requirements

1. Bachelor's Degree in design (Interaction, Graphic, Industrial), marketing, technology, business administration or a related field. An Honour’s or Master’s degree is a plus.
2. 9+ years working in the field of product design, 5+ within roles that involved design leadership.
3. Experience working in an Omni-Channel Digital and Agile environment, with cross-functional collaboration, working with product, engineering, and business teams.
4. Proven track record of delivering high-performance team and strategic and propositional design outcomes across complex, omni-channel design environments.

Technical Expertise

1. Expert in UX/UI methodologies, including user research, wireframing, prototyping, usability testing, accessibility and visual design.
2. Expert in the tools landscape of design (e.g. Figma, Sketch, Jira etc.) and how these are used by teams to drive efficiency and effectiveness in design collaboration and execution.
3. Expert design thinking facilitator and strategic designer, building cohesive design strategies and design solutions that shift competitive advantage for the business.
4. Very strong sense of both visual and functional design, to generate brand aligned and aesthetically pleasing design that delivers relevant and usable experiences.
5. Excellence in structural and strategic design knowledge and practices, such as design of workflows, information architecture, navigational models, workspaces, templates and patterns for many varied user contexts and audiences.
6. Thought leader in design across its processes, platforms and relationship to technology and business.
7. Deep experience in senior design leadership, motivating teams to excel, mentoring and coaching teams towards high performance and integrating with executive business stakeholders towards the achievement of business goals.

Closing Date

09 March 2025 , 23:59