Director of Design, Strategy & Growth

What you'll do

As the Director of Design, Strategy & Growth, you will lead strategic design initiatives and capabilities development efforts across Nava. You will play a critical role in growing Nava's design practice and enabling us to stay at the forefront of how modern design teams work.

Design Strategy & Capabilities

• Foster a collaborative and delivery-focused design culture, promoting a high standard of design excellence and user-centered thinking.
• Lead capabilities-focused professional development opportunities across the Design Org.
• Shape how the Design practice adopts AI, identifying opportunities, piloting approaches, scaling what works, and coaching Designers in building AI-informed workflows on their teams.
• Collaborate with cross-functional teams, including product management, engineering, and business development, to ensure design is strategic in all phases of company growth.
• Stay up-to-date with design trends, industry standards, and emerging technologies to drive innovation.

Leadership

• Manage a team of up to eight direct reports across multiple projects.
• Act as a sounding board for design team members at Nava, coaching them through challenges, helping to review and structure their work, and providing coverage when necessary.
• Guide teams in applying Nava's cross-functional delivery model and human-centered system integration expertise to build modern, user-centered products that achieve strong outcomes for clients.
• Other duties as required.

Growth & Business Development

• Actively contribute to Nava's decisions on which strategic work to pursue.
• Contribute directly to business development through activities such as proposal development, solutioning, reviews, tech challenges, or market research presentations.
• Identify, develop, and scale new Delivery capabilities in the Design Org.
• Serve as a strategic partner by influencing and shaping Nava’s approach to growth.

Required skills

• A skilled practitioner with deep experience in creative, strategic, technical, managerial, and operational aspects of human-centered design at scale.
• A proven leader who has experience managing complexity, developing strategy, and conducting long-term planning.
• In-depth experience cultivating strong relationships with external stakeholders and partners.
• 10+ years of experience as a human-centered design practitioner.
• 5+ years of direct people management experience and team leadership.
• Communicates with clarity and credibility in all channels and formats, across audiences including executive leadership, external clients, peer collaborators, direct reports, and cross-functional delivery teams.
• Ability to develop, build, and maintain productive relationships at all levels of leadership, management, and the organization.

Desired skills

• Demonstrated AI leadership in a design organization: setting and executing AI strategy, scaling AI workflows across multiple design teams, and building AI products.
• Experience managing the business dynamics in a professional services firm (billable hours, contract portfolios, client services skills).
• Experience and bias toward a “company-builder” frame of mind.
• Track record of introducing and expanding agile transformation and pursuing best practices in design management with clients and stakeholders.